Lien on me.

When we made the offer on the property, we did so with the incentive of closing whenever the owner wanted to close. Sixty days? OK. Thirty? No problem. Two weeks? Why the hell not. We had already secured a home equity line on our current house, and that, along with a no-interest-parental loan, meant we were ready to go whenever.

The owner decided to close on the house in thirty days, so we planned accordingly. We hired a lawyer to handle the legalities, doubled checked on all our financing and were ready to take ownership on June 22nd.

Shortly after Mr. D passed away, his girlfriend moved out of the house. Now mind you that he was in his 70’s and this very nice woman had been living with him for probably over 20 years, using the term girlfriend may be accurate, but it doesn’t quite do the relationship justice. Anyway, that is when the house became empty. The neighborhood stories professed that she was asked to cease residing in the house by his family and that there was some animosity and bad blood between them. We heard that there were legal battles over the ownership of the house, and after it became empty and sat so long, it seemed that this may well be true.

When we made the offer on the house, we were informed by the listing agent that the current owner of the house was Mr. D’s wife who resides in Florida and has been there since splitting up with Mr. D in 1981. However, they were never divorced and the house was in her name only - never in Mr. D’s. So, that leaves Mr. D with a wife in Florida and a girlfriend in Barrington and no real ownership of any home of his own. The girlfriend had indeed put a lien on the house under the argument that she had been residing there for over 20 years, helping to pay the mortgage, taxes, upkeep and utilities, and therefore, in the event of a sale, was entitled to either all or a portion of the proceeds of the house - that was never in her name nor even her boyfriend’s. The listing agent said that the matter was settled and would not cause any problems with us buying the property.

GREAT!!

Until, a week before our closing was scheduled to take place we received a sheepish sounding call from the listing agent. “I was just informed that the matter is not settled and that it is actually going before a judge two days from now for a decision.” Hmmmm.... I asked what that meant for us and our closing date.

1. If the judge ruled for the wife - meaning she got all money from the sale - then the girlfriend has the opportunity to appeal the decision and continue to tie up the property in the lien putting off our closing.

2. If the judge ruled for the girlfriend - meaning she gets all or a portion of the money from the sale - then the wife has the opportunity to appeal and again continue to tie up the property and put off our closing.

3. The judge could continue the hearing and make no decision - you guessed it - further tieing up the property in the lien, putting off our closing.

It didn’t look good. The listing agent assured us of two things. First, that the wife was tired of this dragging on and was prepared to accept whatever decision was made and just wanted to get on with her life. Secondly, that the girlfriend had been dropped by her first lawyer because she couldn’t pay, and therefore, would not have the money to appeal a decision not in her favor. I didn’t feel particularly confident about the listing agent’s assessment of the situation, as she was trying to keep everyone happy and not lose a sale. She may have been completely telling the truth, but she could have just as easily been trying to keep us calm so that we didn’t panic and back out of the deal, which would be well within our rights if the closing was put off due to appeals.

“Let’s just wait and see what happens,” was her advice. And, I couldn’t have agreed more. There was nothing to worry about yet. We would wait for an answer, and then deal with whatever came our way.

The day of the hearing the listing agent called us. It was good news. A scenario we had not anticipated. The very wise judge had pounded his gavel down with the decision of no decision. He would not yet decide which party got what from the sale, but he would clear the lien, allowing for the sale to go through and take the proceeds from it and put it all in escrow. Then allow the fight to continue over real money instead of fighting over eventual money.

We would buy the house on June 22nd and they would continue the good fight over the cash. Four months later, I still do not know what happened to the money. I can see both sides, both their cases were valid. But I do hope for their sakes that the matter has been settled and each are at peace with the decision. Although, I think that Mr. D. would love the fact that two woman were bitching and squabbling over “his” house.... Oh yes, he would love this... he was a lover AND a fighter!

Schematics

This begins the phase of the project called, Schematic Design. I like to refer to it as Concepting or in layman’s terms, if you will, the time where the architect tries to design a house that crams in all the rooms needed and doesn’t end up with something he hates. This would be an easy task with a bad architect, one who didn’t care that all rooms have cross-ventilation and didn’t insist on a sense of order. But if, like me, you have a good architect, and a less than ideal sized and shaped piece of property, this task can be quite complicated.

First - and this is the easy part - we needed to come up with a list of what we wanted in the house. Dave presented me with an extensive list of his “wants and gotta haves” and then I was allowed to add to that list. However, I needed to do it in a different color type so that he could easily see the changes - but I really think it was so he could easily delete my changes if he didn’t like them.

The list has the normal stuff like...

• kitchen

• living room

• dining room

• master bedroom

• master bathroom and closet

• Tate’s room

• Simone’s room

• kids bathroom

• two car garage

And some more special extras like...

• office

• mud room

• pantry

• laundry room

• basement workshop

• outdoor shower

• miles of bookshelves

• future green roof

Once that was complete, there was a lot of “research” - better known as magazine-flipping, web-surfing and book-scouring. I’ve been told it’s for space and material inspiration, but I believe that this was an answer to appease me, as the architect really just enjoys magazine-flipping, web-surfing and especially book-scouring.

Then, little sketches began to pop up from time to time...

It was starting to get interesting.

And then one stuck. It was working great. Gorgeous first floor plan, with a two-story office space in the front of the house. Public space up front with all the living space in the back. The second floor held all three bedrooms, two baths and even had space for a laundry room - not a closet - a whole room! We loved it!

It’s only drawback (and it was pretty big for me) was that the garage would exist at the back of the property and NOT be attached to the house. One of my biggest wants was an attached garage.

This two car garage would exist at the back of the property, be accessed from a small lane that runs behind us and be about 50 feet from the back door. I could just see myself in the middle of winter, trudging through my backyard filled with snow, carrying three heavy bags of groceries, corralling two wild kiddos and cursing the whole way. I mean, really loud, ugly, truck-driver-style cursing, filled with fucks and son-of-a-bitches and goddamnits! I didn’t really like this at all.

But it seemed there was no other way to get a two car garage on the property without having the entire front of the house be a garage. This, I didn’t want either.

I propsed the idea of considering a one car attached garage. Yes, we would be giving up the two car bays, but we would be gaining the attachment to the house and not having to sacrifice most of our already small backyard to a garage. We were going to have to make a sacrfice one way or the other and I thought that giving up one car bay was the better compromise.

“Nope. Not going to work. Need the two car garage. Not going to happen. Forget it!” was the architect’s reply. Sound familiar?

So I let it go. I really loved the house design and decided that if I had to live with my angry cursing all winter long while walking from my house to my car and then back from my car to my house, so be it. I would pre-apologize to the neighbors and buy them all earplugs for Christmas.

Icon for sale.

Buried somewhere in the front yard at the new house is a St. Joseph statue. There are many people who believe that burying this upside down in your yard will lead to the quick sale of your home. Apparently, he is the patron saint of carpentry and home selling. I’ve just read articles from people swearing by this as an effective method of procuring offers on their homes. And one of my neighbors, whose house has been on the market for a long time, recently confided in me that, she too, has buried a St. Joseph statue in her yard - though it should be stated that 4 months later her house still has a for sale sign in the front yard.

I am rather skeptical of the whole thing. First and foremost, I do not have a religious bone, muscle, cell or synapse in my entire body. Secondly, I don’t believe in tricks or spells or mumbo-jumbo. And the whole “bury a saint in your yard to sell your house” incongruously reeks of both religion and witchcraft... religicraft! But, I do understand the desperation of trying to selling a home, getting no offers and thinking, “What the hell! We’ve got nothing to lose. Grab yer shovel Dave, we’s gonna bury us a saint today!”

About a month ago I was talking to our soon-to-be new neighbors directly across the street. They were telling stories of Mr. D, and Dave and I were showing them the house design and talking about our plans for the property. Then they told us this story....

So, a few months ago I was upstairs in my house and I saw a car pull up in the front of Mr. D’s house. Two older people got out and ran to the trunk of their car and got out a shovel. They went into the front yard and started digging. I watched them from the window and wondered what the hell they could be doing... I mean it was the middle of the day and I’d never seen these people before and here they were digging in the front yard of a vacant house that was for sale. I figured I should go down there and ask them what they were up to. So, I made my way downstairs and as I was walking out my front door, I see them finish filling in the hole they had dug and now they were taking pictures. What is going on?!?!?! I approached them and asked what’s up? They told me they were friends of the woman in Florida who owns the house, and that they were here on her behalf to bury a St. Joseph statue in the hopes of finally selling the house. With that explanation, they brushed the dirt from the shovel, tossed it back in the trunk of their car and drove away. Funny story, huh?

Ummmmmmm....... was all I could muster as a reply for a few moments. “Uh, when did you say you saw this all go down?” I asked. She replied, “Oh, I don’t know... a few months ago. It was warm... like mid-May or so? Yeah, that sounds right. Mid-May it was.”

Well, mid-May was the same time I was out with the dog, walked by Mr. D’s place and well... this happened!

Last weekend I met a sincerely nice couple with four children who were considering buying the property too. They received the same call we did on Friday, May 21st that an offer was put in on the house. They decided to not put an offer in... but don’t you think it’s awfully strange that three separate couples were highly interested in purchasing a house just days after burying a St. Joseph?

That’s some weird coincidence. Or some weird religicraft... ya know... if you believe in that kind of thing.

The Offer

On Friday night, May 21st, we went to bed wrapped up in the weighty blanket of wine and the impending offer on the property. I was excited and nervous. Just because we were going to make an offer didn’t mean that we would be able to buy the property. Or for the price we wanted to pay for it. The offer is just a small step among many in the process of purchasing. We’d been through this before when we bought our current house. This house came with an easy decision to buy, but a nerve-wracking, nail-biting counter-offer process that left me spent and in tears afraid I’d lose this house over a thousand dollars. I remember getting the call from the agent that the owners accepted our counter-offer at my then place of employment and feeling a huge sense of relief and also kinda weird that my co-workers, Sue and Jerry, knew we’d bought a house even before Dave did.

Though we knew that we were “attractive” buyers this time around, we were also going to offer about $55,000 below the asking price, for a house that was already priced at land value. We were not asking for an inspection, we would close whenever the owner wanted and we were paying cash (we had already secured a hefty home equity line of credit on our current house that we could use to buy land) - these are all very compelling extras for someone to consider in a offer, but what if the other people offered the full asking price? Would all these compelling extras outweigh $55,000? I think not. But we were not in a position to be able to pay the asking price. We had a budget for land: the price we were going to offer + the cost of clearing the lot from the trees and the current structures = our budget. We just could not offer more.

We woke up Saturday morning and began a whirlwind day of events. I had no idea it would be so quick, so stressful or so fruitful.

Saturday :: May 22, 2010

9am :: Called the listing agent to tell her we were making an offer.

10am :: She arrived at our house and we filled out the paperwork for the official offer.

11am :: A counter-offer of an additional $20,000 from the owner in Florida arrived for us to ponder. Aack... so quickly, I wasn’t anticipating such a quick counter-offer. I was prepared and expected to wait a day or two before I heard anything.

11:20 am :: We countered with $10,000 more than our original offer. And then expected to hear right back... but nope.

A couple of nerve-wracking, hair-pulling, on-the-verge-of-throwing-up hours went by...

1pm :: Offer accepted!! The crappy little house was ours!!! yell, scream, cry and hug

2pm :: T-ball game.

4pm :: Signed the purchase and sales agreement and handed over a large deposit check.

4:30pm :: Collapsed on the couch from sheer stress-induced exhaustion.

5pm :: Opened a another bottle of wine... this time to celebrate.

Turns out the other couple did offer more money than we did, but they wanted to renovate the house and so their offer was subject to inspection and securing a bank loan.

Team Phaneuf/Rizzolo = 1

Team Other Couple = better luck next time