Boston Real Estate for Sale
A real estate firm is being sued for the breach of contract after a court ruled that a contract was formed via an email. In an email, a real estate broker granted a potential buyer a first right of refusal on a piece of property. When it was sold to another buyer for $2 million more, the first buyer filed suit and won. The case is currently in appeal.
BE careful when clicking “send.” That is essentially the message to brokers and their clients from a state court, which ruled recently in a real estate dispute that e-mails can carry the same weight as traditional ink-on-paper contracts.
Read the entire email contract story in the New York Times here.
This didn’t take place in Boston, but I’m sure someday there will be as the courts try to sort out the role of email, which has become the primary form of daily communication for buyers, sellers, and their real estate professionals.
