ACTION 9: Man Can't Get Deposit Back On Home

A Fort Mill man who couldn't afford a new home had trouble getting his deposit back.

Gene Balius recently moved to Fort Mill from Miami, but not to the home he contracted to have built. The house was in a subdivision and priced at $348,000. Balius paid the builder a $10,000 upfront deposit. But the builder kept Balius’ $10,000 when he refused to close on the home.

"I felt, like, kind of cheated,” he said.

The reason he refused to close was his unsold home in Miami where the real estate market had tanked. Without selling the house, he couldn't afford the new mortgage. But the builder told him he was approved anyway.

"We were informed by their wholly owned mortgage company that they were qualifying us based on credit score no matter what the debt equity was," he said.

But Balius admits he's at fault for not having a contingency clause in his contract that based the purchase on the sale of his Miami home.

Action 9 contacted Balius’ builder, which defended its right to keep his deposit. But after Action 9 got involved, it refunded Balius’s $10,000 as a goodwill gesture.