Simply Befuddled

Some processes are so painful that you go through them once and you say to yourself, “Never again!” The first two times I was involved in the home buying process, it was horrible, but nothing compares to the hell we went through when we bought our current house. Anything that could go wrong did: the neighbor sued the builder over property lines, two trees fell on the house during the construction process, the floor plan wasn’t what it was supposed to be. I could go on for days, but that would constitute whining.

In short, over the years, I think I forgot how bad this process is. Or maybe it really is even worse now… or maybe a whole bunch of different issues because the property we are interested in isn’t owned by people, it’s a foreclosure being held by a bank.

First issue occurred before we even got home on Saturday from writing the offer. Our realtor emailed and said that she realized that even though we are already preapproved, we also needed to be approved by their bank (I guess that makes it “themselves”?). How incestuous, right?  So I gathered up all the paperwork and called them this morning. We were preapproved and I received our preapproval letter quickly.

Then our realtor hears from the listing agent that neither water nor propane is hooked up to the house, nor is it winterized. Funny, none of this was disclosed on Seller Statement! The agent was also kind enough to send along an estimate of what it would take to have propane connected. There are so many issues with that statement, where can I begin?

First, the house is NOT winterized? Then why is there a sign on the door of the home that says the house is winterized and to not touch the fixtures. One would assume that the agent put up this note, correct? The house has been listed for less than a week, could it have been dewinterized already? Doubtful.

There is a well on the property, but EN noticed that some wires or something seemed to be cut. I understand that the house is being sold “As Is,” but we need to get a home inspection done before getting a mortgage, how can we get a full inspection without knowing that water is able to run through this damn house?

Same point with the propane. If propane isn’t connected to the house, how can the furnace get tested? In this area of the country, one would NEVER be able to live in an unheated house. The foreclosing bank, who wants my mortgage business MUST be aware that a mortgage can’t be written for a house with no heat?!

This confuses me greatly. Do they want to sell the house or don’t they? One would imagine that they would want it off their books as soon as possible. Given that the quote for propane hook up was $1500, you’d think they’d bite the bullet and just do it, so it’s not a bone of contention. Same with the water hook-up. There are some things that houses just cannot be sold without.

Let’s just project into the future and imagine that EN and I were able to buy this house without having water and propane hooked up. We then go ahead and get everything hooked up and worst case, all the pipes in the house burst! Imagine, if you will, that fixing that mess costs us gazillions of dollars and we are unable to make our mortgage payments… to the bank that has already foreclosed on the house once before. Does this sound stupid and make no fucking sense to anyone besides me?!

I’m amazed that the bank would rather mess around with teensy little numbers, when they could just pony up the coin, get those things taken care of, and sell it. Stupid people run this world.

***I was once dealing with this stupid-sounding woman who had screwed up royally. As she tried to talk her way out of it, she said she was, “simply befuddled.” I vowed then that I would someday use that stupid word when I dealt with a situation that is beyond comprehension. Here we are. 

xoxo

Ice Princess