House Saga

Long post...feel free to read and comment if you have the time-I'd love your opinion-although I already feel justified after talking to our agent...he had more information to tell...

So, Monday morning, we wired the money from our account to the lawyers-and they were to then wire to the sellers lawyer-etc. We were told we’d be able to collect the keys from the seller’s lawyer Tuesday morning.

Tuesday morning, we started packing up the trucks-and called the sellers lawyer to confirm that we could get the key. Their office said “we are under strict instructions to not give you the keys until the money is in the bank.-and I’m not even supposed to be talking to you!” Well, ummm-ok-John called our lawyer and they just hadn’t signed the check to be given to the other lawyers yet-but they’d get it done soon. Around 11 our lawyer calls and says “ok-you can go pick up the keys but you have to do it by 11:30 as that lawyers office is closing then for the day” WTF?! We were ready 2 hours ago and they played this stupid hard ball game-and now we are supposed to make a 45 minute drive and do it in 30 minutes because they are suddenly closing?! Could someone arrange something please?

Sooooo ok, the keys will be at this other lawyer’s office…..good.

I said to John, we better call and make sure they are open and not closing for lunch or something.

So, he calls-and of course at first they aren’t even aware that they will have the keys for us (nobody called to let them know)-so they called the other lawyer and ok, yes we will have the key. Then they called back to say-oh, sorry, we are closing at 11:30 too…..a funeral.

They FINALLY arranged for a real estate shop to hold the key for us. Gee, thanks.
Great start to our move.

We collect the key, drive to the property-first thing we see is very large broken branches at the entrance hanging down that we have to drive around (they looked deliberately broken!) We go to the house-of course the verandah hadn’t been swept in a month most likely. We open the door to the house-and it just reeks of that stale musty old smell, the floors are absolutely filthy, a couple of screens have been broken, many of the kitchen cabinet door hinges were bent so the cabinets won’t close properly, the second toilet which is in the garage doesn’t even work-probably hasn’t in 10 years, a tile on the counter of the laundry area looks like someone took a hammer to it, the living room curtains were gone (she said she was leaving them), even took a curtain rod and bent the rod cover thingy out of shape..lord knows what else we have yet to discover.

We had a feeling something was going to be wrong…..
When we signed the contract they insisted on an “as is” clause….we were convinced that this was because they didn’t want to be responsible for removing the old tractor, van and pickup that doesn’t work…..(we were originally told the tractor and truck worked-but found out later that they really didn’t)…
After we had signed the contract to purchase the property we met with the people so they could walk us through the property and identify the trees, show us how to use the old tractor and point out the boundaries. The guy then said he had no idea where the boundaries were, and when we tried to start the tractor-it started but then took off and he couldn’t stop it without just shutting it off. And we found out then that the pickup didn’t work either-“needed some work”…and we didn’t even make a big stink-just pointed out that this stuff was in the contract and the guy freaked out because we got “such a good deal on the property”- and stormed back to the house.

This guy was a psycho-the place wasn’t even in his name-it was in his wife’s name because of bad business deals he had done in the past. Our agent didn’t like the guy from the beginning-and that is extremely rare for him. He likes everybody!

We had a feeling he was going to be nasty-and we were right. The place has a whole “bad vibe” to it now….we don’t even want to live there. We are going to take some time and clean it up properly-and very likely put it straight back on the market. It’s just ugly now.

So, there you go! We are still in the bungalow-but we are now making it our full time job to sell off everything (except the Dunsborough property). Then look again for the “right” property-never, ever allow an “as is” clause, and never take possession without a final inspection. Lesson Learned!

The end. (yes I stole that from Kitty-it just fits!