THE SAGA OF REAL ESTATE WOE
[PART TWO]
Thus, later that same Friday [see yesterday’s post], the wife and I sat looking at a whole new batch of potential homes, a process that had been so far from our minds only five hours ago. With the scope of our search greatly expanded, we came up with about a dozen prospects to consider as replacements to the home it seemed we were losing. Thus over the next few days we recommenced the process of visiting other people’s homes, of kicking their proverbial tires and sussing out what may have been swept under their carpets.
In the meantime we were frantically searching for ways to resolve our more immediate need: a place to move into, since we had given notice on the apartment we were living in. The wife and I were negotiating several problems on this front as well. First off, we needed a place ASAP; a mere seven days lay between us and our promised departure date. After that we had a larger dilemma: if we still wanted to buy a house, then we needed a short term lease, but no-one in the area seemed to offer anything less than a six-month lease, and those places were all dire little beige boxes. Further, there was the problem of all of our stuff. You see, the wife and I had just made a visit to her mother’s house from which we brought back a large rental truck full of furniture with which we were going to fill our new home, the home we no longer had. This was all in a colleague’s garage – originally it was only supposed to be there for a few days, but now it, along with all of the stuff overflowing our small apartment, was in limbo.
Hence, we seemed to be facing a decision: to buy a house and scramble for temporary housing, or give up the house thing for another year and find a large three-bedroom apartment or house to rent. The wife and I weighed the pros and cons and resolved to find and buy another house. Thus, we were left crossing our fingers and frantically calling the woman in charge of the college’s rental properties. For the past year the wife – and since my arrival, I as well – had been renting a college-owned apartment near campus. Our last best chance was that there would be some unoccupied apartment available for a while in which we could squat.
The Monday following the weekend that followed the woeful Friday was spent trying to make contact on this front while still getting around town to flirt with a few more homes. Monday also developed into a day for serial phone calls with the lawyer, searching to grasp just what was going on with the Douche-Nozzle. Perhaps more than any other day in this unfortunate saga, this day was a process of keeping all of the many balls in the air. Alas, neither of us have terribly impressive juggling skills.
But, at last, we made contact with the property manager and there was indeed an apartment available, at least until mid-October. The only drawback: it had a mere two rooms [assuming we don’t count the galley kitchen and the bathroom, which featured a glass block wall facing the kitchen].
More on the apartment in a while. In the meantime, let us shift over to the lawyer’s office.
Monday brought about the realization that the Douche-Nozzle was positively a Douche-Nozzle. By Monday the evidence showed conclusively that there was no way that he was ever going to be able to sell the house. Unfortunately, being the Douche-Nozzle, he did not want to accept this. So much so that even when his lawyer explained this to him in no uncertain terms, he refused to sign the damned release that would free us from our contractual relationship and let us move on with our lives – as well as return our thousand dollar deposit to us. Yes, that good-Faith deposit we had made when signing the contract was caught in escrow limbo – not his because the sale was not going through, but not ours because the contract had not been terminated.
Making this even worse, the Douche-Nozzle’s lawyer, since the Douche-Nozzle wasn’t listening to or following his advice, had terminated his relationship with the Douche-Nozzle. Thus, we had no longer had a means of contact shy of a subpoena. You see, if the Douche-Nozzle’s lawyer gave us the Douche-Nozzle’s contact info, that would be a breach of ethics and could get him disbarred. Further, if our lawyer contacted the Douche-Nozzle directly, that, apparently, would lead to problems for our lawyer. In other words, the Douche-Nozzle was going silent, with the only remaining means of contact being the listing real estate agent, who, according to our lawyer, was already being a recalcitrant ass.
Pause for a moment to sidestep to the house search.
The search for another house was not going well. We saw many, but only one seemed to have any promise. It was quite lovely, and fit our size and budgetary requirements. Unfortunately the seller – let’s call her Ms. Unrealistic – only wanted to sell the house two weeks after she closed on the house she was buying, the problem being that she did not know when she would close on this other house. To make this simple, she wanted to close some time later. When might that be? Well, later. This was no good, especially since our best apartment hope was one we would have to vacate by the middle of October.
At this point we decided to take a flyer. One afternoon some four months early, in fact the first day we ever looked at houses, we were shown what we called the “perfect house.” It was lovely, but way out of our price range. Late Friday we started considering it. Perhaps we could make it work. A little scrimping here, calling in a few chits there, and maybe, just maybe, it could work. Especially since the house had been on the market for nine months. Surely they would be willing to deal.
At this point it was sometime well after midnight, the wife and I were both exhausted, and we had an appointment to see that college apartment early the next morning. Thus, we shuffled miserably off to bed, though rather happy to fall under the covers and into each other’s arms.
Tuesday morning we scrambled across the street to see the apartment [the major bonus of this place being that the move would only be across the street rather than a couple of towns over]. The apartment was really quite lovely, the rent was cheap, and since the utilities were included would have all the air conditioning one could want through the dire heat of July and August. But, it is amazing how small two rooms are in person, especially when seen by a couple who just six months earlier had two entire households. But, we took the plunge. We signed on the proverbial dotted line and problem number one – avert homelessness – was solved. Huzzah for us!!!
But, alas, the celebration lasted little longer than the time it took to recross the street and return to the other apartment – or as we were calling it by then, the storage facility, since it was half-packed and piled with all manner of stuff. For, when we arrived home, there was a message from the lawyer waiting for us. Things over the past twenty-four hours had continued to spiral downward and he was waiting to hear back about some last ditch possibility for resolving the situation with the Douche-Nozzle. Hence, that afternoon we were in somber spirits as we went off to see the “perfect house” one more time.
We met the realtor – not the recalcitrant ass, but our realtor, the one who is good-intentioned if not the sharpest of tacks – at the house, and it was still the “perfect house.” Though not actually perfect in every way, the name has simply stuck. The problem here was price. It was priced way too high, thus explaining why it was still sitting on the market after nine months. We knew what we thought it was reasonably worth, but that was well under the asking price, and the only way to find out what they would take was to formally write up a contract [our realtor inquired about verbal offers, but they were a no-go].
Therefore, after spending a bit of time wandering through the house’s many “perfect” rooms, the wife and I went off in search of dinner with one of our lovely faculty friends, from whom we sought both solace and advice, and discussed what we should do about the whole house buying thing.
That night, if memory serves me, was a much earlier evening. The exhaustion of the previous days settled in now that the impending homelessness was bypassed, and the wife and I fell into profound slumber, one which led to an unplanned morning of sleeping in because we could not rightly think of any urgent reason to get out of bed that next day.
Eventually we did get up and left the house in search of breakfast and the mail. In doing so, we stopped by the lawyer’s office to check in and, well, everything was shit. The lawyer had done everything he could possibly do and there was nothing for it but to sue the Douche-Nozzle to get out of the contract. This, unfortunately, would lead to great legal expenses with very little likelihood of recouping said expenses, but that was what it came down to. The lawyer, unfortunately, no longer does litigation; thus he referred us to another lawyer in town to take up our cause. All efforts to remain civilized had been expended and now the wife and I were left to join the litigious rabble that overpopulate the streets and the afternoon lineup on the WB or UPN or whatever station it is that has all the People’s Court knock-offs these days.
Thus, Wednesday brought into our lives yet another character – the Litigator – and left us no closer to the resolution of either of our remaining problems, the two of which were becoming ever more entwined. You see, one is ill-advised to enter into a contract for buying a second house when one is still technically entangled in a contract for a first house, no matter how implausible the first one might be. One certainly does not want to risk being stuck with two houses; thus one is best advised to protect oneself somehow when moving forward on another purchase contract, but in doing so one jeopardizes the likelihood of forming a successful second contract. Let me put it this way. How would you feel about accepting an offer on your house with the contingency that the contract is only valid if I can get out of this other crazy legal thingy over here which may or may not be resolved at some unspecified date? You would probably put me over in a group with Ms. Unrealisitc, wouldn’t you?
Wednesday came to a close without a great deal of promise for the future, but at least we did not have to move the next day. The property manager at the college had called to let us know that we could stay in our apartment an extra ten days before we had to move. Thus the wife and I shared a collective sigh of relief and began to ready ourselves for the impending arrive of our first houseguest, or at least intended houseguest. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that a dear friend – henceforth called the Houseguest – was scheduled to be the first person to visit our new home and stay with us for a week and a half. Instead, he would be spending his visit helping us frantically move and crashing on our futon in first a small, and then a smaller, apartment.
[To be continued…]
In the meantime we were frantically searching for ways to resolve our more immediate need: a place to move into, since we had given notice on the apartment we were living in. The wife and I were negotiating several problems on this front as well. First off, we needed a place ASAP; a mere seven days lay between us and our promised departure date. After that we had a larger dilemma: if we still wanted to buy a house, then we needed a short term lease, but no-one in the area seemed to offer anything less than a six-month lease, and those places were all dire little beige boxes. Further, there was the problem of all of our stuff. You see, the wife and I had just made a visit to her mother’s house from which we brought back a large rental truck full of furniture with which we were going to fill our new home, the home we no longer had. This was all in a colleague’s garage – originally it was only supposed to be there for a few days, but now it, along with all of the stuff overflowing our small apartment, was in limbo.
Hence, we seemed to be facing a decision: to buy a house and scramble for temporary housing, or give up the house thing for another year and find a large three-bedroom apartment or house to rent. The wife and I weighed the pros and cons and resolved to find and buy another house. Thus, we were left crossing our fingers and frantically calling the woman in charge of the college’s rental properties. For the past year the wife – and since my arrival, I as well – had been renting a college-owned apartment near campus. Our last best chance was that there would be some unoccupied apartment available for a while in which we could squat.
The Monday following the weekend that followed the woeful Friday was spent trying to make contact on this front while still getting around town to flirt with a few more homes. Monday also developed into a day for serial phone calls with the lawyer, searching to grasp just what was going on with the Douche-Nozzle. Perhaps more than any other day in this unfortunate saga, this day was a process of keeping all of the many balls in the air. Alas, neither of us have terribly impressive juggling skills.
But, at last, we made contact with the property manager and there was indeed an apartment available, at least until mid-October. The only drawback: it had a mere two rooms [assuming we don’t count the galley kitchen and the bathroom, which featured a glass block wall facing the kitchen].
More on the apartment in a while. In the meantime, let us shift over to the lawyer’s office.
Monday brought about the realization that the Douche-Nozzle was positively a Douche-Nozzle. By Monday the evidence showed conclusively that there was no way that he was ever going to be able to sell the house. Unfortunately, being the Douche-Nozzle, he did not want to accept this. So much so that even when his lawyer explained this to him in no uncertain terms, he refused to sign the damned release that would free us from our contractual relationship and let us move on with our lives – as well as return our thousand dollar deposit to us. Yes, that good-Faith deposit we had made when signing the contract was caught in escrow limbo – not his because the sale was not going through, but not ours because the contract had not been terminated.
Making this even worse, the Douche-Nozzle’s lawyer, since the Douche-Nozzle wasn’t listening to or following his advice, had terminated his relationship with the Douche-Nozzle. Thus, we had no longer had a means of contact shy of a subpoena. You see, if the Douche-Nozzle’s lawyer gave us the Douche-Nozzle’s contact info, that would be a breach of ethics and could get him disbarred. Further, if our lawyer contacted the Douche-Nozzle directly, that, apparently, would lead to problems for our lawyer. In other words, the Douche-Nozzle was going silent, with the only remaining means of contact being the listing real estate agent, who, according to our lawyer, was already being a recalcitrant ass.
Pause for a moment to sidestep to the house search.
The search for another house was not going well. We saw many, but only one seemed to have any promise. It was quite lovely, and fit our size and budgetary requirements. Unfortunately the seller – let’s call her Ms. Unrealistic – only wanted to sell the house two weeks after she closed on the house she was buying, the problem being that she did not know when she would close on this other house. To make this simple, she wanted to close some time later. When might that be? Well, later. This was no good, especially since our best apartment hope was one we would have to vacate by the middle of October.
At this point we decided to take a flyer. One afternoon some four months early, in fact the first day we ever looked at houses, we were shown what we called the “perfect house.” It was lovely, but way out of our price range. Late Friday we started considering it. Perhaps we could make it work. A little scrimping here, calling in a few chits there, and maybe, just maybe, it could work. Especially since the house had been on the market for nine months. Surely they would be willing to deal.
At this point it was sometime well after midnight, the wife and I were both exhausted, and we had an appointment to see that college apartment early the next morning. Thus, we shuffled miserably off to bed, though rather happy to fall under the covers and into each other’s arms.
Tuesday morning we scrambled across the street to see the apartment [the major bonus of this place being that the move would only be across the street rather than a couple of towns over]. The apartment was really quite lovely, the rent was cheap, and since the utilities were included would have all the air conditioning one could want through the dire heat of July and August. But, it is amazing how small two rooms are in person, especially when seen by a couple who just six months earlier had two entire households. But, we took the plunge. We signed on the proverbial dotted line and problem number one – avert homelessness – was solved. Huzzah for us!!!
But, alas, the celebration lasted little longer than the time it took to recross the street and return to the other apartment – or as we were calling it by then, the storage facility, since it was half-packed and piled with all manner of stuff. For, when we arrived home, there was a message from the lawyer waiting for us. Things over the past twenty-four hours had continued to spiral downward and he was waiting to hear back about some last ditch possibility for resolving the situation with the Douche-Nozzle. Hence, that afternoon we were in somber spirits as we went off to see the “perfect house” one more time.
We met the realtor – not the recalcitrant ass, but our realtor, the one who is good-intentioned if not the sharpest of tacks – at the house, and it was still the “perfect house.” Though not actually perfect in every way, the name has simply stuck. The problem here was price. It was priced way too high, thus explaining why it was still sitting on the market after nine months. We knew what we thought it was reasonably worth, but that was well under the asking price, and the only way to find out what they would take was to formally write up a contract [our realtor inquired about verbal offers, but they were a no-go].
Therefore, after spending a bit of time wandering through the house’s many “perfect” rooms, the wife and I went off in search of dinner with one of our lovely faculty friends, from whom we sought both solace and advice, and discussed what we should do about the whole house buying thing.
That night, if memory serves me, was a much earlier evening. The exhaustion of the previous days settled in now that the impending homelessness was bypassed, and the wife and I fell into profound slumber, one which led to an unplanned morning of sleeping in because we could not rightly think of any urgent reason to get out of bed that next day.
Eventually we did get up and left the house in search of breakfast and the mail. In doing so, we stopped by the lawyer’s office to check in and, well, everything was shit. The lawyer had done everything he could possibly do and there was nothing for it but to sue the Douche-Nozzle to get out of the contract. This, unfortunately, would lead to great legal expenses with very little likelihood of recouping said expenses, but that was what it came down to. The lawyer, unfortunately, no longer does litigation; thus he referred us to another lawyer in town to take up our cause. All efforts to remain civilized had been expended and now the wife and I were left to join the litigious rabble that overpopulate the streets and the afternoon lineup on the WB or UPN or whatever station it is that has all the People’s Court knock-offs these days.
Thus, Wednesday brought into our lives yet another character – the Litigator – and left us no closer to the resolution of either of our remaining problems, the two of which were becoming ever more entwined. You see, one is ill-advised to enter into a contract for buying a second house when one is still technically entangled in a contract for a first house, no matter how implausible the first one might be. One certainly does not want to risk being stuck with two houses; thus one is best advised to protect oneself somehow when moving forward on another purchase contract, but in doing so one jeopardizes the likelihood of forming a successful second contract. Let me put it this way. How would you feel about accepting an offer on your house with the contingency that the contract is only valid if I can get out of this other crazy legal thingy over here which may or may not be resolved at some unspecified date? You would probably put me over in a group with Ms. Unrealisitc, wouldn’t you?
Wednesday came to a close without a great deal of promise for the future, but at least we did not have to move the next day. The property manager at the college had called to let us know that we could stay in our apartment an extra ten days before we had to move. Thus the wife and I shared a collective sigh of relief and began to ready ourselves for the impending arrive of our first houseguest, or at least intended houseguest. Oh yeah, I forgot to tell you that a dear friend – henceforth called the Houseguest – was scheduled to be the first person to visit our new home and stay with us for a week and a half. Instead, he would be spending his visit helping us frantically move and crashing on our futon in first a small, and then a smaller, apartment.
[To be continued…]
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