I agreed to purchase some property and gave the seller a deposit. The seller stipulated that I would have to close on the house by the end of that year.

Two years passed, and I finally received approval for a mortgage. I contacted the seller to complete the sale, but based on his original stipulation, he refuses to sell me the property. My response was that this stipulation would apply if I had neglected to close the deal in time. However, circumstances beyond my control prevented me from purchasing the house.

Q: Now that I am prepared to complete the sale, should he be obligated to fulfill his part of the contract?

A: We assume that you want to know the halachic principle because the contract did not explicitly address this situation.

There is a well-known halachic principle that states “oness Rachmana patrei” – one is not liable for circumstances beyond his control. This principle is generally utilized to exempt a transgressor from punishment. The question is whether and how this principle applies in the context of transaction agreements.

One approach maintains that although oness is an excuse for why one did not fulfill a condition, it does not obligate the other party to carry out his commitment. In your case, there were circumstances beyond your control that prevented you from purchasing the home, but those circumstances cannot obligate the seller to sell his house beyond the deadline that he set (Shach C.M. 21:3).

Another approach draws a distinction between stipulations that were to be fulfilled within a certain period and stipulations that are not at all time-related. If a condition was to be fulfilled within a specified period because after that time the transaction is no longer needed, the transaction is cancelled even if there is an oness.

For example, a box of lulavim is valuable before Sukkos but has no value after Sukkos. If one orders boxes of lulavim and stipulates that they should arrive before Sukkos, once Yom Tov starts, they have lost their value. The buyer is not required to accept the lulavim even if the reason they arrived late was due to circumstances beyond the supplier’s control. On the other hand, if the condition did not have to be fulfilled within a certain period and there was an oness, the commitment to complete the transaction is still binding (Taz Y.D. 236:13).

Since most authorities adopt the first approach, it emerges that even if the condition in your case was time-related, you cannot force the seller to sell you the property once the deadline has passed (Pischei Teshuva 207:2). Moreover, it is highly questionable whether this case even involves an oness. Oness by definition is something that is unexpected, e.g. illness. It is not unusual or even unexpected for a person’s mortgage application to be rejected (see Shach 55:1). As such, all opinions would agree that the seller is not obligated to sell you the property, since the condition was not fulfilled as a result of circumstances that are not out of the ordinary.