Kernersvegas

By now, I should've closed on and moved into my condo in Greensboro. Negotiations with the seller were quite brief and the inspection turned up little of concern. I knew when I made the offer that I was buying the most expensive unit in the community of about 200 condos, but I figured that it was worth it since there's steady demand for housing in that area and my unit would have a brand new kitchen, furnace, water heater, and even a gas stove for back-up heat. Unfortunately, it wasn't to be.

Bad news came back with the appraisal, which valued the unit at about 5% less than what I'd agreed to pay. The seller, who was not using an agent, had made noises that he wasn't willing to lower the price since he'd accounted for his renovations and a buyer's agent's commission in the price. At the same time, the mortgage company wouldn't lend me all of the money that I'd need to buy the place. I had a few options before me if I really wanted the place. I could pay for another appraisal, but that seemed pointless. The appraisal looked reasonable enough to me and my realtor's research revealed it to be so; it even appeared that the appraiser had tried to help me out a bit by using comparables at the higher end of the scale and looking at a very similar community about a mile away (Whilden Place) where units sell at consistently higher prices. Other options involved even more money coming out of my pocket and none of them were at all appealing; some even seemed ethically questionable, though legal. I decided to let the condo go on the grounds that it didn't appraise and I couldn't get satisfactory financing. It took about a week of my realtor's arm-twisting and my own hand-wringing to convince the sellers to sign termination papers on the sales contract, but they finally did and I look forward to picking up a check for my earnest money before the weekend.

During this drama, Leslie, my friend with whom I was staying in Kernersville, made me a very good offer to rent space in her house. A bit of budget forecasting showed that this would be a very good move, even after accounting for the additional fuel and car maintenance costs, and would provide each of us with a built-in pet-sitter.

I've spent the past week settling into my new digs, the large bonus room above Leslie's garage. She installed ceiling fans and a closet system and I've been dragging things out from storage to make the place homey. I brought Cilly to his new home and he is acclimating well and becoming acquainted with his new canine cousin, Leslie's dog, Emma.

With the housing question answered, I turned my attention to other law school housekeeping matters -- applying for student loans and purchasing a laptop. The loan applications are in and I hope to hear something soon. I'd assumed that I'd buy a Dell laptop, but I don't care for the looks of their current line. I'd seen some nice Hewlett-Packard laptops at Costco, so I compared prices around town. Costco's prices were about the best around (bested by Sam's by a few pennies, but beating hp.com by a few hundred dollars). I was still nervous about shelling out so much money for a computer with an operating system that I'd never used (Windows Vista) from a manufacturer with whose products I had little experience, but Costco has a good return policy for computers, offers technical support, and extends the manufacturer's warranty on computers that it sells, so I finally settled on configuring a system myself on costco.com and expect it to arrive soon.

Meanwhile, Chris has been having his own housing drama, but I can hear the fat lady warming up so a climax seems to be drawing near; he'll move into his new condo this weekend.

Though I've heard the -vegas suffix applied with varying degrees of admiration and derision to many -villes (particularly Nashville, to become Nashvegas), Kernersvegas is a particularly apt moniker for Kernersville for me, since Leslie moved here about a year ago from Las Vegas AND the fact that I'm about to roll the dice in the crap-shoot of life in a quite fabulous way. :J

Lien on Me

In order to avoid any confusion whatsoever, I'm gonna spoil the story that I'm about to tell by disclosing up front that my friend and ex, Jeff, actually did nothing wrong. Rather, he and I were the victims of coincidence and someone else's sloppiness and, in fact, he was instrumental in helping to put things right.

The closing on the sale of my house was scheduled for this week, so my realtor and I had been working feverishly to put everything in place so that all would go off without a hitch. I had already spoken to him once or twice when he called at mid-morning this past Monday (14 May) and asked a question that I never wanted to hear.

"Are you aware that Jeff put a lien for $10,000 on your house? That'll have to be paid before we can close."

The words echoed in my head and the cacophony grew until I thought my brain would burst. I was completely blind-sided and had no idea what to say, much less what to do. I walked outside, mobile phone in hand, to call Jeff, but decided to detour to the restroom so that I wouldn't have to endure a full bladder while having what I expected to be a contentious conversation.

Before I could get back outside, John called again to share additional information that he'd learned. "It looks like it wasn't Jeff that put the lien on the house. Someone sued Jeff and won a judgment against him and put the lien on the house when his name was still on it." This shed a different light on the situation, but it didn't really make it any better.

I called my buyer's attorney and spoke at length to her paralegal. She mentioned the name of the company that placed the lien, but had few other details. There was no other information in the judgment against which to match Jeff's middle name, date of birth, or other identifiers. She casually mentioned that the judgment contained only his name (a very common name which he shared with The (late) Frugal Gourmet) and address. I asked about the address and when she read it to me, I didn't recognize it as one where Jeff had ever lived. I went to the Web site of our county tax office and found that Jeff and his wife at that address. In a later conversation, the paralegal asked me if Jeff had ever been married to a woman whose name I recognized from the tax records. "Absolutely not," I replied. She confirmed that this was a case of mistaken identity and said that we'd just need to get Jeff to sign an affidavit that this wasn't his obligation.

So, now I had to get a hold of Jeff. I sent him an e-mail message. I called his mobile phone. I called his office. He finally replied to a text message, saying that he was in a meeting and would call soon. When I spoke to him, he met my recounting of the story with shock and indignation equal to my own. He promised to contact the attorney and help me to clear up the situation as quickly as possible.

I called my realtor to update him on the situation and then called the attorney to tell her that she could expect Jeff's call, but she was already on the other line with him. When I went the next day to sign my half of the closing papers, the paralegal told me that they had received from Jeff everything that they needed to remedy the situation.

What a scare! Though it's cleared up now, I'm outraged that a lien could be placed on my property without my receiving any sort of notice. I plan to contact the state attorney general to file a complaint against the company that placed the lien, Unifund CCR Partners of Cincinnati, but I wonder what action could be taken beyond a black mark in some record somewhere, since I suffered no real damages other than an hour or two off of the end of my life and a scorch mark on the ceiling tile above my work cubicle. :J

Turning Blue

To say that the past couple of weeks have been a flurry would be the metaphorical equivalent of saying that Katrina was a bad thunderstorm. (I don't mean to make light of the profound effect that the hurricane had on an untold number of lives, but rather to illustrate a question of degree in an apt and effective manner.) As I prepared to move house, guerrilla packing and schlepping gave way this past Wednesday to an all-out assault that lasted for four days.

I took off last Wednesday (9 May) to pack and prepare to move on Saturday (12 May). My friend, Leslie, had lent me her large pick-up truck and I thought that two days would be ample time to move the few belongings that I had left. As I buzzed about sorting, organizing, and packing, the folly of my accomplishing this feat in two days became desperately and excruciatingly obvious. I called my boss on Thursday morning and begged off for the rest of the week. During those four days, I cried; I clawed at my face; I wailed and gnashed my teeth; I kvetched to and sought sympathy from my neighbors, my family, Chris (who was just finishing up a stay in Manila), Leslie, even Jeff, and anyone else who'd listen. In-between my machinations, I managed to convey eight (8) truckloads of stuff to a storage unit (and filled it nearly to bursting) while five (5) truckloads found their way into Leslie's garage. Everyone has been very supportive and I am indebted to my friend, Ken, and my neighbor, John, for lending their time and labor and vehicles to my cause and to my friend, Leslie, for lending me her truck and giving me space to store my things as well as my dog and myself.

About 90% of the dirty work is now finished. I'm camping out at Leslie's place in Kernersville and I am relaxing a bit ahead of Wednesday's (16 May) closing. I worked calmly today, closing and transferring utilities and planning my budget. I picked up Chris at the airport this afternoon and spent a few hours with him and his family in Salisbury. Tomorrow, I'll be up and at 'em early to swing back by my house and collect my cat, Cilly, and take him to Lucky's Pet Resort and Day Spa for several days. I'll have a day of work at the office on Monday, a final day of work on the house on Tuesday, and closing on Wednesday. [fingers crossed]

I viewed several condos in Greensboro's Sunset Hills community and finally made an offer on one that had been totally renovated, including being kitted out this year with a new kitchen with a dishwasher [drool]. The seller and I reached an agreement, signed the contract, and now the mortgage documents are working their way through and an inspection is on the calendar. I expect to close on 30 May, but hope to begin moving in around 23 May.

Things are moving along at a quick, but smooth pace. Meanwhile, I'm turning blue from holding my breath, hoping that things remain smooth. :J