So here I sit on the eve of what is suppose to be the closing appointment for the house we are buying. On Tuesday, we did a last walk thru to make sure they fixed the items they agreed to fix. Now mind you, I had doubts when we were at the house a few weeks ago that they would have everything done. When we were there, it was obvious that someone was doing something to the electrical outlets, but I thought by then, it should have all been taken care of. So on Tuesday when we did our walk thru and my brilliant husband showed up with the electrical outlet tester, we quickly realized there was not electricity on the second floor. At one point there was some electricity, but some outlets needed to be fixed, which the seller agreed to fix. We were very perplexed as to why we went from a few outlets not working to the whole upstairs not working. Additionally there was no pressure to the water in any facuet. We couldn't find the shut off valve so we had no idea if the water was on or off, so we left last night thinking, wow, it is 1 1/2 days before we are suppose to close and there are major issues that need to be addressed. To complicate the matters worse, tomorrow is day 44 of a 45 day interest rate lock. So if we don't close by Friday, we will lose our interest rate which is lower than what the market is now. So our realtor assured us that everything would be fine and that she would make sure that these items were fixed and that we would close as planned. I left having faith in our realtor, but at the same time wondering how in the world such big issues could be fixed in one day. So I waited patiently all morning and into the early afternoon to hear back from her. She called and said that it was an easy fix, that the electric was disconnected to do some installation and never reconnected and the water had been turned on and we were good to go. She and Bill met there again this afternoon for a final look thru. I had a meeting at work that I had to be at so I missed the final walk thru. When I finally met up with Bill this afternoon, he told me that we would not be closing tomorrow not because of those issues we found yesterday but because the mortage company wasn't ready on our behalf and because they discovered today a lien against the title that needed to be cleared up. Apparently when the sellers paid off there mortgage, they didn't do it the "right" way and so the lien never got cleared. There is of course paperwork that needs to be done to clear it, but it won't happen until early next week. On our end of it, the mortgage company is so busy that they didn't get to our file until Monday and wasn't really ready for the closing. I thought it was interesting that I didn't know even this afternoon how much money we were suppose to bring to the closing. No one could give me a final number. That should have been a warning to me. So of course, my first question is what about my interest rate? Our realtor told me that we could extend for 2 days without any additional expense, and after that we could extend for 10 days for a fee of something like $160. She spoke to the mortgage guy and said, hey, this isn't the buyers fault, why should they have to pay to extend. The mortgage guy graciously agreed to pay the fee. So we will now be closing on Monday, 3/23. We could have closed next week, except we already have plans to go back to MI this next week to relist our MI house.
I honestly don't have faith that the sellers did what they were suppose to do per the agreement. We asked them to fix some electrical issues and 2 plumbing issues. It is obvious that they have not fixed the plumbing issues, so it makes me wonder if they really fixed the electrical issues. We have asked for a copy of the paid invoice for the work they were suppose to have done. If it hasn't been done, they now have a week to get it fixed. We are not going to back down and let this slide. We agreed, we did our part, and we are going to expect them to hold up their end of the bargain.
I am still hopeful that in the end it will just be a bunch of added drama and that when the dust settles, we will be happy home owners, so in the interim, I am going to focus on getting the MI house relisted and hope that someone wants to buy it.
Hey, I forgot to include the part about the husband seller almost dying a couple of weeks ago. The couple we are buying from are an older couple. They have owned the house since 1957. They are in a nursing home. My realtor told me that the mortgage guy was scrambling a couple of weeks ago because the seller wasn't "doing so well" so they got whatever signatures they needed from him in case he died before the closing. That was in an effort to avoid having to go thru probate. So now I of course have that added to my list of things to worry about.
