The first one is a long one… so sorry.

A few weeks ago I posted a reference to our house closing going amuck and said that this would be a story for another day.  And that other day never came….my bad!  Here is the story of why you need to have a sense of humor and a different perspective when things go awry.  What perspective is that?  It’s the “I’m totally going to blog about this” perspective!!

First… a smidge of background.

Background #1:

I have a pretty firm (rigid) opinion about some things.  One of those is… I don’t care who you voted for, who you wanted to win, who you plan to vote for next time…. whoever is in the office deserves our respect because he is the holder of the office.  And THAT is THAT!  I don’t care what his political party is…. God chooses our leaders and they deserve our respect.  Just as much respect as you’d give them if you agreed with them politically.  And I get really hacked when I see folks respect peeps from one party and then not the other.  I don’t care if those folks are pundits, or friends/acquaintances, etc.  Hacks. Me. Off.  You can disagree with someone politically without being disrespectful, spreading half truths, etc  //steps off of soap box//

Background #2:

About a year ago I started searching out school options for AG.  I found a co op that I thought would be a great fit.  I had to take a class for her to be able to attend and so I did.  Day one…I have a weirdish feeling but it passes. I think I that I just don’t like change, blahblahblah.  Day 2… morning goes okay.  Some weird stuff happens but overall, it was okay.  Then the afternoon comes.  There were little things here and there that made me uncomfortable (and the list is growing) but the afternoon is getting ready to turn into a freak show and I just didn’t see it coming.

There is a business woman in our area who I will delicately refer to as…. ahem… Madame Blueberry.  I am not certain as names were hard to come by but I am 95% sure that this is the person who was the presenter in the afternoon.  She starts off her portion by having an opening prayer and asks God to rescue us from our “evil overlord” in reference to our president (see background #1 info).   So. NOT. cool.  The afternoon progresses, I’ve got a knot in my stomach, lots of really weird stuff is said and done and then I go home.

I proceed to talk to Dana about my day and he proceeds to give me that shocked, midwestern stare that I know all too well. When I tell him I don’t know what to do… he spells it out.  He doesn’t want AG in that school and that was just the push  to do what I knew I needed to do.  I quit the class the following Monday and we did something else with AG.

Moving on….

We moved into this house in June.  It was managed by a  local real estate company and was taken off the market when we moved in.  Then in October, although they had agreed not to, the house was re-listed.  Fine.. they relisted it at such an outrageous price that no one was interested.  They didn’t put a lock box on the door and asked if I would let folks in when there was a showing.  So… I agreed and figured… it ain’t my house, I’m not in the mood to move so, while I won’t volunteer anything, if asked I will totally spill my guts about every thing that is broken in this house.  See… the management company had not been maintaining the house for quite some time and we knew what worked, what didn’t, what was a little problem and what was a major problem.  We only had one showing and he asked the right questions.  I told him what he wanted to know.

When Dana got a job we decided that we do like the house, think it has great potential, etc but that the pricing was way off for the market, the neighborhood and for the repairs that needed to be done.  Then we saw that the price had been dropped by 80k.  We considered it more but, based on our own research and the knowledge that Florida’s housing market (the 3rd worst in the country) still had not bottomed out (and the need for those expensive repairs) the house was still way out of range.  Fast forward 4 weeks and Dana is searching real estate listings only to discover that the price had dropped another 40k.  Now we’re in bargaining range.

We called the agent we wanted to use but like many in our area… she’s no longer in the business.  She referred us to a friend of hers.  Friend comes over… has a very different personality than us but we were prepared for that.  We write the offer.  Negotiations take place that indicate that the owner of this house is a nickle shy of delusional but eventually we come to an agreement.

Then the house fails inspection.  Fails as in epic FAIL!!!  We knew about some problems but a bad roof, 10k of damage in a bathroom… we had no idea!

We return to negotiating and the guy wants us to pay more for the house and in turn he will fix these things.  No dice.  Our realtor, who is pretty slick, tries to get us to agree and we refuse.  We then let her know that we are perfectly happy just renting the house.  If it sells, it sells.  She then says it could foreclose… we don’t react with the panic that she had hoped for and she realizes a startling fact:  her buyers are not emotionally attached to the house.  They like it, they’d like to raise their kids here but there are a bazillion other houses available and we’re perfectly willing to move along to one of them when the time is right.  In other words, we firmly believe if we are supposed to live here, God will work the whole thing out without us making financial decisions that would be nothing short of stupid.  Agent realizes that she’s got trouble on her hands and she shares that with selling agent. Offers from seller suddenly become a lot less deluded.

Meanwhile… the bank is being weird.  Even though they have received bazillions in TARP money and they have buyers putting 35% down for a standard mortgage, they won’t respond to calls.  The mortgage broker says one thing and then their national office sends us threatening mail and states we won’t be approved, etc.  Broker at the bank says that none of the info is true.  We realize we are caught in a turf war between our local representative, her assistant and the underwriting department at one of their national branches.  All three tell us not to talk to the others but only talk to them.   (It appears we have an abundance of Drama Llamas.  What fun! ) We have perfect credit but get the definite impression that they want us to go away.  It even went so far as forcing us to write letters to justify each individual deposit that we had made over the past 4 months.  One letter for each deposit.  Including one that totaled a whopping $7.89.  We did all they ask and, as of 48 hours before closing, we still don’t know if we are approved.

Eventually, we came to a deal with the seller where he was financially responsible for the repairs on the house and we felt it was a good deal, all was addressed, etc.  So… we proceeded to closing.  Except for one little detail. Our agent never had us sign forms for her brokerage firm stating what they are legally and not legally obligated to do, etc.  When she gives us the forms, I about faint.  Our agent works for Madame Blueberry.  I am actually working out a deal which would give Madame Blueberry and her brokerage firm lots and lots of money and it is too late to back out and find another agent.

Closing day arrives and we have no idea if we are closing or not.  The bank hasn’t given us or our agent any of the closing documents so we haven’t been able to review them.  The broker at the bank isn’t returning calls.  The closing agent says they don’t recognize our name.  Didn’t think they were doing a closing for us today, are we sure we have our dates right?

And so our day begins.

Turns out that here’s what went down….

At 5:30 the day before closing, the bank emailed the closing docs to the closing agent.  They stated that they didn’t feel it would be necessary for them to provide a copy to us or our agent (as is standard in this state) so they didn’t.

The closing agent’s computers crashed.  Crashed before they ever got our documents.  (Nope… not kidding!)

The closing agent and the bank tried to work out a plan to make this work without us finding out and that didn’t work either.  There’s one thing I’ve learned since moving here in June… there are no secrets in Mount Dora. Everyone knows EVERYTHING!!!!

Meanwhile… Dana is at work (a man with a new job and no vacation time) and is trying to find out if he needs to leave work early for closing or not waste the time. No one will answer this question.

Bank decides we’ll have to close on Monday.  But Monday is a new month and that means that our closing costs go up greatly due to having to pay the daily interest on the loan or the entire month.  Plus…I’m going out of town on Monday for my grandfather’s funeral.  There will be NO closing on Monday.  Dana and I make a pact that we will refuse that plan.  We did our part.  If they want this to close, they will cover that cost, move closing to Tuesday or Wednesday, or we walk.  At this point, Dana and I don’t really care if we buy the house or not.  The whole thing has been such a freak show that we are truly ready to accept whatever outcome.

I begin long facebook thread about this entire disaster ’cause ya know… I’m classy like that!

Buying and Selling agents begin to panic.  Comedy ensues.

Turns out…both buying and selling agents need this closing to happen today because they need it on their books for January, they realize that Dana and I will walk on a moments notice and they know the bank won’t budge on those closing costs if the thing gets bumped to Monday.  Our agent tries to get me to skip my grandfather’s funeral and quickly realizes this was a bad tactic on her part.  Both agents start calling, then driving to, the bank and the closing agents offices negotiating, bargaining (read: begging), etc.

Person at the closing agent’s office decides to go to her home and see if she can pull up the documents there and prepare them at her house.

Our agent’s husband proceeds to have chest pains and needs to go to the doctor RIGHT NOW because it appears he is having a heart attack (I am so not kidding!).  We will now be represented at closing by… say it with me people… MADAME BLUEBERRY!

Closing agent won’t take Dana’s calls.  Our agent can’t answer calls due to family emergency.  Madame Blueberry … nevermind.  Mortgage folks at bank… also won’t answer calls.  It is now 3 pm.  We’re supposed to close at 4.  Dana’s parents have to be stopped from driving over if this isn’t happening and no one will say a thing.

We decide to throw a Hail Mary.  We call the selling agent (who is the person we pay our rent to) and she assists us (how crazy is that!).  She calls back and states that Dana should leave work and be ready to close with 30 minutes notice.  She also states that the closing agent is saying that they will stay open to whatever hour to make sure this gets taken care of.

Dana hurries up, comes home and we sit and…..wait.

At 6:30.. we get the call.

We go to closing.  There stands Madame Blueberry… confirming what I was fairly certain to be true… she is the lady who taught that class…but…thankfully… there stands our agent as well.  Her husband is fine and our agent will now represent us at closing.

Every single document has my name wrong.  Every. Single. One.  We are billed for all commissions to all agents.  It is too late to fix.  We are billed for 2009 taxes on the property even though it is 2010.  They want us to come on Monday to re-sign but I will be out of town on Monday. They don’t like this answer and I reiterate… it’s for a FUNERAL!!!!!!!  Agents go back and forth, Dana and I sit there shaking our heads and just smirking over this whole mess, giving each other that knowing “is this stupid or what?” look that husbands and wives share!

A deal is reached and we start to sign.

Turns out…this is the first closing this agency has done with Florida’s new closing forms that went into affect in 2010.  (It’s January and NOTHING sells in this state so…they’ve had no closings with the new forms!)  So… NOBODY knows how to sign, where to sign, etc. and everything is discussed, debated, etc.  I have to correct, initial and re-sign each and every document that has my name wrong and do this at each and every place where my name is written.

Two hours later… we think we own a house.  We’re not sure, but we think we own a house.

As I write this, Dana and I await the day when the Department of Revenue or someone sends us a big bill for doc stamps (or some such silliness) because our closing docs weren’t right.  That happened to us once before but we were able to get it fixed….eventually.  Since that closing was a lot more organized than this one… I think having to deal with such an incident is….inevitable.   Most of the repairs have been made or are being made as I type this.  Literally… I am surrounded by contractors as I write this post.

Are we glad we bought the house?  Yes

Would we do it all over again?  I think so.

Will we ever again think that buying a house you already live in couldn’t be too stressful? Nope.

Have we returned any calls to our agent or filled out the satisfaction survey that Madame Blueberry’s office sent over?  Heck no!

And that is what happens when the Haukoos family tries to buy a simple little house with a simple little loan in a simple little town.