Your buyer walked after the inspection and the house is yours to sell again

The first thing to settle is whether your contract ended on its own or whether the buyer broke it, because very little about your position is the same in those two cases. In Alberta a standard residential purchase contract ends by its own wording when an inspection condition is not waived or satisfied by the condition day, and where that is what happened the deposit goes back to the buyer, nobody breached anything, and there is nothing for you to claim.

This is written for a Calgary or Alberta owner whose sale has just collapsed on an inspection, who now has the house back, a report full of findings, and a decision to make about both. If the findings rather than the buyer turn out to be the real problem, the houses we buy that need work is the part of our side that applies.

Did the deal end, or did your buyer break it?

The wording that decides this sits in the purchase contract itself. The Alberta Real Estate Association form, a sample of which is published by the brokerage Bode, puts the conditions in section 8. Section 8.2(b) is the property inspection condition, which makes the contract subject to the buyer being satisfied with an inspection by a licensed home inspector before a stated time on a stated date, called the Condition Day, and it puts one duty on you, which is that "The seller will cooperate by providing access to the Property on reasonable terms."

Section 8.4 is the part almost nobody quotes to sellers, and it is the whole answer. It requires that "Each party will give the other written notice that:" a condition is waived or satisfied on or before its condition day, and then states, plainly, "If not, this contract will end after the time indicated for that Condition Day; or" the other route, which is written notice that "a condition will not be waived or satisfied prior to its Condition Day." Where that notice is the one that arrives, "This contract will end upon that notice being given."

Read that twice, because it reframes the whole week you have just had. A buyer who read the inspection report, decided against the house and let the condition day go by did not back out of anything. The contract ended on the date you both wrote into it, using a mechanism you agreed to when you accepted the offer.

A breach is the other thing entirely, and it means the conditions were all waived, the contract went firm, and the buyer then refused to complete. A Calgary law firm, Kahane Law, whose page on a deal that does not close carries a modified date of November 21, 2025, writes that where a condition failed "then the buyer will get their deposit back as the deal was not firm." The sample contract we read is the May 2017 version of AREA form 158CLDA, so the numbering of the clauses in the version you signed may differ, and your own copy is the only one that governs you. None of this is legal advice, so put your contract and the notice you received in front of your own lawyer.

Where your deposit went, and why nobody asked you first

The deposit is where sellers feel most wronged, and the contract is unsentimental about it. Section 4.8 states that "The deposits will be held in trust for both the seller and buyer." and then that "Provided funds are confirmed, the deposits will be disbursed, without prior notice, as follows:" with the first branch running to the buyer where, after acceptance, "a condition is not satisfied or waived in accordance with clause 8.4;". That phrase, without prior notice, is the reason your brokerage did not phone to ask. Section 4.6 sets the other end of the same arrangement, requiring that "The trustee will deposit all deposits into a trust account within three Business Days of receipt."

So in the ordinary collapsed conditional deal the money was never yours to hold, and chasing it costs you a month you could spend selling the house. Section 4.9 does add that disbursing a deposit under that section "will not prevent the seller or buyer" from pursuing the remedies the contract sets out elsewhere, which is the door a firm deal walks through rather than a conditional one.

Where the deal was firm, the deposit becomes the thing being argued about, and the Calgary firm above writes that "Yes, if the buyer backs out of a firm deal and breaches the purchase contract, the seller can sue for damages." Where the two sides cannot agree on releasing the money, that firm writes, "If neither of them agree, the matter will likely need to go to court." We could not read the part of the Real Estate Council of Alberta's Rules dealing with trust accounting, so we are not able to tell you what the regulator requires of a brokerage holding a disputed deposit, and that is a question for your lawyer rather than a rule we can point you to.

The report is now something you know about your own house

This is the part that outlasts the failed sale. Once an inspector has written down what is wrong with the house and you have seen it, those findings are facts in your possession, and they feed into what you owe the next buyer. The regulator defines the term that matters at Rule 1(1)(t) of its Rules, the revised set the page describes as "current as of July 17, 2023". A material latent defect is "a defect that cannot be discerned through a reasonable inspection of the property" and that renders the property dangerous, unfit for habitation or unfit for the buyer's stated purpose, and the Rules add that the term may also include "(A) a defect that would involve great expense to remedy;" among other things. Rule 57(i) then requires a seller's agent "to disclose to all buyers all material latent defects affecting the property known to the licensee;".

Here is something worth noticing, because it changes what you should ask your lawyer. The purchase contract carries its own definition of the same term, and it is worded differently. Section 3.1(f) says that "the seller will disclose known Material Latent Defects." and defines one as "Material Latent Defect means a defect in the Property that is not" followed by "discoverable through a reasonable inspection and that will affect the use or value of the Property;". Section 6.1(f) then turns that into a representation, requiring that "known Material Latent Defects, if any, have been disclosed in writing in this contract; and". So there is a regulatory definition and a contractual one, they are not identical, and which one bites depends on who is arguing with you. We are not telling you one is wrong, and we would not try to settle it in an article.

The practical effect is narrower than it sounds, and what you have to disclose when you sell a house in Alberta covers the whole of that side. Note also that the contract has the seller warranting at section 2.4 that "The seller represents and warrants that on Completion Day, the Property will be in substantially the same" condition as it was when the contract was accepted, which means you cannot quietly strip something out between now and the next closing. Talk to your own lawyer about your report before you write anything into a new contract.

Relisting as it stands, fixing what the inspector found, or selling direct

Relisting is right more often than people in our business admit, and the inspection report is the best negotiating document you now own. A house in decent order, priced to what buyers in your area are paying, with a seller who has time, will do better on the open market than on any direct offer including ours. What you are buying is another stretch of uncertainty, and the same inspection is coming again, so the sensible move is to decide in advance which findings you will fix and which you will price for, then hold that line instead of renegotiating under pressure a second time.

Fixing everything the inspector wrote down is the option that feels like justice and often is not. Inspection reports are deliberately exhaustive, they flag the end of a roof's life and a furnace's age alongside genuine faults, and a seller who treats the list as a work order spends real money on items the next buyer would never have raised. Our guide to repairs on an older Calgary house and this Penbrooke Meadows house we bought as is show both ends of that choice.

Selling directly is the narrow option, so here is where it is wrong for you. If the house shows well, if the only real finding was cosmetic, if you can absorb a price reduction, or if you have months of patience left, relist and we would tell you so on the phone. We are also no use at all if the problem was the buyer rather than the house, because a second buyer with ordinary financing will get past an inspection that one nervous buyer walked away from, and that costs you nothing but another few weeks.

Where it earns its place is certainty about the findings and the date. How we buy takes out the showings and the repair list, lets you pick the closing day, and runs as little as seven to ten days, with two to three weeks more usual. We buy as the principal rather than as your agent, so there is no conditional period to survive and no inspection condition to wait out, and how we work out what we pay sets out how the condition of the house turns into a number. As Matthew puts it: "If your house is in good to great condition and you're not in a hurry, listing with a Realtor may be a better option, and I'll tell you so to your face."

What to put in order before the next offer

Start with the paper from the deal that just died. Get the written notice your buyer or their brokerage gave, since that document is what proves the contract ended under section 8.4 rather than by anyone walking away, and it is the first thing a new buyer's lawyer will want to understand.

Then try to get hold of the inspection report itself. Alberta's guidance on hiring a home inspector states that "The home inspector must provide you with a written home inspection report." and that the report "must provide information about all items included in the contract, and must be delivered" by the date set in the inspector's contract. That page is written for the person who hired the inspector, and it says nothing about anyone else being entitled to a copy, so asking the buyer or their agent for it is a request rather than a right. What you were told about the findings is still knowledge you hold, and writing it down now beats relying on memory when the next buyer asks. Order your certificate of title at the same time, because a writ or a second mortgage you had forgotten changes the arithmetic of every option above, and the cluster this article belongs to starts with what to do when your Calgary listing expires if the collapsed deal was the end of a long listing rather than a quick one.

If a direct sale is where this is heading, have the address, a plain description of what the inspection turned up, and the date you would want to close. With those in hand you can write to us and get a straight read on what the house would do without an inspection condition attached to it.