The ruling on deducting a portion of the down payment when the buyer of an apartment is unable to pay
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Question:
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. A questioner says: I have an apartment worth 250,000 riyals. The buyer will pay 100,000 as a down payment, and then complete the rest within one year. If he is unable to complete the amount, I will deduct 20,000 from the down payment and return the rest, considering this deduction to be rent for one year. Is this transaction permissible?
Answer:
And if you are the seller and he is the owner of the hardship, you must be patient until he pays you, as long as he is in difficulty.[Al-Baqarah 2:280] He is the owner of the hardship; you do not take it from him, but he pays you when he is able. It is obligatory for you to grant him a delay if he is in difficulty, until he is able to pay. Yes.
Honorable Shaykh, may Allah grant you success. A questioner says: I have an apartment worth 250,000 riyals. The buyer will pay 100,000 as a down payment, and then complete the rest within one year. If he is unable to complete the amount, I will deduct 20,000 from the down payment and return the rest, considering this deduction to be rent for one year. Is this transaction permissible?
Answer:
And if you are the seller and he is the owner of the hardship, you must be patient until he pays you, as long as he is in difficulty.
And if someone is in hardship, then [let there be] postponement until [a time of] ease.
وَإِن كَانَ ذُو عُسْرَةٍ فَنَظِرَةٌ إِلَىٰ مَيْسَرَةٍ
Source
شرح إغاثة اللهفان من مصائد الشيطان لابن القيم، فصل والفتنة نوعان : فتنة الشبهات وهي أعظم الفتنتين وفتنة الشهوات — islamhouse.com (1:02:54)
The Arabic text is a machine transcription of the audio recording.