Well, not exactly. I had about an hour to savor our success before the bottom fell out. Our realtor called me in a panic with the bad news. It seems that the owner of the house we have been trying to buy had stopped paying his mortgage and he was being foreclosed on. In fact, his house was being auctioned off at that very moment. She advised me to drop everything and rush over to the house with a deposit check to bid on the property and I dutifully did just that, arriving within minutes of her call. Unfortunately, the auctioneer had already foreclosed on the property, buying it for the bank that held the mortgage. The house was no longer on the market.
Yep, you guessed it...this is the absurd part. Now that we have a buyer for our house, we have no house for us to buy. We've spent the past week trying to figure out if there's any way around this. Our realtor has tried to find out if we can buy the house during the foreclosure process but the prospects aren't good. The lawyers are all pointing fingers at each other and trying to assign blame for who dropped the ball here regarding the extension they were supposed to get from the bank. The seller is in serious denial about the whole mess. In the meantime, our buyers have requested that we reimburse them for their inspections and it seems that they'll be moving on. Sigh...so close to pulling this deal off and then it all turns to slime.
Craig and I were initially in shock (What do you mean, the house is being auctioned?), then in denial (Surely something can be worked out, right? After all, we had a purchase and sale agreement!), We've gotten mad (g#!*d#@&!!!!seller/bank/lawyers!!!!)and done some grieving (Kate is wearing sack cloth and ashes as she deals with the death of her dream for her own room). Now we're working on acceptance...we find ourselves once again in the position of hoping for the best (a miracle that will allow us to buy the house from the bank) and preparing for the worst (getting nowhere).
Wow, that's exactly how I felt when we were fighting to adopt each of our kids from KZ, especially Aniyar and Madiyar. It's also how I felt last year during the boys' very difficult first months with us. By comparison, this mess is a walk in the park. While we aren't thrilled about all the time and money we've lost trying to make this deal work, it's still just time and money. Our kids are all home, we're all safe and healthy, and we have a roof over our heads that we still really love. We're starting to think about making this house bigger...
My crocuses and daffodils are beginning to pop up in the garden. Soon the tulips that Craig and the girls bought for me in Amsterdam will be in bloom; they're a sweet annual reminder of our trip to adopt Max. We're taking a deep breath and moving forward, comforted by the fact that even the harshest winter is always followed by spring.
1 comment:
Oh my gosh, Dee. Wow. You're kidding, right?! Does ANYthing ever work out in the way it's supposed to for you guys? I mean, I know you generally get what you want/need in the end, but why always such a circuitous route?
Post a Comment