Janice Bishop listed her Seattle Capitol Hill home on the market on May 17. The price she is asking is $1.25 million. She directed her real estate agent to collect offers that would be considered together a week later on Sunday, May 23. On Sunday, May 23, Janice’s real estate agent made an appointment to review three offers with Janice at 5 PM in her home. During that meeting, the agent discloses the offers as follows: Offer A proposes a price of $1 million; Offer B proposes a price of $1.25 million; Offer C proposes a price of $1.3 million. Besides price, there is nothing significantly different between the offers, except that Offer B includes a personal note from the offeror which shares that the offeror is a family moving from Washington DC to Seattle. The father and mother both have been offered positions at Seattle University. They were planning on renting, but after they saw Janice’s home, they changed their minds because they think her house is perfect for their young family. While Janice is touched by the note, she tells her agent she wants to accept Offer C. The agent opens her laptop to pull up the offer so that Janice can sign it electronically via DocuSign, a secure signature software. Unfortunately, the wifi in Janice’s house did not cooperate and rather than sign electronically, Janice manually signs the paper copy of the offer that her agent brought with her. The agent then leaves to return to her office where she will fax the offer for Offer C, signed by Janice, to the agent for Offeror C.
At this point, Janice and her children go out to eat and celebrate. In the middle of dinner Janice gets a call from her agent. Apparently, the agent for offeror B reached out and wanted to know if Janice was going to accept Offer B. When he learned about the value of Offer C, the agent for Offer B increased Offer B (with the offeror’s permission) to $1.35 million. Janice’s agent communicates this revised Offer B information to Janice. The agent has not yet faxed the signed Offer C. Janice’s agent is seeking direction from Janice about what to do now.
Please use the IRAC method (Issue, Rule, Analysis, Conclusion) to analyze the current status of the contractual relationship between Janice and Offerors A, B, and C (each separately). Then based on your conclusions, make a recommendation about what Janice should do. That recommendation should be an option that will not result in her being in breach of contract with any of the offerors.
