Screwed

For the first time ever, this is not a happy post.  I am going to vent.

We received an offer on our house several sometime in August from a married couple, both supposedly doctors.  We set the closing date for October 15th, packed our belongings (11,000+ pounds).  I cleaned every inch of the house and patched any picture holes and took care that the house was left in pristine condition. We left many extras that the buyers thought they might like - the freezer, lawn tools, garden furniture and pool accessories. The windows, driveway, roof and cabinets sparkled both inside and out. The floors were cleaned by me on my hands and knees. I rented a temporary small villa for six weeks ($2,550.) and hired movers to put our belongings into storage ($2,056.) until our new home was ready to be closed on December 2nd. I closed our FPL account, switched the pool maintenance system over to the buyers ID and forwarded our mail.

On October 15, the day of the closing, we learned the closing did not take place.  We were told it was due to 1) Aventura Hospital screwing up the buyers' dates of employment and/or 2) the Government shutdown had prevented the IRS from processing some needed paperwork.  As my parents would say, I guess someone thought we must have just fallen off the turnip truck to believe this Bubbe-meisa.

In good faith, we granted the buyers a week's extension. Everyday we were told that closing was imminent.  After all, the buyers has a Letter of Commitment from SunTrust, a large and reputable bank here in Florida. They also had $20,000. of earnest money in escrow and the required dates for any notifications of financing issues per the contract had passed prior to the original closing date.

On the final evening of the final day of the week's extension we were informed that the buyers had been denied a loan.  This told me that something very, very squirrely (lies) must have shown up in their background or credit history to have fouled the deal at the last minute. I do not believe it was due to an oversight or some minor "glitch" as Obama would say.

So here we sit in a cramped rental, our possessions in storage far away, having incurred $4,606 in unnecessary expenses, and having lost months of precious time when we could have secured another buyer.  We are also faced with the possibility losing the new home we purchased due to our reverse mortgage holder's requirements for owning multiple homes. Hopefully the beach condo will close on November 1st and avoid that particular problem.

Our damage is significant and I even took Valium to get to sleep. Hubby is also manifesting signs of stress in the form of a nasty skin rash which has been looked at three times by dermatologists.. Not exactly how I envisioned the first weeks in our retirement/senior citizen community.

I am insisting on taking every legal means to get the escrow monies released to us.  We have carefully read every word of the contract and feel we are entitled legally (and morally) to this amount. 

:-(