My wife and I are in a motel in Indianapolis tonight, on our way to close on our new home in Alabama on Monday. We recounted all of the obstacles that have been thrown up in the selling/buying process this time, and it's been quite unlike anything we've experienced before.
The first obstacle was my accountant, who had made all sorts of mistakes on my business tax return, mistakes that would prevent us from being approved. He refused to amend the return, so I had to do it myself, and my amendments angered him, and he threatened me with all sorts of retaliation. I also had to find a different lender who would use different factors in determining eligibility so as to remove the accountant from the picture.
Next was the home sale. Well, not the home sale itself, but the time line. The buyers wanted to close in six weeks on May 1st, leaving us little time to buy a home in AL and get things lined up.
We rushed down to AL, looked at homes for three days, put in an offer, it was accepted, and we booked interstate movers to come on April 30th.
The inspection of our home went perfectly, so the buyers had to search for some nitpicky stuff to have fixed, which meant more money and time.
On April 21st, the buyers realized that May 1st was a Saturday, so they wanted the closing moved up to April 30th. I told my realtor that my wife and I were fine with that, but that we had the movers coming that day. Without consulting me, the realtor then told the buyers that our movers would take 2-3 hours.
Two days before our closing, I got a call from the mortgage broker in AL. They were doing a last-minute verification of employment on me for our May 3rd closing, and had called my ex-accountant, who hung up on them. It looked at that point like we wouldn't be able to get the mortgage on the new home. Fortunately the broker was able to get information about my company from the state of Wisconsin.
Because the movers were coming on the 30th, my wife and I pre-signed for the closing on our sale on the 29th. The title insurance company had made mistakes totalling a few thousand dollars on the settlement form. Those still have to be resolved. My realtor is also saying that he's owed 1% more than what he was paid.
Our movers arrived at 8:30 am. Our buyers movers arrived about noon, as my realtor didn't tell the buyers that our movers would require the entire day, which is what I'd told him to pass along. He didn't want to rock the boat and risk losing the sale. Instead we had the movers fighting with each other, and the father of the buyer yelling at everyone, even our neighbors. I wanted to tell him that his son was an idiot to not look at the calendar to see what day of the week May 1st was, but discretion seemed the better route.
During this span of six weeks, my 92 year-old mother has been constantly calling and crying and saying that she wishes she'd died with my dad two years ago so she wouldn't have to go through seeing me move. Thanks for helping with the stress, Mom.
The movers were supposed to get our things to the house in AL on May 3rd, but that changed on Friday. Now they're arriving on May 6th, so we have to stay in motels for five nights instead of two.
Which brings us to tonight. We're supposed to be in AL on Monday morning to close, but I see that AR, MS, KY, TN, AL, and IN are having tornados and flooded roads. We may not make it to the closing.
I think I'm going to relax by sleeping in the center lane on the interstate.
