Saturday, November 5, 2016
Pictures from our Utah/Wyoming Trip
The girls and I flew out the weekend before Brian drove to join us. That was nice of him, huh?
Here's the view from the guest house in the barn we slept in. The better people slept in tents. I was a single mother serving two children so I got the house pass. All this is my cousin's land that he farms. So beautiful.
Here's a view of Heather and John's house from the balcony of the barn guest house at 6 AM.
Indiana is Heather and John's daughter. She and Scarlett (2nd cousins) really hit it off. Wherever Indie was, I was sure to find Scarlett. So cute.
And let's not forget the pony rides. Scarlett was very nervous, but I think she enjoyed herself a little. I was ecstatic!
Alice was so good and calm while we rode Goldie. She adores any animal.
We visited Sarah's new house in Farmington.
And decided to stop for some Farmington Station shopping on the way home.
We went to the Weber County Fair with Grandma Maureen
Right before church with the Greens. Yay Brian's joined us!
Ditched the children for a double date to Laser Tag and Arcade games at Fat Cats.
Morning Tea
Temple Date
LAGOON with our Green cousins.
Green Family Pictures. I almost pulled all my hair out, but these two finally agreed to get it together at the last second.
Tried on Maureen's blonde curly extensions. Tada! Long hair in two seconds!
Drove the 20 hour drive back home. Yech. They did well, though. Alice woke up every time we stopped to gas up, but she would always float back to sleep. It was rough on Dad though, he doesn't sleep well in cars.
Saturday, October 22, 2016
Shotgun Home Owners
In the last part of our Utah trip we had a few stressful phone calls with our landlady in Iowa. We had called her before our vacation because our kitchen sink was dripping a bucket a week, something in the plumbing had a hole. She had decided to come while we were in Utah visiting family. She lives in a trailer in Mission, TX 20 hours' drive away from Iowa City.
Before Brian drove out, she mentioned that she was planning to sell the house after we were done renting. She was getting too old and tired to take care of the house anymore --although she doesn't really do much with it. She comes once a year and checks in, has some Dr.'s appointments, and "organizes" downstairs.
She called us with a few concerns about the house that we thought were really strange. There were volunteer trees growing by the fence, the fan wasn't working in the bathroom, she couldn't find anything downstairs in her piles of stuff. She was upset, like we'd never observed before in her easy-going manner.
It was so awkward, all I could do was apologize and promise to change, and sit there and let her lecture us about things we honestly didn't know about (or CARE about).
So after a day and night of stomachaches, we came up with the solution. Why don't WE buy the house? Be our own landlords?! Yes! So we called her the next morning, apologized like sweet submissive children, and said, "We're thinking we would like to buy the house. How much are you selling it for?"
She gave us a number we were hoping for, $130,000 and we told her we'd think about it and call her back. So yeah, we talked about it, starting applying for loans to see if we'd qualify, and gave her our acceptance the day before we drove back on our all-nighter to Iowa.
After that difficult, yet manageable drive through-the-night home, we slept into the afternoon.
That day we met grumbly Mona downstairs. She gave us the abstact, told us that this sale was "As Is", said she wasn't going to pay any closing costs, and told us she planned to sell her china hutch but would let us keep the table and chairs, and all the appliances downstairs--there is a whole apartment down there with a kitchen, living area, and two bedrooms.
As first time buyers, we didn't really know what we were agreeing to with the closing costs, but we figured we were getting a good deal and Mona seemed like she had no intention to negotiate further, so we agreed and she left that day to head back to TX to care for her husband, who isn't in the best of health right now.
While we started recovering from our vacation (geesh), Brian started hunting for Real Estate Lawyers in the area so we could get a purchase agreement together for Mona to sign. Easier said than done! We got our lawyer and he got our paperwork together and we snail-mailed it to Mona, because she doesn't work well with emails, scanning, or the like. Glorious. A week later she finally received our expedited envelope that must have gotten looked over by the USPS. She called me and left me a nice angry message saying, "What part of "As Is" do you not understand?
She was annoyed and confused by all the paperwork she had to fill out (Ground Water Hazard Statement, Lead Paint Disclosure) and could not believe that we planned to pro-rate the taxes starting July 1st. She said she wanted to get the 130,000 and walk away, and that we needed to cover those FOUR months' taxes that we were paying her rent for! What? That was super annoying. She was also very surprised we weren't buying the china hutch from her and said, "You know the hutch and table are a matching set. I was never planning on giving you the table." That was obvsiously not what we heard.
This is when we had our lawyer intervene. She was not willing to pay for anyone to represent her in this deal, so we bent her way once again and paid our lawyer to dually represent us. It was really the only way it would have worked, because she required a lot of babysitting and coaching throughout our closing process.
So after some heart to heart with a man from her generation, she and our lawyer figured out a new peace treaty--er, purchase agreement--and this time she would print it out from an email and mail it to us. We ended up giving her an extra 30 days beyond closing to move out (in case of a hospital stay with her husband) and planning to pay her prorated taxes. So, basically we won nothing but things were finally moving along.
I stewed on our losses for a while, working up the courage to ask her to not charge us rent for October for the two weeks before we closed, since we felt like we were unfairly paying her property taxes twice. The phone call went surprisingly well, she was in lighter spirits; she was already planning on not charging us for October and she reassured me that she'd only take those 30 extra days if Jim (husband) was in the hospital. Phew. Thank goodness. A good encounter with Mona.
We were all set to October 14th. We had paid for an inspection, done SO MUCH paperwork, budgeted for escrow-a year's worth of homeowner's insurance, had an appraisal by the bank, all that was left was to sign the deed. Then Mona called me the week previous, leaving me the message, "Listen, we need to change the closing date. My mother just died, and the funeral is October 15th." Cue the ulcers. Great, on one hand I felt really bad for Mona, she has really been dealt too many cards these past couple months. Then, I thought about the extra time we'd be giving her to move out. By now, I was so done bending over backwards for this transaction.
After my initial freak out and 2 hour paralysis, Brian encouraged me to talk with the lawyer to see what our options were if Mona wasn't in town for the closing and how moving the date would effect her move-out date. Dell said she just needed to sign the dang* paperwork and then we'd wire her the money, and that he didn't expect her to be in town at all anyway. Okay. So I took a deep breath and called Mona. She of course told me all about her mother's surprising death (she often tells me all about her troubles when we talk, Brian hates the small talk), but then asked if we could move up the closing date because she was going to be in town on Monday Oct 10th. I was getting more relaxed as the conversation went on, it didn't seem like she wanted to move our timeline back any further, but just couldn't be in town the same time as the funeral.
So the Monday she was in town, I drove her over to Dell Richard's office to sign the rest of the paperwork and mainly, the deed. She didn't think she could drive and park her truck and large trailer, so we carpooled with kids and all. The girls and I hung out loudly in the foyer while she whined and signed. It was weird, but many things about this sale are weird, right? Closing went pretty smoothly. Her husband had to overnight a notarized signed copy of the deed, but that came in time. YAY! At the bank, we signed lots of papers and put all our money into the house and closing. It was crazy.
Since then, we've only had friendly encounters with Mona. She is back here moving and cleaning her stuff out--trying to give it to us, down to her mom's old shoes, and we're hoping she will be done and out of our lives in a week or so. Then the renovation begins!
After that difficult, yet manageable drive through-the-night home, we slept into the afternoon.
That day we met grumbly Mona downstairs. She gave us the abstact, told us that this sale was "As Is", said she wasn't going to pay any closing costs, and told us she planned to sell her china hutch but would let us keep the table and chairs, and all the appliances downstairs--there is a whole apartment down there with a kitchen, living area, and two bedrooms.
As first time buyers, we didn't really know what we were agreeing to with the closing costs, but we figured we were getting a good deal and Mona seemed like she had no intention to negotiate further, so we agreed and she left that day to head back to TX to care for her husband, who isn't in the best of health right now.
While we started recovering from our vacation (geesh), Brian started hunting for Real Estate Lawyers in the area so we could get a purchase agreement together for Mona to sign. Easier said than done! We got our lawyer and he got our paperwork together and we snail-mailed it to Mona, because she doesn't work well with emails, scanning, or the like. Glorious. A week later she finally received our expedited envelope that must have gotten looked over by the USPS. She called me and left me a nice angry message saying, "What part of "As Is" do you not understand?
She was annoyed and confused by all the paperwork she had to fill out (Ground Water Hazard Statement, Lead Paint Disclosure) and could not believe that we planned to pro-rate the taxes starting July 1st. She said she wanted to get the 130,000 and walk away, and that we needed to cover those FOUR months' taxes that we were paying her rent for! What? That was super annoying. She was also very surprised we weren't buying the china hutch from her and said, "You know the hutch and table are a matching set. I was never planning on giving you the table." That was obvsiously not what we heard.
This is when we had our lawyer intervene. She was not willing to pay for anyone to represent her in this deal, so we bent her way once again and paid our lawyer to dually represent us. It was really the only way it would have worked, because she required a lot of babysitting and coaching throughout our closing process.
So after some heart to heart with a man from her generation, she and our lawyer figured out a new peace treaty--er, purchase agreement--and this time she would print it out from an email and mail it to us. We ended up giving her an extra 30 days beyond closing to move out (in case of a hospital stay with her husband) and planning to pay her prorated taxes. So, basically we won nothing but things were finally moving along.
I stewed on our losses for a while, working up the courage to ask her to not charge us rent for October for the two weeks before we closed, since we felt like we were unfairly paying her property taxes twice. The phone call went surprisingly well, she was in lighter spirits; she was already planning on not charging us for October and she reassured me that she'd only take those 30 extra days if Jim (husband) was in the hospital. Phew. Thank goodness. A good encounter with Mona.
We were all set to October 14th. We had paid for an inspection, done SO MUCH paperwork, budgeted for escrow-a year's worth of homeowner's insurance, had an appraisal by the bank, all that was left was to sign the deed. Then Mona called me the week previous, leaving me the message, "Listen, we need to change the closing date. My mother just died, and the funeral is October 15th." Cue the ulcers. Great, on one hand I felt really bad for Mona, she has really been dealt too many cards these past couple months. Then, I thought about the extra time we'd be giving her to move out. By now, I was so done bending over backwards for this transaction.
After my initial freak out and 2 hour paralysis, Brian encouraged me to talk with the lawyer to see what our options were if Mona wasn't in town for the closing and how moving the date would effect her move-out date. Dell said she just needed to sign the dang* paperwork and then we'd wire her the money, and that he didn't expect her to be in town at all anyway. Okay. So I took a deep breath and called Mona. She of course told me all about her mother's surprising death (she often tells me all about her troubles when we talk, Brian hates the small talk), but then asked if we could move up the closing date because she was going to be in town on Monday Oct 10th. I was getting more relaxed as the conversation went on, it didn't seem like she wanted to move our timeline back any further, but just couldn't be in town the same time as the funeral.
So the Monday she was in town, I drove her over to Dell Richard's office to sign the rest of the paperwork and mainly, the deed. She didn't think she could drive and park her truck and large trailer, so we carpooled with kids and all. The girls and I hung out loudly in the foyer while she whined and signed. It was weird, but many things about this sale are weird, right? Closing went pretty smoothly. Her husband had to overnight a notarized signed copy of the deed, but that came in time. YAY! At the bank, we signed lots of papers and put all our money into the house and closing. It was crazy.
Since then, we've only had friendly encounters with Mona. She is back here moving and cleaning her stuff out--trying to give it to us, down to her mom's old shoes, and we're hoping she will be done and out of our lives in a week or so. Then the renovation begins!
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