Wednesday, December 31, 2008

Tempting fate

When you are dying to get some closure and be done with a house sale, what you don't want to have happen is for the phone ring on Christmas Eve and hear that your realtor has bungled a simple form so completely that he has put the sale of your house at risk. Want to know what else is no fun? For your real estate lawyer to vanish completely when he is most needed and to find yourself navigating a really bad situation alone, despite the fact that you are paying through the nose for these professionals to represent you and be on your team.

This was why our Christmas wasn't what I'd call relaxing.

Basically, our realtor forgot about a form that's required for the condo sale to go through, a form that had to be signed by at least two of the other owners in our condo association (but somehow he thought he only needed one signature). In the process of scrambling to get this form signed a few days before the holiday, the realtor somehow managed to piss off one of the units so badly that they refused to sign the form. He also tipped off SMTT that the house was about to be sold and she declined to sign the form. Our lawyer, the one we were paying to help us with events such as these, promptly vanished. We actually never heard from him again, except when he sent one of his minions to the closing to notarize documents.

After days of panicking and feeling completely disempowered and getting no sleep whatsoever, we finally consulted a lawyer friend, without whom I don't think the sale would have gone through. He helped us understand our rights in the situation and suggested how we could move forward, and on Sunday night we finally got the signature we needed. At the closing on Monday, the lawyer and realtor dropped the ball again and so the sale wasn't legally on record until Tuesday morning. But it's done. Closed. We deposited our check and handed over our keys. Our relationship with that condo is over.

Yet for some reason I don't feel closure. I am still grappling with so much anger, frustration, and resentment over what happened and these are feelings that I don't particularly want to be feeling. I want to be letting go and cleansing myself of all the negativity that we experienced since October. I am trying to focus on our new place, which we LOVE, how happy we are here, and how we can now focus on preparing for the bean. But mentally I'm still putting nails in SMTT's tires and upbraiding the realtor and the lawyer. I need a ritual or something to put this behind me--any suggestions?

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