After making the final edits to the Season Finale script for last week’s post, I handed it to my husband to preview as he always does. He gave me that look with one eyebrow raised, and already I knew what he was thinking. “Are you sure. . .” I stopped him mid-sentence.
Mostly I like for stories to develop before I tell them. In fact, they have sometimes nearly fizzled out before I put pen to ink. Otherwise, by the time you’ve lived through the story and reveal the ending, it’s grandly anti-climatic.
Then there are those times where the superstitious side of me really shows through, and to write the story as it unfolds can only cause an interferance with fate, jinxing the ending altogether.
This time, just for grins I thought I’d let the story unfold in real time. Good or bad; no matter how it turned out.
* * *
Season Finale Review: our lovely, old home is under contract with four days left in due diligence, and four days remaining for our Buyers to walk away penalty-free. Meanwhile, my husband and I found the perfect ‘forever’ home, but our offer could not be accepted until the Trustee of the Estate returned to the U.S. to formally give us his nod of approval.
The Buyers had allocated just 15 days of due diligence – a relatively short amount of time to discover all there is to know about our lovely, old home. A whole-house inspection was ordered straight away. Copies of every permit and the Certificate of Occupancy (CO) were requested from when we stripped the house down to her bare, naked walls and rebuilt it to our specifications.
They called our contractor for a discussion about the leaning chimney, and the design of the roof angles. Another contractor gave his independent opinion.
A broad list of furnishings were requested for purchase. They sent us the inspection report, and we repaired the two (2) items identified for repair. . . and then things went quiet.
We knew something was amiss. We were finishing our glass of wine after dinner when our agent called. They had terminated the contract.
The next day the Trustee returned to the States and gladly accepted our offer to purchase the forever home.
* * *
My husband dealt with the disappointment expeditiously and moved forward. I sulked.
It seemed unconscionable that these two gentlemen would submit an offer the first day our home was on the market, keep it tied up for 15 days, put me through the agony of deciding whether to sell this or keep that, would it make a difference in their view of buying our home if they couldn’t have this perfect thing that fit perfectly here or there, and then tell us, “Oops, we’re sorry. We didn’t want this house afterall.” I fumed, and then I went for a very long run.
As it turns out, one of the Buyers was recovering from hip surgery, and perhaps they realized the last place they should live was in a 4-story home. They loved the house so much, and tried everything to make it work for them. . . but just couldn’t.
On the other hand. . .
The Buyer’s agent had offered us a copy of the appraisal, which came in slightly higher than our asking price. Perhaps they had hoped to negotiate the asking price using a low appraisal and a long list of repairs – neither of which had panned out for them.
Either way, it was over and we had to regroup.
Catherine, our selling agent, wasted no time putting our lovely, old home back on the market, and Julie, our buying agent, negotiated a slightly extended closing date on our forever home to give us just enough time for one more due diligence period, we hope.
Nonetheless, there will not be one further word uttered regarding the entire ordeal until this story has damn near fizzled out. To be continued. . . (at some later date).
The Fartlek 