seller breaches contract

Not unusual, but a grind. We were going to do it but seller decided to follow thru. If its worth your trouble/great deal, I would do it. I spoke(many moons ago) to an attorney who does this and he was pretty confident. Your seller might also think twice about having to go thru this if you proceed, he has a legally binding contract.

This is where you really need a good attorney that will look after *your* interests, and not look for an easy way out.

Bottom line is, the seller doesn't get to change their mind just because it suits them. Your goal here isn't necessarily to get a court to force them to sell, but to not be worse off due to the cancellation of the sale.

That means, at the very least, you need to be compensated for your application fees, legal fees, time and expense you're likely to incur in finding an alternative apartment, market price movements, etc, etc.

You might like to come up with a figure that reflects all that, and have your attorney respond explaining that you're happy to accommodate their change of heart, conditional up receiving the amount of compensation you decide is reasonable.

They need to pay you an amount equal to contract deposit in addition to getting your deposit back. After all if you wanted to walk away, you would have lost your deposit. Ideally, get an aggressive lawyer. In the meantime, push your lawyer.

A first step for your lawyer to do is to tell them that you will go to any length to get the apartment. Ask you lawyer, whether he has expertise to handle matters like this or does he recommend some one else. In many case, real estate closing lawyers are too friendly with each other due to having done many deal together.

And do not take your deposit back without final settlement as that may be construed as you agreeing to walk away.

Courts routinely enforce sale obligations. It is the buying obligation that generally is not enforceable -- the deposit in most (but not all) cases serves as liquidated damages. But can be time consuming and expensive. Your contract may have a cost shifting provision, which ought to make the sellers think long and hard before resisting closing.

If there is a broker(s) involved the seller still owes a commission I have gotten sellers to follow through with the sale when reminded of that