That's what happens to best laid plans, quoting from the original by Robert Burns, with a nod to my ancestors on the Scottish side of the family. For a while today there seemed to be a serious risk of that happening with the house sale. Plans had been "best laid" for closing in 3 more days, but then we heard from our realtor, and the title company rep, and the solar company.
It started with our realtor in a phone call telling us not to panic from her email.
Email? She sent an email that we missed? What's going on?
We knew that the buyer is an investment company. What we hadn't known is that they'd already sold it off before closing to a second company which sold it off to a third company. (So far, anyway.) Not our problem so long as the house sold without a hitch, right? Except....
There were problems with the solar company connecting with the proper most recent wannabe owner in order to properly transfer the contract on the panels to the people actually in possession of the house. The names kept changing. I kept getting emails asking me to e-sign documents to transfer the contracts, did the e-signing, and turned around to get another request. None of the company names meant anything to me so it was only in retrospect I sort of noticed the names were different. I was paying more attention to the dates referred to for the contract I was to sign, since there were two, years apart.
We had already arranged with the title company for a notary to stop at this house this afternoon so Steve and I could sign the 5 tons of paperwork that goes with selling a house. Only in blue, of course, because nobody could fake that with a color copier, right? We were given a window of time within which it would be set up. So most of our realtor's call was to inform us we should go through with our signing this afternoon. If the latest LLC in the buying chain didn't get around to signing the transfer documents, our realtor and the title company connection would be sure that they were not authorized to buy the house. That firm stand would keep us for having to continue payments on the system without having any benefits or control of what happens with it in the future. But sign now, so our side of the documents could get Fed-Exed down to AZ in time for the scheduled signing Monday.
Meanwhile as I was scouring emails to be alert and ready for any new developments, I got a weird one from the solar company, telling us not to do something which totally perplexed me. It started "Voided. Action Needed." Say what? It wasn't a request to e-sign anything. Those are simple to run through. Was it a refusal by a buyer to take over the solar, something our realtor warned about? What kind of action is needed and by whom and when? Jargon jargon jargon. I forwarded it to our realtor, but haven't heard back. Meanwhile the solar company followed that up with a request to answer a "satisfaction level" survey, between 1 to 5 stars.
How do I come back with "What the heck are you talking about?"
Our scheduled appointment with the notary was in a window between 11 AM and 2 PM. We were already in that window with no contact from him when the alarms about possible glitches started sounding. Steve overheard just enough of my side of the conversation to get worried, so I handed the phone to him so he could question the realtor. We still hadn't seen nor heard from the notary as the end of the window approached, so Steve went for a nap. By the time our supposed window closed, I contacted via email the woman from the title company who'd set it up letting her know that so far he was a no-show. She emailed back that he'd told her he'd "personally spoken to the sellers letting us know he was going to be here at 2:30."
My reaction to that? "Oh, so we have a C.Y.A. Fibber! Good to know."
At 2:30 he finally did call, informing me his last appointment had run extra long, and he was just getting in his car up in North Branch and should arrive in 20 minutes. That turned into about ten after 3, when I woke Steve to come out and sign stuff. We signed, he notarized, explained what a couple lines of legalize meant when we had to say either it was a true or false statement about the transaction, and left a little after 4. On his way out, finishing packing all the pages together, I asked him when the local Fed EX closed.
He hoped it wasn't yet.
Does Fed EX rush documents across the country on weekends so they can arrive in time for our scheduled closing? Or will this also "gang aft agley"? I guess we'll find out Monday.
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