Saint Augustine Real Estate Blog

What happens when a deal goes bad ?

Let me tell you about this nightmare of a deal that closed yesterday and what I am doing for each Foreclosure deal going forward.
But first let me give you some background Information.

• My buyer is a first time home buyer, so this deal qualified for the tax credit
• We made the offer and our offer was accepted after a few counters
• We did our Inspection with in the contract time period.
• everything else were going on in the background , yes I do have work after the contract
• fast forward and five weeks later we are set to close on Thursday

Now, we are ready to close all issue have been worked out, Title, Financing and the closing date was set, my customer call me and ask if I would be willing and available for the finial walk, as he was out of State visiting with family.

• First I email the seller agent for access to the property including codes

The sellers agent replied with the codes and I was set, except when I arrived at the property the power was off, so I called the sellers office and ask if the power was on and was told after a few minutes that the power was not required after inspection and this is when I when into rocket mode

• Hello this is Florida , we have mold issues
• Second we purchase a as-is where-is deal but it still needs to be maintained up to the closing date
• Well, after my one hour drive south and about 12 phone calls I was at my computer firing off emails to the title company, sellers agent looking for a solution before I called my buyers
• Not only did they not offer a solution, I was told Fund or kill the deal and if your buyer kills the deal we will keep his deposit
• Yes we do have some wonderful caring people out there
• Now, I call my buyer and explain what was going on and how I was not able to sign off on this deal
• The buyer asked me again to email the title company and the sellers agent and ask for a Warranty on the A/C and Appliances
• So this was the finial email of the night and we are set to close at 9:30 AM

It must of been 8:00 am when the first call arrived from a very anger sellers agent, I again tried to explain to this agent that there was no way I was going to sign off to my buyer with out power to the property or Incentive (that right $$$$) to close

• It 9:30 AM and the closer arrive on time and ready
• My Customer calls and I still not willing to sign off and suggested that we stall the close until we can get an answer
• We all agreed that the closing will be at 5:30 PM same day

Again, I worked on this the whole day and when it was done the power was turn on and I finished the walk and the buyer closed.

After this experience I now write the following in each contract

• The Buyer requires the Power on and the A/C set to 80 Degrees or cooler until closing
  
• We will require access for Inspections and Finial walk
• Additional Access as needed with advance noticed