cancel toll brothers contract w/full refund

a rather unique situation. normally u would lose the deposit, but i may have a small window to get a full refund. according to my contract, "if construction of the premises is not commenced w/in 10 months or substantially completed w/in 20 months of the date of sellers acceptance of this agreement and said failure is not caused by strikes, emergencies, acts of god, then buyers sole remedy shall be to terminate this agreement by giving written notice within 10 days thereafter and in such event, all sums paid shall be returned to buyer without interest" etc. so on march 5, 10 months have passed and we've had construction meetings, but no permits and no work done yet. i asked toll bros rep about this, and he said it didnt apply since we've had meetings to discuss. has anyone ever been sucessful cx? thx

I guess it depends on what the definition of "construction" is and what the definition of "commenced" is. Sounds like you'll need to talk to a lawyer to get your $$ back.

Good luck

Toll is probably different - don't they do custom homes? But the builders in our area (which is a big area, all new construction within the last 5 years, with lots more to go) stupidly allow "buyers" to get out of pre-construction contracts at no cost. Worse, in many cases at least, they let these presumed buyers pick options for the homes. Mostly from their standard "menu", but we've seen cases that turned out to be big negatives.

One had weirdly put a shower in their downstairs guest bathroom - not anywhere near a bedroom mind you. It also had very dark hardwood floors and even darker kitchen cabinets. Nice quality stuff, but the result was very gloomy. The builder rep who showed it to us seemed pretty desperate - discounting their discounted price before we even showed any real interest.

The people we bought our house from had a contract to buy a condo to be finished in May. They had some change in circumstances and recently bought a different townhome nearby. No penalty at all.

I guess when these builders started this development in 2003 or so, losing a preconstruction contract was no big deal, and they probably wound up getting better prices in many cases. But they were still doing it early last summer, apparently no commitment from buyers.

sounds more like buyer's remorse to me

we are happy with the purchase, in this area the home seems reasonable. it'll run about 1.2 mil. we looked at homes between 1.4-1.7 figuring that if we did cancel we would be able to scoop up the higher priced properties at a bargain, but those home are much to big, or the features are not optimized for a young family (ie, 2nd floor playroom and laundry, walkout basement and location near playground). We ARE debating whether toll would offer any incentives if we were to try and cx. when we first signed up there were no incentives because the development was almost sold out.

If you want to cancel, send them the letter the second that option is in the money. Be aware that you might have to use a lawyer to defend your right however.

If you are just trying to get some incentives, don't waste your time.

one other factor was the fear that we wouldn't be able to sell our current home. if we had to carry 2 mortgages, our current home would be a total of 3500 a month (mortgage, assessment, prop tax). and if we rented it out would only rent for 2000 a month. cx now would allow us to sell current home first and then close on the new one (renting another place if we need to while they build).

ArbolLoco said: send the letter of cancellation ASAP to preserve your rights!

If you go the DIY route, make sure to send it certified mail (at least) to prove you mailed it.