Can you back out of buying a house after your offer is accepted?

An accepted offer is a binding contract, and exiting it has consequences that depend entirely on the terms. If the contract includes contingencies and you terminate within the specified window for a reason the contingency covers, you walk away with your earnest money. Inspection, financing, appraisal, and sale-of-current-home contingencies are the common ones, and the inspection contingency in particular is broad in many contracts, allowing termination if you are dissatisfied with the property's condition for essentially any reason during the period. Contract review periods and, in some states, a statutory rescission window for certain transactions provide additional exits.

Backing out without a contingency, or after the deadline, is a breach. The typical consequence is forfeiting the earnest money deposit, which many contracts specify as liquidated damages, meaning the agreed-upon compensation for a failed sale. Some contracts do not cap the seller's remedy at the deposit, and a seller who then sells for less can pursue the difference, though this is uncommon because the litigation cost usually exceeds the recovery. Specific performance, a court order forcing you to buy, is theoretically available and rarely sought against buyers.

The pattern that costs people money is missing a deadline by a day while intending to exercise a contingency, since the protection generally expires automatically. Calendar every date the day the contract is signed. If you are wavering for a reason the contingencies do not cover, talk to the seller before the deadlines pass: sellers who would rather relist quickly than fight sometimes agree to release the deposit, or to a partial forfeiture, in exchange for a clean termination, and that negotiation is stronger before you are in breach than after.