Saturday, October 1, 2011

A Week of Stress and Turmoil!

Many of you know the old adage that anything that can go wrong, will.  You may have also heard that if it weren't for bad luck, I wouldn't have any luck at all.  This week tested many things.  My husband said it best:  I know now that my heart is strong for I didn't have a heart attack.  I know that my brain is strong because I didn't have a stroke.  I also know my mind is strong as I didn't go postal and kill anyone.

You may think I am being a bit melodramatic, but I am not.

Our closing was scheduled for Wednesday. We had planned to move out of the house on Tuesday, spend Tuesday and Wednesday in a hotel and move into our new home on Thursday.
Tuesday began and we still didn't have a set time for our closing.  The movers came and at noon as they were finishing up our agent called to say that no one was answering her phone calls.  The buyers agent, the bank or the lawyer.  She also spoke to the buyers agent the night before and in broken English he convinced her that everything was alright.

At 5:30 we heard that our buyers loan was denied.  WTF?

So here we sat in a hotel room thinking what are we supposed to do?  The only positive was that the bank stated that they could get a loan if they put 3% down (they were trying to get 100% financing) and that they were quite able to afford it.  The only problem is that it could take another 3 days putting closing on Friday.

Everything seemed ok.  The only problem was that the buying agent was never available to talk.  We were left blind by all parties.  Our sellers were freaking out since they had moved to Maine.  We were freaking out because we were without furniture, power or water (at our old house) and we couldn't move into the new house until we closed on the old one.

Chris and I moped about on Wednesday. We scheduled another night in a hotel and planned the movers to come on Friday. We didn't do anything else so we just slept  and watched tv.   Per the buyers agent, when he felt we were worthy to know, all was moving forward.

On Thursday, my agent received an email from the buyers agent.  They felt because they would be required to spend more money down on the house, they wanted us to pay another $1000 in closing costs.  SERIOUSLY?  ARE YOU HIGH?  I am paying an extra night of hotel, kennel, storage and meals out and you want us to pay more?
My agent refused to answer the email.  She did finally get in touch with the bank who stated that things were sent to the lawyer.  She did mention the $1000 that the buyer asked for.  The lender said ABSOLUTELY NOT!  He was not going to write up another loan packet on this house.  This was taken off life supported and it was done!!!
We asked for an early signing.  We didn't want to deal with the buyers.  Their lawyer was an odd man.  He babbled on a bit but  he was nice enough.  He made mention that it was in a lawyer's right to "fire" a client.  He was known to raise rates or be too busy for certain agents and he felt this agent may be one that he won't have to work for again.
He also stated that if a bank was stupid enough to give these people a loan, they would be really dumb to walk away from the purchase.  
The closing on the old house was scheduled for 10am.  We could not move into our new house Friday until our new house signing which meant the movers would have to come another day, charging us more money for storage and a loading/unloading fee.  We were bleeding money.
We asked if we could move in early and we would "rent" our new house.  We thought we would just camp out until the movers came.
Our sellers came back by saying that if we wanted to move in early we would have to relinquish our contingency.  If our buyers bailed we lost $2000.  SERIOUSLY?!?!   Can no one cut us a break?
I was terrified.  I had no confidence that this would happen.

My gf and her husband offered a room to stay at their home.  Another friend offered to keep our 2 dogs at their home and we signed off on the contingency late in the evening to get into our home early.
We scheduled a dry closing for 8 am, around the time the movers would show up.  Our friend who watched our dogs, came to hang with the dogs and kids as the movers came and we headed to our closing.   Ours went smoothly and we were home in about an hour and a half.
We just had to wait.   And wait we did.  11am, as the movers left, our agent called to say that the buyers never showed up.   No one called.  No one notified the lawyer.  Nothing.
The lawyer had called up the agent about quarter to 11.   Our buyer's wife went into labor and delivered her baby early in the morning yet the agent didn't feel the need to communicate that with ANYONE.

So now I am sitting in a corner not wanting to do anything.

The lawyer told the agent, get the buyer in and have him sign.  The lawyer then would go to the hospital and have the wife sign.  He would then go back to the office, re-write the HUD, which had changed twice and then send it to our lawyer.  If he didn't make it in time, he would have to file on Monday.

At 4:31 he was able to make it to the court house and file the sale of our house.

I am now sick.  I am self diagnosing a sinus infection.   I was scheduled to volunteer for a 10k/5k run with my daughter this morning.  My alarm never went off and we ran out of the house without coffee for me.  I cheered those runners on.  Had lunch and then came home.  To Wake Forest.

It will be at least another 16 years before I am stupid enough to go through this again.

4 comments:

  1. Oh Karen. I don't even know what to say. I hope you will manage to get a little rest when you can and finally be able to enjoy your new home. Thinking of you.

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  4. So now that I've gotten over my initial shock and anger and have removed my previous comments, I really think their agent should be reported to whatever regulatory board overlooks real estate agents in NC. Not by you because you've probably had more than enough at this point, but someone... theIr attorney, your attorney, your agent, someone should turn that $^#$# in.

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