Probably my biggest frustration was over the inspection. They came back with a list of items to be corrected before the sale. Nearly all of them seemed frivolous to me. It seems to me that when you negotiate the price of a house, and you know going in how old and used it is....well....it just seems like you'd understand that there are aspects that aren't going to be perfect. You can negotiate those things up front with the price, but to come back after that's settled and niggle more things -- especially subjective things -- out of the seller seems kind of questionable to me. None of them were major, but they were things that cost money and time to do, and collectively that stuff does add up. One of the items was to clean the furnace filter. Okay, fine, but why wast everyone's time with something so trivial? Others were nearly as trivial, but really did take me some time and effort to get corrected.
My realtor advised me to just deal with it and move on. I agree, but it's a few hundred dollars in labor and materials that are for things that I honestly wouldn't have given a second thought to.
I've mentioned before that there were a few furnishings they were interested in from the house. At the time when this came up I asked for them to narrow it down so I could price some things for them. They said they'd be interested in anything we'd sell -- they are starting over. Okay....so Liane and I took the time to price a bunch of stuff. They came back as interested in a few of them -- mostly the ones that we priced really, really low because we were on the verge of discarding them anyway. They tried to counter offer me on the small TV's (loft and kitchen), but said that if I didn't accept the offer to leave the mounting arms holding them. "Uh...NO." Those arms cost almost as much as the sets they are attached to, and we specifically wrote that they are not included into the listing. So they paid my price for that stuff, which was still a really good deal.
Then there is the desk debacle. They wanted the desk and credenza, which after seeing it in the new place we were pretty sure we wanted to unload it. I offered $125. They countered with $100, and I took it. I offered to take it back over and set it up for them. It's fragile and tricky enough that I wanted to do this in part to avoid any complications with it. I knew if I did it then it would be done right and it would just work for them. Of course, knowing they are an older couple I really believed it would be helpful for them if I took care of it. We had to move it anyway, so not that big of a deal to set it up. Of course they accepted that offer and wanted it up in the loft. So on the last day my brother was up here helping to move we piled it all in his truck and took it over. I set it all up a few days later. Then, two days before close, I get a message that they don't want it after all. Whew! I had just about had enough of all this.
My response...
Cc: Dave & Liane Stewart
Subject: Re: seller's desk and credenza
Frankly, this is not acceptable. I've already spent the time, energy and considerable effort to take them back over there and set them up in the loft. I never dreamed any of this stuff was still open to interpretation. Can we just change anything we want, right up to the last minute? Heck, maybe I want more money for the house now.
At some point my capacity to bend over backwards to make this happen comes to an end, and we are right at that point now. Sorry to be a jerk about it...I want to be reasonable and cordial, but I literally don't have a vehicle that I can use to move them. If the seller wants to compensate me for hiring movers to get them back out of there I suppose I can try to find time to do it.
Short of that....they are there, and I expect the buyers to fulfill on their commitment to buy them.
Sorry,
David
From my realtor
I totally agree. Spoke with buyers Agent. She apologized, and said to leave it there. You will be compensated for it as per our agreement.
The closing itself went without incident. I told Liane the night before that after all this my goal is to just get out of there and on with my life as quickly as possible. Just like the closing on our house the husband was very kind and friendly. The wife was cordial enough, but I could tell she was kind of a bitch, and without a doubt was the source of our little problems up to this point. It's always the women...
I had wanted to go over to the house right before closing to do my final walk through and gather up any last minute items, but the realtor called and said they wanted to do a final walk through. Whatever. So I just did it on my lunch break, which cost me an extra trip over there since the title office we used for closing is right down the street.
(Continued in the next entry.)
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