Closing Day Without the Closing

If this is your first visit to the blog, you really should at least start with this particular chapter of our story here. Or from the beginning here.

So far, the homebuying timeline looks like this:

• December 21: Offer accepted
• December 26: Get seriously sick
• December 29: List the house and check into a hotel
• December 31: Accept an offer
• January 4: Order an appraisal on the new home
• January 19: Receive good appraisal
• February 4: Closing

The strikethrough we didn’t see coming.

Thursday started out like any other day. Icy but otherwise normal. I only mention icy because gravity and ice combined with my unparalleled grace equals a hilariously painful fall down all 5 of my front porch stairs.

On Friday, I was really ready to usher in the last weekend of packing and gearing up, ready for closing in a week when I got a text from Holton that simply said, “Call me.” That is second only to, “We need to talk,” so I knew I should brace myself. When he answered, he said, “Of all the things I could think could go catastrophically wrong with the sale of this house, there’s one I never even thought of.”

“And it happened, didn’t it?”
“Yep.”
*pause* “Now what?!”
“Our buyers split up.”

It turns out, our buyers (an unmarried couple, not business partners) evidently parted ways and would no longer be buying a house together.

I don’t know the buyers, their relationship history, or the circumstances that led to it, or if that’s the whole story, but I can’t imagine facing a loss of earnest money while enduring what I imagine was a painful breakup… with in a week of moving in together.

The earnest money was a significant sum, and a breach of contract would fully negate it, so it was in everyone’s best interest to move forward. Nevermind that the purchase of the new house we really, really wanted depended solely on us selling this one. Luckily, a solid co-buyer was found in short order, but the closing date had to be moved in order to get paperwork modified.

On the same day, our loan underwriter was concerned about a report of arsenic in the water supply (we will have a well), and was not going to secure the loan unless the water was tested and passed.

Later that evening, after going out to dinner and drinks with family, Holton’s truck broke down on the freeway as we headed home.

An alternator repair later, we are limping into February but still alive. We just signed the papers to sell this house, and we are set to close on the purchase this Monday, February 14.

We’ll see about that.