My first land deal is stuck because my buyer says the perc test results are my problem to fix

The assumption doing the most work in your buyer's position is that the perc test is a condition of your deal rather than a condition of their financing. Those are different problems. The lender's requirement is between the buyer and their lender. Your contract with the seller says what it says, and your assignment agreement with the buyer says what it says. If neither of those documents makes a passing perc test your obligation, you have no contractual duty to fund or arrange one.

The risk you have not named is what happens if you let the nine days expire. Walking via the inspection contingency gets you out clean, but you lose the deal entirely. Before you do that, it is worth knowing whether your buyer would proceed cash if the perc test passed, or whether they are financing-dependent regardless. If they are locked to a lender, a failing test kills the deal even if you pay for the test. That changes your math significantly. You would be spending 800 to 1,200 for a result that might not save anything.

One structural path that keeps you out of it: renegotiate the assignment so the buyer takes responsibility for the perc test cost and credits it at close, with a short extension to accommodate scheduling. That is a deal structure question, not a charity question. Your spread is $7,300 gross. Whether some of that moves to cover due diligence costs is a negotiation, not an obligation.

A second path: the seller may agree to allow testing during the contract period since a passing result serves their sale too. That does not make you responsible for the cost, but it removes the access barrier. Your buyer could then fund and arrange the test themselves.

One detail that matters here: confirm with your title company how perc test results attach to the parcel in West Virginia, since a failed result on file can complicate future sales even after your assignment is gone.

What does your assignment agreement actually say about buyer's due diligence obligations?

The path where you don't pay for the test and the deal still closes runs through finding a cash buyer in the next nine days, which is a real option but you have to move right now and not spend three days thinking about it. I had a similar situation on a 22-acre parcel in Pendleton County in 2021, buyer had financing contingent on well and septic feasibility, seller wouldn't budge, and I spent eleven days trying to renegotiate instead of just working my buyer list. Lost the deal, lost the $400 I'd put into a title search, and watched a cash buyer pick it up at auction four months later for about what my buyer would have paid. The lesson I took was that a financed buyer on raw land with a perc question is already a fragile deal and probably was before this came up.

The other real option is you go back to your seller and renegotiate the contract price down by enough to cover the test and build in a perc contingency, then let your buyer's lender order or approve the test on their end, because sometimes the lender will accept one they commissioned rather than one the seller paid for anyway. If the test fails, you walk under your inspection contingency and you're out nothing. If it passes, you've eaten maybe 1,200 off your spread, but you still net roughly 6,100 instead of zero, which is what you have right now. The seller at $9,200 on 14 acres in Pocahontas County was probably not expecting a bidding war, so there may be room. Either way, nine days moves fast and the inspection contingency is your only leverage, use it as an exit or use it as a renegotiation tool, but don't just wait.

Nine days is your answer. Use the inspection contingency to walk if the seller won't agree to handle the perc on their end. A financed buyer who can't pivot to cash if the test fails is not a real buyer for raw land in WV.

Your actual options in the next nine days are renegotiate your buy price down so the spread absorbs the perc risk, or go find a cash buyer who doesn't care about the test. Seven thousand dollars of spread sounds good until you're out a thousand bucks on a failed test and the deal collapses anyway.