Back At It!

back at it

Whew, the move is over!!  My loyal readers have noticed my lack of consistent posts over the last couple weeks, for that I apologize!  I have been inundated with selling our house in St. Louis and moving permanently to Tennessee, Yeah!!  The buyers were extremely demanding, almost to the point at which I considered dropping the contract and looking for a new one.  Since we had one of the very few homes in St. Louis without a basement, and that market demands homes with basements, I thought better of letting the contract go.  That is all behind us now and to be honest it was such a long, stressful, arduous process it has almost made me cynical about getting back into any real estate dealings in the forseeable future.

It all started with the lateral sewer line….The new buyers ordered a scope of the lateral sewer line which runs about 60 feet from the front of our house to the street.  It is buried as deep as 10 feet at the deepest point.  Anyway, the scope showed there were minor cracks, which for a 60+ year old pipe were considered very minimal.  The new buyers, of course wanted the entire pipe replaced.  So we had our own inspection, cost me $110, and our inspector said their were indeed minor cracks, but nothing out of the ordinary from what you would expect on a sewer line that age.   He said those cracks had likely been there for 30 years and will probably be there for the next 30.  He felt no need to rip up the yard and replace 60 feet of clay pipe.  The buyers demanded it!  After some investigating, it turns out that the municipality we lived in had a sewer lateral program where they pay 75% and the homeowner pays the remaining 25%.  So that was reasonable, although replacing all these sewer lines which dont necessarily need replacing seems like a waste of taxpayer money.  But, since we were good tax paying citizens, and had been for years, we figured we would take advantage.   All in all we got out of this predicament for a grand total of $455, which was $110 for my inspection and $345 for the 1/3 of the lateral sewer line, which the new owners will replace at their discretion.

On to the biggest culprit of my increased gray hair portfolio..  The neighbors new fence.  We came back from Tennessee and our neighbor had installed a new chain link fence which butted up to our fence.  No big deal, we thought it was on her property.  Come to find out, through a third party property survey which the new buyers ordered, that our neighbor placed her new fence 3′ ft 8″ on our property.  She has a miniature poodle so I understand why she needed the fence, actually wondered why it took so long for her to make the investment, but that’s not my business.  However, this fence on my property was my business and soon would be a thorn in my side.  The buyers agent contacted our agent to tell us that the fence had to be moved.  Move a brand new fence, and not allow it to connect to ours, how will our neighbor buy into this?  How would the dog stay in her back yard?  Well, we had to get this done, we couldn’t risk this holding up the closing.  So my agent informed the neighbor about the necessity of moving the fence, and as you can guess this didn’t go over very well.  She claimed that she took a drawing to the city for approval and they granted it.  However, this was before the property survey was conducted, and that survey supersedes the handmade drawing she had made.  So she was irate over the fact that she now has a worthless fence.  I felt bad for her, but I knew this needed a resolution.  So my brother and I devised a plan where we would put up a temporary 4′ fence which she could keep there until the new buyers decided what they planned on doing with the fence.  She was ok with that, but the buyers, well that was a different story!  They claimed that in order to get a clean title they would need her to sign an affidavit  (and have it notarized) saying that within 30 days she would have it completely removed, no temporary.  It made me think that these new buyers were creating animosity with their future neighbor, whom they don’t even know yet.  So, to continue the stress, the neighbor refused to sign the document, which to be honest I didn’t really blame her.  It was full of legal jargon which was a bit overwhelming if you weren’t an attorney.   So here we were, a pissed off neighbor, a stressed out seller, and a tactless, high maintenance buyer!  Ultimately, the neighbor completely removed the fence (the day before the closing) and the buyers dropped the need for the affidavit.  We were on to the move.

All in all, many good things came out of this move though, we were able to do a needed purge of things we didn’t use or no longer needed.  That was very liberating!  We also were making two house payments, which we no longer have to do, thank goodness!!  I felt we were working only to make house payments and not saving anything.  I am so grateful the market has gotten better, there was a lot of interest in our house, but because it has no basement we struggled to find a buyer.  Funny thing is, this buyer, actually had a contract on another house with a basement, but because of all the rain, that basement flooded, so they pulled the contract.  Everything happens for a reason!  So, they were ok with not having a basement, and we were grateful to have found the right buyers!  So, I am so glad the move and the stress associated with it are over and we can get back to saving, giving and blogging!!