Business ProfileforK. Hovnanian® Homes

My husband and I were wanting to buy a house for my mother so she can be closer to us. We went into a K. Hovnanian Homes community in April and found one my mother really liked. We signed the contract the same day and provided the deposit of $26,850. The main reason we decided to buy the home was the closing date in February ****. Anything sooner would not have been ideal. We told this to the sales agent. After a long process and going back and forth with their preferred lender and them not readily being available, we were denied a loan. Once **** received this denial letter they immediately threatened to cancel the contract and retain our deposit. We told them we had our own lender weve worked with in the past and that we can count on them to get us approved. We started the process with our lender but in the middle of it, we were sent a notice of cancellation for us to sign. We were dumb founded. We did not even get a chance to get approved with our lender (which Im confident we would have, given the chance). Its absurd **** did this and in all my years Ive never seen anything like this. We wrote to them and asked them when can we expect our refund (since they canceled the contract). We were told the refund will be retained. This is absurd. They move the closing timeframe ahead by 3 entire months, then they cancel the contract while were trying to get approved and they tell us our deposit is going to be kept. How is that fair. We did all we had to do. We were in the process of getting approved with our lender. They moved up the closing date. The contract clearly states January 31, ****. But they told us because we didnt meet a contingency date, that our deposit will be kept. We will fight this even if it has to go to litigation. This seems to be their business practice. How do they just cancel a contract when were still in the process of getting approved? We simply want our deposit of $26,850 returned to us for cancelling the contract prematurely.