Fortunately, today marked the day of the closing of the sale of a home which is the last of what I been plagued with these past several months. I’ve not so endearingly considered them “toxic” sales. There is no question in my mind that many in the general real estate field have not been involved enough with red flags that show up on occasions in title opinions which keep transactions from closing on time. Having been through enough of them over these long years, I can forecast what types of melt-downs there will be with agents, buyers, and sellers. Seems everyone wants to place the blame on someone else and often times the blame should only be placed on someone long ago making a wrong decision or oversight on matters affecting title. Many times the mistakes were made by people who are now deceased and one certainly can’t get any answers out of them. The only thing that I can do in most instances, is to perform as much extra research and present it to the parties who are working on getting the problems resolved so to keep the process of getting it to close as quickly as possible. There are times when the parties involved feel as though they’ve sacrificed time by waiting for something to happen, but in fact they should be glad there were people working diligently on the sidelines to clear title defects. About a year ago one of the title attorneys called and said, “Are you sitting down?” I said, “Yes. Why do you ask?” “Well” he said, “I think you are either going to throw up or want to collapse when I tell you about the title issues we have before us.” Yes, it wasn’t a pleasant journey getting that one to close, but it did, and I think even today everyone’s happy. I do enjoy challenges simply to keep the brain working, but to have a handful of them over these past 2 ½ months has been quite tedious and time consuming. I find it a bit comical when other agents call me about remarks on a title opinion and believing it’s something really bad when in fact it’s a cake walk to get corrected. I can’t imagine what some would do if they should encounter one of the grand-daddies of title problems on one of their sales.
About a month ago I sold a home to a young couple who had barely enough money to close on the purchase of their new home and were coming out of a rental where all the appliances were included. They happened to mention they were going to have to really watch the garage sales and Craig’s List offerings to try and get at least a stove and refrigerator for their new home. They’re now moving most of their things in and when I ran into them today, I asked if they’d found the appliances they needed. They said a friend gave them a decent refrigerator and another one was going to give them a stove but it was in poor condition and they didn’t think it was worth taking. I said, “I have a used electric stove in storage that’s a Maytag and in pretty good condition, so if you’d like to have it, consider it my house warming gift to you.” They were at the office today in about a half hour to get it, and beamingly happy by the sounds of it. They said my stove was in far better condition than what their friend was offering. Yes, I could have got maybe $50 – $100 for it if I placed it for sale, but I would much rather have someone in need have it for free. As I’ve said before, “A friend in need, is a friend indeed.” They’ve worked very hard for what little they have and certainly most deserving.
