Fortunately my family was very understanding and wonderful and changed their vacation to accommodate our preferred closing date. Changing the vacation was what we thought was going to be our biggest hurdle in terms of scheduling the closing.
Some background: While we were in the process of putting our offer in writing we had to set our closing date at least 30 days out from the date of the contract [this date is listed within the contract and states that the closing will be on this date unless both parties mutually agree to have it changed]. If the sellers had been satisfied with our initial contract [see more on this fiasco here] then this would have given us plenty of time to close before our lease was up, meaning 30 days from the day we signed the contract would have been perfect for us [see more on this here]. However, that did not happen.
We had to set the closing date on the last day of our lease and the lenders agreed that if everything went smoothly we would be able to close earlier. We thought everybody was in on this because throughout our closing process we emphasized that we wanted to close earlier than the date listed on our initial sales contract. We even have emails stating that a quick timely closing would be ideal for Mr. and Mrs. Seller also [I imagine paying 2 mortgages on a house they weren’t living in was not their idea of fun, which is what they were doing].
Every time a document went between the two parties that needed to be signed my husband would say something to the effect of: “A quick response would help us close early.” Unfortunately, this was typically via a voicemail so we do not have a written record of this [FSBO ADVICE: try to do as much as possible in terms of negotiations in writing].
Okay… that is a lot of background… I swear I’m getting somewhere with this.
Once the addendum was signed we left Mr. and Mrs. Seller a voice mail and sent an email stating that we had scheduled the closing for July 25th. We had incorrectly assumed that we were all still on board with the early closing.
This was the morning we were leaving for vacation.
A day or two after we arrived, we received an email from Mr. and Mrs. Seller stating that they were under the impression that the closing date was still on July 31st and since this was stated in the contract, Mr and Mrs Seller said we should reschedule the closing for the 31st. Mr. and Mrs. Seller also said that it was a surprise that we wanted to close early.
[rips out hair!]
We were livid… LIVID! We had been bending over backwards to get everything in line for closing on the 25th. We had stated several times in voicemails that we wanted to close on the 25th, but now once everything was just about signed sealed and delivered, they wanted to push the closing back to the 31st so that we had to move our entire house in less than 24 hours and there was no way that we were going to be able to refinish the floors.
We sat and stared at each other. Well, we actually didn’t sit and stair at each other because at the time we were out on a bike ride and had just happened to stop so that our hearts didn’t beat out of our chests to catch our breath. [We were biking up a 15% grade hill when we were supposed to be on a nice flat ride… whoops] Matt took a look at his phone and saw the email… the news did not help us me make it up the hill, however it gave my husband a little extra kick.
At the top of Mount Everest the hill we remembered that Mr. and Mrs. Seller had signed an addendum that stated the closing was on the 25th. They could not throw the contract in our face that said the 31st, since the addendum noted the changed closing date [sigh of relief].
We biked back to the house and drafted an email. We edited and rewrote that email probably 15 times to make sure that we didn’t say anything that we would regret. We wanted to keep the relationship cordial and didn’t want to express how frustrated we were with their email, but we wanted to get our point across. Essentially the email stated that 1. we had been hoping to close on the 25th since day one, 2. that we had said it several times [this was nothing new] and 3. that they signed an addendum stating the closing was on the 25th.
We shared the email with my brother and cousin, they helped make it sound less aggressive and sent it.
Unfortunately, this did not help me sleep at night, I was afraid that although we were trying to be cordial it didn’t wouldn’t come across that way, and that although they signed an addendum that stated the earlier date, their lawyer would find a way around it. I didn’t think that things would go our way.
I didn’t sleep very well for the next few nights because they never responded to the email.
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