Lennar Homes Deerfield Lakes They will not refund my deposit Spring Hill Florida

Just before Christmas 2013, with our back against the wall running out of time to find a home, we put an offer on a Lennar home in Deerfield Lakes.  It was a SPEC home, completely finished and ready to go.  That was the attraction. We were at the very top of our budget and pushing it a little, but Lennar's agent Kari Woody, said if we got approved for $250k then $260K wouldn't be a problem.  Besides, they had just dropped the price from $288k so it should appraise high then we'd be able to wrap around all the closing costs.  Our realtor agreed, their realtor agreed ...everyone agreed.

Ten days later the appraisal came in, $13k too low.  Lennar did in fact lower the price to $250k however it wasn't going to allow for us to close the deal...we had no reserves to bring to the table.  We let Lennar know immediately -- January 9th in fact -- and at first we were told we'd loose $500 of our deposit.  That seemed reasonable.  As the days progressed we learned they had no intention of returning anything.  They would not accept information from a verbal conversation however accepted our verbal cancellation. 

There is even a clause in their own contract stating if we are denied financing within the 30 day mortgage window they would refund our money.  If there's no money in the bank and we have to come to closing with a hefty check...it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that won't work. 

We want our money back.  Lennar's Central Florida President responded to my email plea to get our money back saying he reviewed our file BUT had inaccuracies with regard to our situation leading me to believe it was a canned response. 

They've offered a 2 month credit but after what we've had to go through the past six months it's going to be much longer vefore we're ready to buy another home and furthermore after this *awesome* treatment from Lennar I'd be hell-bent to ever consider another Lennar property. 

This is rotten for Lennar to take all our money.  They're unethical bullies.  Every other seller in the entire world would refund that deposit.  Common sense dictates if we didn't have enough money to purchase this house why would it be okay to keep that money?