The first thing I learned in real estate law was that every place has different laws.
How the buy/sell was written will control what his options are. All lawyers are not good in Real estate law.
Courts in my experience are reluctant to award big damages. Most buy/sell agreements only grant return of earnest money to buyers when sellers fail to preform.
Likewise a seller is able to keep the earnest money if a buyer fails to preform.
The rest of the story is you can file a lawsuit if you are wronged. But again laws are different in different places.
