Guangzhou lawyer Zhang Jing answers: Yes. In the following case, the subscription letter only stipulates that the commercial housing sales contract will be signed within 15 days after the subscription letter is signed, but does not stipulate the time for online signing. After the developer has not notified the online sign, the buyer asked for a refund of the deposit. The court finally ordered the deposit to be refunded.
Excerpt from the verdict:
The focus of the dispute in this case is: whether Zhao should return the deposit of 30,000 yuan to Kang and Zheng. In this regard, this court analyzes as follows: according to the "Subscription Letter" signed by the two parties, the two parties shall sign a formal commercial housing sales contract within 15 days after signing the subscription letter, that is, before October 10, 2021, and at the same time, the "Subscription Letter" stipulates that "Party B shall go through the online signing of the sales contract and other related procedures according to Party A's notice when Party A completes the mortgage registration and cancellation procedures and can sign the sales contract online, and the specific online signing time shall be subject to Party A's notice." That is, the "Subscription Letter" does not stipulate the specific time for online signing. Since the purpose of the buyer's contract is to obtain the ownership of the house involved in the case, and going through the online signing procedures is a necessary procedure for obtaining the ownership of the house, it is reasonable for Kang and Zheng to pay attention to the time of online signing. In the WeChat chat on October 7, 2021, Zhao made it clear that "the current transaction is lower than the record price, and the ** is adjusted to the developer once every six months or a year, and the online signing can be arranged after the adjustment, and the adjustment is made once every six months or a year (record price)", because the issue of the record price was not agreed in the "Subscription Letter", Zhao Moumou Company proposed that the filing price after signing the "Subscription Letter" had an impact on the online signing time, and the reason for this matter had exceeded the signing of the "Subscription Book" by Kang and Zheng A reasonable expectation of the time of online signing and even the completion time of the entire transaction. Under the circumstance that the two parties could not resolve the issue through negotiation, Kang and Zheng did not agree to sign the contract for the sale and purchase of commercial housing according to the contract, which is within the reasonable consideration of the safety and risk of the transaction by ordinary buyers. Therefore, the failure of the two parties to sign the contract for the sale and purchase of commercial housing before October 10, 2021 was not caused by the breach of contract by Kang and Zheng. This court determined that Zhao should return the deposit of 30,000 yuan to Kang and Zheng. As for Zhao's company's defense that the transaction price is lower than the record price will not affect the online signing, the defense opinion is inconsistent with what its staff said in the WeChat chat records, and Zhao's company is a professional real estate enterprise, Kang and Zheng have reason to believe that the content told by Zhao's company is true, Kang and Zheng are not at fault for this, and Zhao's company's defense is not established and is not adopted.