Misadventures in Real Estate

A Letter of Discontent

I did not find this house for you; you found it all on your own.  But you did ask me to help you with the transaction.  And yet almost immediately, I detected a sense of irritation and resentment from you.  I first noticed this when I was preparing the offer which we had already negotiated verbally.  You seemed to resent having to use a contract at all – You're above all that pedantic rigamarole.  I realize that you acquired several properties back in the ‘70s and ‘80s without contracts, but the only way this can ever be done is with the understanding and agreement of the seller.  We surely did not have that here.  No, this seller expected a closing, with all of its accoutrements.  Maybe after contract execution, you could have arranged for the seller to sign the deed, in the driveway, on the hood of your car.  But it just so happened that from the time the contract was signed until the day before closing, the seller was out of the country.  Everything went through the seller’s agent. And I can assure you, without the seller’s direct involvement, the listing agent would never allow this.  No escrow; no way to insure her commission.

So as the closing is typically arranged by the buyer, as soon as the contract was signed, we immediately started talking about a lawyer.  I arranged for my usual attorney to handle the transaction.  You said you did not want to pay for title insurance.  Okay fine, whatever.  Then you said, you did not want to pay the attorney to do a title examination – You could and would do it yourself.  But when I told you that I thought any competent attorney would do their own title examination no matter what, you flipped out.  And promptly told me, with the venom that only you can muster, that that was absurd.  That conversation and all future conversations went downhill from there.

That was the middle of May 2019.  I have not had a pleasant conversation with you since.

I can only imagine what you wanted.  A third-rate pettifogger to only draw the deed.  I am sure they exist but I do not know any, and I felt this was outside of my purview.  If you wanted one, you could have found your own.  And yet…

On May 24, during another testy conversation you asked me if I thought you should reach out to the listing agent to inquire about an attorney.  I told you that you were welcome to shop around for an attorney.  But that I chose my attorney based on a combination of competence and price.  I then requested that you not call the listing agent for this or anything else.  I told you that it would make you look bad and it would make me look really bad.  That is a direct quote.  So without my knowledge and behind my back, you called her the very next business day.  And you were deceitful about it, never mentioning it to me.  Not even during the three hours that I spent with you the very next morning.  I suppose you thought I would not find out.  But of course the listing agent, sheepishly, told me.  She was obviously embarrassed to tell me – Embarrassed not for herself, but rather embarrassed for me.

There is only one reason that a client contacts the agent on the other side.  That is because they do not trust what their own agent is telling them.  That's it and everyone in the business knows it.  And to my knowledge you never called anyone else.  I mean you could have called every agent and attorney in the Triangle.  But no, you only called the one person I asked you not to call.  No one else; you confirmed this yourself.  Now to me, this proves that you were not, in fact, really interested in finding a cheaper attorney.  If one thinks about this, one does begin to wonder if the actual goal was to simply make me look bad.

(For those readers who need me to be meticulously accurate on this point:  You called the listing agent for a referral to an attorney.  She gave you one and you did call that attorney.  So I guess that is technically two phone calls.  You also called my sister, a former attorney, for a referral.  She also gave you one, but you were not interested enough to call that attorney.  So again, technically, that is three phone calls.  But the problem was only the one call to the listing agent.)

I could forgive the actual phone call.  But you paid no regard to my simple request and were deceitful about it.  Demonstrating a total lack of regard and respect for me.  And so it became just another exploit in your protracted arc of misbehavior.

After that it was trench warfare all the way to closing.  Every little thing was a bitter fight.  With accompanying and palpable venom.  I would have withdrawn from the transaction but felt obligated to see it through – You blamed me for everything and I did not want you to be able to blame me for losing the house.  I could continue with a play-by-play, but I don’t see the point.  I have already left much out, but this is enough for the reader to get the flavor of it all.  It went on day after day, week after week.  You did not have a bad day, or a bad few days, or even a bad couple of weeks.  In fact, it went on after closing and through July. And I assume to this very day.

It was intentional and malicious conduct.  You made a conscious decision to act this way.

~~~

I have to admit that I was caught off guard by this.  All of it.  After the experience in February and March with the Randleman house.  There, again, you found the house yourselves.  But I helped you to put it under contract and advised on due diligence.  And based on the due diligence, you decided to terminate the contract.  Following my advice, you were able to do so without any contractual expense.  In other words, you were extremely well-served and well-advised.

So going into this house, I expected a similar experience.  That was naive.  So what was the difference?  I think the problem in a nutshell is that you decided to purchase a house for cash when you did not, in fact, have enough cash to purchase it.  And this of course created a lot of problems, large and small.  I think in your minds, I should have done more to solve these problems, and in any case, been more sympathetic to them.  Well I did solve the underlying problem; you just did not like my solution, although it was perfectly reasonable, attainable, and affordable.  As for being sympathetic, by the time this came to light, after you had insisted on (no...demanded) moving the closing up as early as possible, I was way beyond sympathetic.  Had I known there was any possibility of a loan, I would never have acceded to your demand to move the closing forward.  So this rather significant hurdle – your lack of necessary cash and its ramifications – you blamed this on me.  There was simply no one else to blame.  In your minds, everything that one need do in order to purchase a house became a lost opportunity to help you save money.  Or even an attempt to cheat you.  I was, after all, the one telling you each and every thing you needed to do. And you resented every bit of it.  Like any of it was going to make up for your six-figure deficit.

(And let me just add this:  I have no idea how you ultimately raised the cash.  But do not even think of blaming me for your choices.)

I could go on and on, but let me skip to the chase:  You believed and continue to believe that your conduct was acceptable.  This includes your ill-conceived and reckless decisions, your malicious and perfidious behavior, and your oh so venomous attitude.

Decent people would be ashamed of themselves.  Clearly you are not.

And this is unlikely to change, as the whole experience was reminiscent of your abusive behavior when I was a small child.  And similarly, you continue to believe that was acceptable.  I can assure you that it was not.  Yet decades later, you remain wholly unrepentant.

I did not learn or experience anything new in 2019; your abuse was all too familiar and you remain untrustworthy.  But after fifty years, I did decide that a new response is required.  All these months later, I stand by that decision.

~~~

Again, the above is NOT a full accounting of the problematic events of May, June, and July.  Examples of items not included:

• Your desire to move stuff in before closing and the seller’s response.
• Your last minute request to move the closing back (after insisting on moving it forward).
• The many acrimonious conversations about how much money you would need at closing, how this figure is determined, and how to get the money to the attorney.
• While this was never discussed, I am sure you wanted to short-pay the attorney (his fee), because after all, the attorney did not do anything. Like I would ever allow you to waltz into my attorney’s office and piss on our long-standing relationship.
• My offer to apply the whole buy-side commission to the purchase.
• Your completely petulant attitude and demeanor at the closing itself.
• Your uninvited, unannounced, and most importantly, unapologetic, visit to my home three weeks after the closing.

Oh, and one final note:  It is worth remembering that you did walk out of the closing with a deed to the property.  Not a trivial point.

This was an incredibly easy deal.  Your cash issue was solved easily enough, and you decided to forgo any real due diligence.  There was literally nothing to fight about.  Yet for some reason, you chose to make this acrimonious.  For as long as I live, I will never understand that.

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