The most insane settlement ever?

Well, remember back on Oct 3 how I said we had a very good chance of a delay in settlement? Well here we are almost 3 weeks later and still no house.

I've refrained from posting the story until we had things a bit more under control, and honestly because things can change day to day. Insane.

Turns out the previous owners did some transactions that don't settle well with the lawyers in how they handled the deed of the house. This combined with some lesser issues like liens that had no been cleaned up.

Well, the deed stuff just needed a quick claim deed signed by the previous owners. Well, that is if you can find them.. and then IF they will sign.

Day 1 ended up worrying if they were even still in the country! Some paperwork we pulled made us aware that being in Pakistan was a possibility.

Staci went on detective mode and through the Internet and a few sly data connecting, we had a pretty solid belief they lived in the area still, and we had an address and phone number.

Adding to the 'in our favor', our title lawyer, actually handled the settlement for the previous owners! So they at least had a history. Our lawyer called, and then visited the house, and explained the situation, and left the paperwork with the wife. We go for a full week without any real progress of knowing the intent of the previous owners.

Adding to the problem, is we have to be out of our apartment at the end of the month, which we were not able to extend. Which means, if we didn't settle, we'd have to move yet again...

So Friday the 17th was Armageddon Day.. something had to happen if we were going to make this happen. We needed at least some sort of knowledge of what was happening to get our next two weeks in line.

It started with Staci finding a work number for the previous owner (husband) which we had not heard at all from, after the lawyer had called and left the info at home. Staci called and left a VM. Crossing in the Ether... our Real Estate Agent calls saying there had been progress at the title company. What progress? Well it's complicated!

Our title lawyer is talking with a friend, who is another real estate agent/broker. He happens to know the couple we are trying to track down, and agrees to go over and explain the paperwork and situation to the couple. We get word back that they will sign the paperwork, but they want compensation in return! And this is Friday, and we still don't have an answer of WHEN they would sign it. So a flurry of activity.. and we are back on track to move forward, but we don't have the actual paperwork yet.

Fast forward to Monday night, our lawyer agrees to visit the couple's home at 9:30pm!! as that is the only time they can do it, and at 10pm, our lawyer has the signed paperwork! Progress finally!!! We are scheduled for settlement this Friday the 24th.

Great right? Well it's still more complicated!

I leave on a business trip for Europe TODAY.. I'll be away still during settlement, so Staci needs to do settlement on her own. Then last night, our real estate agent who has been incredible through this whole thing in terms of handling the legwork and keeping us updated... finds out her father unexpectedly passed away. So of course she's fully engaged with her own important business, leaving Staci to carry on these last few days. I know she can do it, but this one has been a wild ride! With 3 days till she's scheduled to sign all the paperwork, lets hope nothing else comes up!

oh and still no word on if the bank (the seller) will pay for any of the house issues found in inspection, etc. ugh