Friday, March 10, 2006
Part 11 Into The Firey Furnace
It was April; we were supposed to be closing on our house in two weeks. I was hounding the assistant realtor to get me the documents so I could assign power of attorney over to my husband. I didn’t want to reschedule the closing; I didn’t want to delay it even one second for any reason. I wanted this DONE!!!!
My husband would be in SD the weekend of the 10-11th, I could sign the papers and send them back with him, and he could sign the documents at the closing. And even at this late a date, the closing date was still “tentative”. Our contract with the realtor had actually expired on April 1st, and they had us sign to extend the contract to April 15th. I was really putting pressure on the assistant realtor, but I wanted nothing to go wrong at this late date. I felt like my job was on the line, I had to get this done and over with. I was finally feeling like it WOULD happen. We had less than one week to go. I was still waiting for the paperwork to be faxed to me, so when the assistant called me early Thursday (April 8th) I was not all that concerned.
She said “We have a problem” and my world stopped turning. I had finally convinced myself that my fears were unfounded, that this WOUL D happen, and now all my fears came crowding back in force.
She continued “The closing agent called the finance company to get things set up to transfer the money, and the financing company said their application had never been finalized”
“What” I said, dumbfounded, we were told repeatedly their financing was approved, for TWO months we’d been told that.
“They got approved, pending they could come up with a larger down payment, and somehow that was not communicated to them properly. They can not close unless they can come up with another $15,000.”
“You are telling me, less than one week before closing, after our house has been off the market for TWO MONTHS, that they were never approved?”
“Yes, we made a mistake”
Ok, they made a mistake, my life is about to end because they made a mistake. All I could think of was HOW am I going to tell my husband? I got of the phone, and I was in shock. My boss was out of town, and the other managers I would have felt comfortable falling apart in front of were not in their office. In complete disbelief, knowing I was not going to be able to hold myself together much longer, I made my way to the lower level to the office of the President, who also was a member of the clergy (yea, the one who ratted on me for my earlier comment). But I figured I needed somewhere safe to fall apart, and had no where else to go. My world had just collapsed, there was nothing worse they could do to me.
So I went into his office, and cried and cried. I just needed a safe place to fall apart for a while, to get over the shock so I could think clearly again. Life was not over, I trusted God to provide me with the strength. I looked straight into my “fiery furnace” and took that step. I took the rest of that day and Friday off, and left, still stunned by it all.
I called my husband at work, and told him something bad had happened, everyone was fine, but I needed him to come home now. And to give him credit, he did not question me, he told them he had a family emergency, and left work and headed out to
There is a reason my husband seemed so calm. He knew I had just had a bad review, and when I called, he concluded that I had either quit or gotten fired. It didn’t worry him all that much, we would be closing on the WI house in a few days, he would be out here with me and we could pick up the pieces. It was only a job after all.
My husband had a five hour drive to get to SD, so I had lots of time to think about how I would break the news to him. I couldn’t sit still, so for the second time in my life, I found myself out in the middle of my pasture, on my knees crying to God. I knew I was going to need a lot of support to get through this. I didn’t want to live alone anymore, I didn’t want to be stressed out over owning two houses, I didn’t want to do it anymore!! But God does give us the strength to pick ourselves up and get on with our lives.
I know there are a lot of people out there who have dealt with their own pain and suffering. I’m in no way trying to compare what I went through to the loss of a child, or the end of a marriage, or dealing with a terminal illness. This is just a story about my own trial. I am writing it to a group of friends on a specific message board, but because I’m posting it on my journal, it may reach a wider audience. I’m not asking anyone to feel sorry for me, or to think that I’ve done something to make me “special”. I don’t want any “should have, could have, would have” comments. What happened is in the past, and no amount of “What I would have done” can change on iota of what happened. If the reader finds a few things they can take to help them in their lives, then that is fine. My goal in writing this all out was in hopes of finding a way to put it behind me. There comes a time to let go of the hurt, anger and bitterness, and enjoy life again.
The hymn says “All your anxiety, all your care, take to the mercy seat, LEAVE THEM THERE”. Taking your problems to God isn’t that hard, but leaving them with Him is.
So, back to the story.
At this point, those realtors were going to make more money than I was, and I felt they were the ones who messed up, so why should my husband and I bear the brunt of this. I called the assistant back and suggested that the two realtors could each agree to lower their commission by 1/2%. They would still be getting 6%, and 6% of $300,000 is still a lot of money. It wasn’t much, but that money would mean we could still possibly find a cheap pickup to buy, and at least we wouldn’t have to worry about PAYING at closing.
The assistant called me back and said she had talked to our agent, and the agent did not feel this was her fault, so she should not have to take a cut in pay because of it.
I wasn’t going to argue the point. If it wasn’t the realtor’s fault for not making sure to get a confirmation from the finance company we insisted she do, then whose fault was it? As it turns out, the buyer’s realtor was “told” the financing was approved (never asked for written proof) and that realtor told ours, and ours took their word for it. So, all the time we had hounded our agent to MAKE SURE, she didn’t but somehow she did not feel that was her fault. By the time my husband showed up, I was getting over my shock, and starting to get mad. I also was getting over the idea that I might lose my job over this. My boss was counting on me to put this behind me and get on with my life. Well, if that happened, it happened.
When my husband showed up later that day, I told him the news. There was a very good reason I didn’t want to tell him over the phone. I knew his temper, and if it weren’t for the fact that the realtor’s office was five hours away, he may have ended up brought up on assault charges.
My husband was so mad, he wanted to end everything right there. I wasn’t so quick to pull the plug, still feeling like we might be able to find a way to get this done. I didn’t want to be alone anymore. I didn’t know if I could handle it.
I don’t remember all we talked about, but in the end, we still wanted to end up together in SD, our goal had not changed. If it was going to take a bit longer, so be it. It was sort of strange, because after the shock wore off, it didn’t seem like that big of a problem. I guess fear can be the biggest hurdle we have to face at times. We discussed our options and decided that maybe the best think would be to do the second mortgage thing, and be done with it all. We weren’t happy about it, but we did have to get on with life. And closing would make it so my husband could come out and live with me, and that was what I wanted most. In fact, I tried to talk him into quitting his job and not going back, but he was not willing to take that risk.
We talked about our options, and no matter which way we looked at it, our end result was always to end up with a job like I already had, and a home in a place like we already had here in SD. Why give this up because of a little setback in getting our place in WI sold.
I called the assistant on Monday, and told her we were considering the second mortgage deal, but I wanted more info. She told me that at this point, the buyers were so angry at the finance company (they honestly thought they’d been approved) that they didn’t want to deal with them anymore. I didn’t want this to get dragged out any longer, and told her we would accept the deal provided 1- we could close next Monday, as after that my schedule would be really hard to work around (we were getting the new software installed, and had trainers coming for the setup) and they’d better work out the closing paperwork because I would NOT pay one cent to get this deal closed. I was ok with walking away with no cash, but I refused to fork over any cash to make the deal work.
They were still trying to get things worked out on Thursday (16th) when our realtor came back from vacation. The buyers did go back to the first finance company, as it would have taken them several weeks to try to line something else up. I told the realtor she was only to talk to me, not call my husband. He was so mad about it all, he would not have been very polite to her at this point. We were now past the closing date, past the contract date with our realtor. We had also not agreed to any type of seller financing in writing, nor would I have signed anything without my stipulations being included. With real estate, verbal contracts are not valid. I’ve actually taken some real estate courses back when I was in college, but the realtors had no way of knowing that.
On Friday our realtor said it didn’t look like they could have everything ready by Monday, and wanted us to extend further. I told her No, I was not willing to drag this out any longer. By this time, both my husband and I were feeling like we had agreed too quickly to the seller financing, and even though we didn’t sign anything, we would stick to are agreement, if they had it ready to go by Monday, we would sign the papers. I drove back to WI and spent the weekend, waiting for the realtor to call. My husband had been living at his folk’s condo, but they had just come back for the summer, and he moved all his things back to WI. Since we expected it to only be for a few weeks, he didn’t get phone service, so we only had our cell phones. By Sunday night, we felt pretty strongly that this deal was not going to happen, and we were ok with that. It had seemed like such a terrible thing when the deal fell through, but now it didn’t seem so bad. We could deal with this. Monday morning came, my husband headed off to work, and I headed into MN to spend the day with my kids. They both had the time off, and we went shopping and just hung around. I had said I would stay available, and I was. I had to be back to work Tuesday, when the programmers showed up, that was not an option. I stayed in town about as late as I could, knowing I had a five hour drive ahead of me, and just as I was thinking it was time to leave, the realtor called me.
She said they had everything lined up so that we could close on Tuesday. I said no dice, it was Monday or no deal. She got a bit pushy with me, but I explained again that I had to be back to work tomorrow, and could not be there. She said she wanted to talk to my husband about this. I told her that would not be a good idea, but she insisted. So I hung up and headed back to SD, feeling somewhat sorry for the realtor, knowing I was the nice one to be dealing with right now.
Well, she did call my husband, and he told her in his more colorful language just what he thought of the whole deal, and that he would be finding a new realtor as our contract with her had expired several days before.
We thought it was over. My husband paid the $50 to get the phone hooked up. I asked my son to come live with me, and he put in notice at his job so he could do that. Who would have thought that after a year of living apart, we would be back to square one with selling our WI property? I went back to work, but I was not longer controlled by my fear. What I feared had happened, and I realized the fear was worse than the reality. Wasn’t it FDR who said “the only thing we have to fear, is fear itself”? It gave me a new confidence, and we would just take one day at a time and not worry about anything further along. We did talk to our WI banker, and decided that our best course was to put the house back on the market, keep making the payments as best we could, and deal with anything else as it happened.
At this point, it got sort of amusing. I went back to work, and got a call from our realtor telling me they buyer was very upset, and they we “might” be sued over this deal, and that we should reconsider our decision. I knew she was blowing hot air. They were trying to yank our chain to save their own behinds. We probably had the best case to sew someone over this deal, we were the ones harmed by the fact that our house had been off the market during the best time of the year to have it listed. The sellers were not able to close on the deal before the closing date, making their offer null. Our contract with the realtor had expired, making us not liable to her for anything, and we had never signed anything saying we agreed to loan the buyers money.
My husband got fed up with this when I told him, and he called and told the realtor he would come by that afternoon and sign the papers to formally cancel the whole deal. My hubby had already started interviewing new agents, and had a few he was considering. We wanted the property back on the market as soon as possible. That afternoon, my husband stopped at the realtor’s office, and they started taking a hard line with him, and he let his pent up frustration run free.
My husband is a retired officer in the military. He knows how to dress someone down, and he learned from his Mother how to flay someone to the quick. He said he didn’t lower himself to serious profanity, but he wasn’t nice and he had her in tears by the time he left. He wasn’t proud of himself either, and stopped in next day and apologized to her.
But he signed the cancellation papers, and we expected not to hear another word on this deal.
And then Wednesday afternoon, the agent’s boss called my husband with a proposal. He asked if we were willing to go through with the deal if the realty company agreed to finance half of the down payment, with us financing the other half. This would provide us with enough cash to still by the truck, and we would be done with the deal.
My husband’s initial reaction was to say no, but instead he said he would think about it, and called me. It was so unexpected, we were sure the deal was dead.
We thought we had what we wanted in our grasp. But the Lord asked us to give it up, and we cried, and hollered, but eventually we said “yes” and walked away empty handed. And then the Lord turned around and offered it back to us. Pride can really get in the way, “Lord, you asked us to give this up, we did, now WE DON’T WANT IT ANYMORE!!!!”
I wonder how many of God’s blessings we refuse to accept because God didn’t give them to us when, or how we expected, and then when they showed up differently, we in our pride say “I don’t want it now” like a spoiled child that didn’t get her way?
I called my husband up, and told him just that. He’s a proud man in a lot of ways, and this would seem like backing down, and letting the adversary win. But I also told him I would support his decision in this matter. I told him my biggest fear was they were just grasping at straws, trying to buy themselves more time. But in the end, we agreed, and gave them one week to get the deal done. They scheduled the closing of April 27th, and I took time off work so I could be there.
But it wasn’t quite over. I get a call Thursday afternoon, saying that there was a slight change of plans. This is what I feared, when the agent offered the deal to my husband, had not gotten it approved by the financing company, and when he proposed it, they turned him down. BUT instead, the two realtors had both agreed to drop their commissions to cover that half of the down payment and we would agree to loan the buyers the full $15,000. I asked if we would be required to pay anything to the realty company after that, and they said no. We agreed, and they faxed me the paperwork signed by the agents, and I signed the paperwork agreeing to the second mortgage.
The closing was anticlimactical, and it turns out that the buyers were never told that we had actually canceled the deal. I don’t know what excuses the realtors gave them for our hesitation. We ended up with enough cash so my husband could get the used truck he wanted, and if they buyers held to the agreement, we would eventually see the rest of our money plus the realtors’ share.
We had the rest of our things loaded in the stock trailer, and after closing my husband headed to MN to load up my son’s belongings. He had quit his job to come live with me, and I was not going to renege on my deal, now that my husband would be able to move out there too.
I drove back to the WI place to give the buyers a walk through (they had done theirs, but had questions and wanted me to go over things with them. They were a very nice young couple, with two preschool age kids, horses and dogs. I’m glad they were very happy the deal went through, and they thanked me for financing the down payment so it could happen.
After that, I met up with my husband in MN, helped load up the rest of the stuff in my car (things that they didn’t want to haul in the stock trailer, like the computer) and picked up my daughter’s cat ( this was planned too. When she moved out and took the cat, I told her that if she ever changed her mind, I would take the cat back). Nikki was born in my house, and she’ll stay in the family until it’s her time to leave. At the time I still had her mom and brother, but they’ve both passed on.
Hubby had the truck and loaded trailer, I had the cat and loaded car, and we headed down the freeway on our last trip moving our belongings, and my husband from WI to SD. Son would be staying with his grand parents for another week, and then moving out too.
I followed behind the truck until we were almost to the SD border (still didn’t trust that truck to make the trip, poor old girl. . .) and then my husband told me to go ahead, and get Nikki home. I sped up to the limit, and left him behind. He only had about 80 more miles to go, and then he too would finally be home. My hubby said he cried when he crossed from MN into SD. He’d made this trip so many times, but this was the first time he knew he would not be making the return trip in a few days.
He called his work the next morning and told them he quit. They were done with training season, and he knew they would not miss him.
And here ends my story, of how I ended up living in SD. Of course, the story doesn’t end, as most of you know – once my husband got settled in, we started REMODELING!
And in case you are wondering, a year later I had my second review, this time glowing and my boss said that I was like a totally different person once the ordeal was over. So far the buyers have been pretty good about making their payments. The loan has a three year balloon, so we still hope that in another year we’ll see the rest of the money. I don’t feel guilty about getting the money that should have gone to the realtors. I had asked if they would drop the commission a small amount, and was told NO, and they ended up having to drop it quite a bit more than that in the end.
Cathy
