[MV] Vehicle pre-sale deposit. What's fair?

Lee Ethridge (leeethridge@ibm.net)
Wed, 14 Jan 1998 14:14:01 -0600

I'm currently negotiating the sale of my father-in-law's GPW (in Texas)
http://www.jps.net/fordgpw/fs05.html with Mauricio Mora in Columbia. He
wants to put down a deposit so that we will hold the GPW for him for six
weeks until he arrives.

(If anyone wants to buy the GPW right now, they'll have to wait. I'm
currently holding the GPW for Mauricio because we haven't discussed the
details of the deposit. If the negotiation with Mauricio doesn't work
out, the GPW will become available again.)

I'd like your comments on the details of the deposit arrangement.

I thought I'd ask for $500 (drawn on a US bank) to hold the GPW for him
for 6 weeks.

If he doesn't show up within 6 weeks, we keep the $500. (I think that's
fair since we might have to turn away other buyers during that time.)

If he changes his mind before 6 weeks elapses, his refund is
proportional to the number of days remaining. (That is, if he changes
his mind after 5 weeks, we refund 1/6 of the $500.)

If he shows up within the 6 week period and doesn't want the Jeep, we
give the $500 back. (After all, he will have gone to a lot of expense
to get here to look at it.)

If he shows up within 6 weeks and buys the Jeep, we reduce his purchase
price by the amount he's already given us ($500) for the deposit.

If he shows up late (after 6 weeks) and the GPW hasn't sold, we still
sell it to him for the amount we're asking minus the deposit he paid.

What do you think? Are these terms fair to both of us? Can you think
of a situation where one or the other of us isn't getting a fair shake?

Lee

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