Question: I signed a contract for the purchase of a single family house, and settlement is scheduled for this week. The seller's broker has just advised me that they do not plan to sell us the house. No reasons have been given, but we suspect that the seller now believes that the contract sales price was too low. What should we do?

Answer: There is a remedy in the law called "specific performance" and I recommend that you seriously consider filing such a lawsuit as soon as possible.

Specific performance is called an "equitable remedy." This means that a Judge has to assess the situation and weigh the equities of both the buyer and the seller. Based on the facts of the specific case, the Judge then has the right to order the seller to convey the property to the buyer.

In an interesting 1980 District of Columbia Court of Appeals case involving the famous singer Roberta Flack, that Court stated:

"Specific performance of a contract is ordered when the legal remedy, usually money damages, is deemed to be either inadequate or impracticable. When land is the subject matter of the agreement, the legal remedy is assumed to be inadequate, since each parcel of land is unique; thus, equitable jurisdiction in this case is firmly established."

In some states, the mere filing of such a lawsuit will put a cloud on the title to the property, thereby depriving the property owner from selling the property to a third party. In some states, however, you (or your attorney) have to file a document called a "lis pendens," and have that recorded among the land records where the property is located. This will put the world on notice that there is a "cloud" on the seller's title.

In order to be successful in such a lawsuit, the Plaintiff (in our case the buyer) must prove that he is "ready, willing and able" to go to settlement. In most cases, that means that the buyer has obtained the necessary financing in order to purchase the property and in fact has shown up at the settlement attorney's office prepared to take title to the property.

But what if the seller has thwarted the ability of the buyer to go to closing? A recent District of Columbia case has given us considerable guidance. In a case entitled Independence Management Company v. Anderson & Summers, LLC., the facts were as follows. A contract was entered into between buyer and seller for a piece of real estate. There were tenants in the property. Under District of Columbia law, those tenants have rights to purchase the property and those rights take precedence over any third party contract.

When the buyer learned that the tenants were interested in buying, it suspended its efforts to obtain financing. However, when the tenants ultimately opted not to purchase, the seller demanded that the purchaser immediately go to closing. When the purchasers did not appear at the settlement table, the sellers declared the purchaser in default.

The purchasers filed a suit for specific performance, which was granted by the trial court. On appeal, the DC Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court decision. According to the Court:

"It is true that (purchaser) presented evidence only that it had obtained proposed financing commitment letters. (Purchaser) does not assert that it actually obtained financing enabling it to settle ... This is hardly astonishing. Under the circumstances, ... it would have been futile and wasteful for (Purchaser) to obtain financing for a closing in which the seller was not going to participate ..."

The Court concluded that "the law does not require the doing of a futile act." (DC Court of Appeals, decided May 12, 2005).

Thus, this case makes it clear that if the purchaser -- through no fault of its own - is unable to go to closing, this will not prohibit that purchaser from obtaining a court order for specific performance.

You have suggested that the reason that your seller is not willing to go to settlement is because the purchase price may have been too low. Once again, the Courts have addressed that issue.

In the Roberta Flack case, the Court stated that "the offerer is master of his offer, and ... Flack must have considered real estate values when she stated her asking price to (the buyer). And this concept has been upheld even in the Supreme Court, where the Court stated:

"... unless the transaction is unconscionable, it is not the eligible function of the court to liberate those who apprehend that they have engaged in a bad bargain."

Thus, you should seriously consider filing that suit for specific performance against your seller. But before you file, there are some issues which you must consider.

• Will your lender will preserve your loan? Will interest rates go up by the time the lawsuit is resolved? Will you be able to get damages -- in addition to specific performance -- from the seller?

• Review your contract carefully with your attorney. Does it provide that in any such litigation, the Court can award attorneys fees to the prevailing party? If your contract does not contain such language, even should you win, and get an order for specific performance, you will not recover the costs of your litigation.

• Litigation can be time consuming if the seller does not cave in when served with the lawsuit. Are you prepared to wait a long time before you get a court order -- which may or may not be favorable.

While it appears that you may have a good case, litigation is always a gamble; sometimes you will win, and sometimes you may lose.

Review all issues before you make the plunge into the legal system. The system works, but there is an old adage that "justice delayed is justice denied."

Only you can make the decision