The trouble with banks

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned how difficult it can be to deal with banks when buying a foreclosure! My realtor said that banks are just not equipped to be the sellers of homes. And this is why I agree:

When our offer was first accepted, the bank waited a day and a half to get the paperwork over to my realtor (you only have 48 hours to sign a purchase and sale agreement and return it to the seller). That caused me to have to frantically rush out of work to sign papers at the last minute. They insisted on closing in 5 days, which was crazy—barely enough time to get all the legal issues sorted out. So we spent 5 days frantically getting things in order; we asked for an extension and they refused. Then, the evening prior to the day we were supposed to close, they decided to push out the closing for another 2 weeks. Head—> desk.

The bank was a pain throughout the 2 weeks, not answering questions and being generally unhelpful. And then when the closing rolled around, they didn’t send a representative! We had to wait around while our lawyer tried to make the last-minute changes they were insisting on over the phone and via email. The bank was refusing to pay the $200 of back association fees they owed. Eventually they worked it out and they did end up paying up, but we weren’t able to “officially” own the home on that day because we had to wait for the paperwork to be overnighted back and forth.

The day after closing came and went, and I didn’t find out ‘til later that evening that our lawyer had indeed made it to the Registry of Deeds to make everything official. Apparently the seller had asked for another extension to have more time to do paperwork! My lawyer said no, because that is just not normal to do when a closing is half done, but I think it’s sort of appalling that they would ask that. I don’t know why the owners of these foreclosed homes have to drag their feet about selling them. You’d think they’d want to unload the properties.

In the next post: the highly-anticipated interior photos!