House vent

[MinnieFlute]

DH and I are buying a house. Everything was going very smoothly - we only looked at houses for a couple of days, our first offer was accepted, and there are three weeks of overlap between the time of closing and the end of the apartment lease. The inspection and appraisal went well, financing approved easily, etc. Yay!

We went from WDW from June 23-July 1 and by that point, everything was pretty much set. I got an email (yay BlackBerrys) from the realtor saying that the closing was set for June 9th. The realtor was out of town until yesterday, so we got in contact then and got the walk through set up for this morning, with closing at 2:30.

So this morning rolls around, and I call the realtor to tell him we will be maybe 5 minutes late. He had apparently just arrived at the house, to find that the people were still living there! On the DAY of closing. Plus, we had negotiated 3 small (but important) repairs that were not done.

So let me get this straight...we made the offer mid-June, the contract is good until July 10, closing is on the 9th and you think that you are going to move and fix 3 things in ONE DAY? One of the repairs is a hole in the wall, which is not going to be fixed in one day unless you do a really shoddy job.

If the repairs are not up to snuff as of tomorrow, we are asking for enough money for a contractor to fix it in cash outside of closing. We have the money for this ready to go, and we are so ready to get out of our apartment. I have heard of people having a previous owner pay rent if they are not completely out by closing, but I don't want to risk signing off until I see the house without furniture in it. A rug could be covering a problem with the floor, a piece of furniture could be hiding a hole, etc. Did they think we didn't want a walk-through?

My biggest question is this: where was the communication between the seller and their realtor? I thought the job of a realtor was to help get the house sold. How could they have not stayed on their case about this? And if there was a real problem, why didn't they just call their realtor and let us know there would be a delay. We would have been open to a contract amendment - if we had been told. Has this happened to anyone else? I know there are good and bad realtors, but sheesh...

Thanks, rant over. Hopefully, we will get this finished tomorrow!

 

[BellyBaby]

The closing on our house in Florida was delayed by week, AND they forgot to put my dad's name on the deed. We wasted a week of holidays, foolishly thinking we'd get in when we were to get in. This blows my mind, b/c where I'm from, the date is the date! This "well, we'll shoot for this date, and then no one says anything until the day of closing even tho they knew there's no way it's gonna happen on time" is so bizarre! How do people arrange moving trucks? Move out of their old home? Very, very weird.

Nice to know we're not the only ones frustrated.

Good luck!!!

 

[tinan]

Learn from our mistake......don't sign until you get what you want! Seriously, when we bought our house we were in worse shape as we bought for sale by owner without a realtor and they were friends of the family. So as it turned out, in our contract the previous owners were supposed to be out at signing and they were supposed to leave a few items. Well, we had signed, they were still in the house, we had to fight for a couple of months for them to get out and they TOOK the items they were supposed to leave. When we asked about it, we were told they "needed the money" because they sold those items. I was so furious and wanted to sue them badly for all the aggravation, extra rent we had to pay and the items that we now needed to buy. My dh on the other hand didn't want to "make waves" because it is his long time friend's family. The closest thing he came to was turning off utilities if they weren't gone by a particular day.

 

[LUVMYTINK]

Went thru the exact same thing last year.

--Copied what I had written to friends about the situation:

~We were supposed to close this morning, but since the damn seller didn't get off her booty till the last minute to get the repairs done the VA appraiser had to wait to come back out. They have to turn in their approval paperwork before 12pm the day before so all the paperwork can be finished by the law office, which they could have done Tues. morning, but the repair work WAS STILL BEING DONE
So now we are supposed to close on Fri. meanwhile the water and electric are already in our name and the phone gets transfered tomorrow. Oh yeah they still haven't canceled their cable or internet so I can't set ours up.
Oh we were supposed to get the keys this afternoon and do a walk thru cause our realtor told them that we had people lined up to help us move in tomorrow. Guess what? It's after 5pm and they are STILL MOVING OUT

~Update:

Got off the phone with our realtor about an hour ago-- VA appraiser noticed two minor things that didn't get fixed so the contractor is coming out tonight to fix them then the appraiser will be out by 10am tomorrow to give ok and get paperwork in, in time for a closing on Friday. The seller will be out by the morning, the people that were supposed to help them move bailed so they have been packing up the 2 PODS by themselves (they would have been done earlier if they started packing as soon as we did ).
We will be doing a walk thru at 10:30 tomorrow and then get the keys and can start moving in.

~they weren't out by the next morning. More like 2 in the afternoon






All finally came thru, we have our home, and spent our first holidays in it with our kids.
I hope all goes well with your purchase and move.

 

[P.I. Squirrel]

I hate to be the realist here, but it's up to you to protect yourself beforehand, when you and your agent (hopefully you had your own) created the offer. You should have stipulated in your offer how much time the owner had to move out. Also, the offer should have been contingent on a home inspector examination. If the inspector examined it already, and did not note any damage on his report, get a refund. Lastly, contrary to what PP said, if you withold signing at closing, and there are no stipulations in the contract concerning your grievances, the owner can sue you for backing out of the deal. It's time to read your offer very carefully to see what stipulations were included. The owner very well may be backing out of the deal by allowing the contract to expire.


If you do not have a buyer's agent, and the seller's agent represents you both, the agent is not obligated to tell you anything about the house that would affect your offer. My advice would be to keep an attorney's number handy. Things may get ugly very quick.

 

[MinnieFlute]

We do have our own agent. The other agent actually tried to push us to go ahead and close today and have the title company put a stop on the financing (or something like that - I didn't quite understand, but it seemed very shady).

When we made the offer we had a 10 day option period that got extended just a little (because the appraiser took a while getting out there - I got my paperwork in like a bolt of lightning) during which we got our inspection done. During that inspection, we discovered these repairs that were needed and amended the contract to reflect that they would be done to very specific standards. And they signed it. So these repairs are in the contract. Additionally, the contract also states that all repairs are to be completed by closing and that we can extend closing by 15 days if they failed to do their part. It is also specific that the property is ours upon closing. Theoretically, our tails are covered. I am pretty sure they are not trying to back out - it is my understanding that they are about to buy another house. My dad was an attorney and dealt with real estate stuff, and all these terms I heard thrown around when I was little are finally starting to make sense!

The closing date/time was set 2 weeks ago, and the original offer was accepted about a month ago, stating that closing would be on or before July 10. The contract says they're supposed to be out - what were they expecting?

Thanks, PI, your mention of that stuff made me go back and double check. I thought we were covered to begin with, and I believe we are.

 

[P.I. Squirrel]

Thanks, PI, your mention of that stuff made me go back and double check. I thought we were covered to begin with, and I believe we are.

It sounds like you are. I have heard of folks negotiating an extra day or two past closing to move, but never the horror stories I read above.

Good luck on closing today.

Also, for others' future reference, if repairs are required before closing, put a financial penalty in the contract to the seller if the repairs are not made at closing. This will offset repairing the damage yourself.