Updates and Closing....

A lot has happened since our last post. We were putting out fires to prepare for closing and didn’t have time to write about it. So, here’s a recap of our past week.

Starting on Tuesday, I got a call from our realtor. He somehow misplaced Alec’s $1500 earnest money check. Yes, he misplaced a $1500 check. So, Alec had to call and cancel his check from his bank. At the same time, I had to go to my bank and get a cashier’s check for that amount. Our realtor came to my office to pick it up. This was the first time I had met him in person. I joke that it may have been a good thing that he lost the check so that I could meet him and know he was real. We kept wondering if we were somehow being scammed having only had conversations over the phone with our realtor.

After that was resolved, we got the HUD-1 Settlement Statement on Wednesday. Our realtor never bothered asking me what I do. If he had, he would’ve known that I educate people on homeownership for a living. So, I listened politely as he described pro-rated taxes and HOA. We were paying two months of HOA at closing. Somehow, the closing attorney had the HOA amount to be $295 per month, $45 more than we were told. We already dealt with the fact that the HOA was $50 more than the realtor advertised on MLS, so we were getting annoyed that the HOA was now showing almost $100 more per month than we originally thought. I’m not sure how, but it fell on me to resolve the discrepancy between what we thought it was and what the attorney had on the settlement statement. Of course the property manager for our building was out of the office; however, I did get in touch with someone else at Solid Rock Property Management that was very helpful. She emailed the head of the HOA to verify that it was the $249 that we thought, which was confirmed. We decided to go close with the incorrect amount and to just get credited for it in month three as to not delay closing.

We closed Friday at noon. A few signatures and handshakes and we were finished. One of my best friends, Tine, was going to be in town on Saturday, so we decided to have wine and cheese in the common area with friends to celebrate. We had church friends, Rock Hill friends, and a co-worker over. The weather cooperated and it was a beautiful evening on the patio with friends. After wine and cheese, we tried Savor on Morehead, which is on our new side of town. Great atmosphere, decent food, but three hours from start to finish. We’ll probably give it another try.

Life is good. Let’s see if I say that after the renovations begin…