Buying A House: C or D?

Gallipolli could come looking for ye

my great-grandfather got wounded there twice, therefore my family has paid our blood debt to the Ottoman Empire thanks

Well twasnt there peacekeeping he was so maybe be careful ordering any footstools just in case

We've been in our current (first ever) house for 16 years and really want a new one. Our tastes have changed (become more modern) and we want more room and a open floor plan. The problem is we don't want to leave our very small village, which is known for its old houses and small lots which limit our possibilities (there are about 5 modern houses in town). Back in August we missed out on a near-dream home by not going to our "limit" and have been kicking ourselves ever since.

Good luck to all the ilxors finding their new places because it can be tough! I have to remind myself that we are extremely lucky to even be able to have these kind of conversations.

I could use some advice. Our mortgage closed probably 1 month ago, and has already been sold/transferred to a large bank. The closing process is over. However, we cautiously transferred a little bit more than the estimated closing costs to escrow before close. I believe this is commonly done to avoid a delay in closing should a broker find a small bit over the estimate is required. We haven't received our refund from escrow yet. They've contacted me to say that a mistake was made, and they actually need $250 more to pay some fee that was left off of the original disclosure we signed. They want us to sign a new disclosure so they can remove the extra $250 from our escrow refund. In this case, I believe the broker would even be paying somebody else that falls under their same corporate umbrella. Would it be rude for me to just ask that we don't sign new closing disclosures and have them take care of this in-house? At best, somebody made a mistake with respect to a fee to be paid to someone apparently in-house. At worst, this is a scam they run to skim more money off of escrow refunds. I didn't even negotiate closing costs (as I've previously done) during the original disclosure because I knew that every broker was insanely busy due to the refinancing requests. Would you sign the new disclosure, pay the fee, and move on?

Whats 250 quid worth to you vs the forseeable consequences of not, i guess

I think “in-house” is nebulous when even among the same corporate umbrella they might be distinct businesses

$250 is not a small amount of money to me, but we will be ok without it at the moment. If I pay, it will go to an asset of Warren Buffett and its shareholders, who certainly needs it less than I. I suspect the only consequence for me would be a damaged relationship with this particular mortgage broker. To be honest, they may have already damaged that relationship by asking for it. It seems like something that maybe wouldn't be done to some people? I am willing to be talked out of that feeling as well. I am more concerned about screwing some cog in the larger Buffett machine that will need to admit a mistake, if that's what it would take. I probably should just be straightforward with the broker about how this is making me feel sour about everything but that I'm definitely willing to pay it if it means someone is being squeezed?

it wouldn't have been an issue at all if it came up in the original disclosure, obviously. It's just weird that it's happening now, after they've sold our mortgage to a large bank and know we had a little extra in the escrow account.

Cant spell escrow with screw iirc

ugh I am submitting long, poorly written posts about it now. I'm just going to email dude, and see if he thinks I'm an asshole for not wanting to pay them $250 for the opportunity to print out a bunch of documents, sign them, and send them back to him.

I also have to cross-check the documents to be certain nothing else changed.

Usually, the buyer doesn't even mess with the escrow account, unless they volunteer to pay a little extra each month.

Seems like the large bank would cover the $250 this year and then jack up your mortgage payment by $21 next year?

This is the kind of thing I would expect my realtor to pay in order to make it go away without cost to me. Realtors do that kind of thing all the time just to keep everyone feeling OK about the sale. Have you talked with your realtor about this?

That is what I'm going for. It's a flat fee to the real estate company (where we were the buyer). I asked them to not take it out of escrow and to have the real estate company bill me directly because I assume they won't want to do that.

it's just strange to make us go through the hassle of crosschecking the disclosures, etc., to pay this fee which is a small fraction of what they've already made from the deal. I wonder if it's a legal thing where some money needs to change hands for some weird liability reasons?

not liability but accounting reasons

hmmmm, but then they are still asking me to pay $250 to participate in the extra accounting paperwork they've created

$250 is ~standard if a new document needs lawyer review or for new printings/fed-exes for a closing. But if it's due to your mortgage being sold that is ???

Wasn't due to it being sold. Fee was just submitted late to broker after close. That is also weird since they are in-house.

IMO you shouldn't have to pay that, I'd argue it.

our escrow people fucked up the timing on our refi last month, which lead the old mortgage holder to fine me for a late payment. i complained to my mortgage broker who paid the late fee out of his own pocket as soon as i said "i'd find it very difficult to recommend this service to my friends". all the broker/agent types involved should be very motivated to keep you happy. the escrow people care much less. i would ask your mortgage broker or realtor.

generally don't go karen/threaten a yelp review on people at times like this, but basically everyone who works commission in the mortgage business right now is making once in a lifetime amounts of money for leaving voicemail and forwarding PDFs. also my refi guy tried to commiserate with me after the election because of its implications for our taxes.

thanks for the advice, all. I ended up taking the somewhat passive aggressive approach of refusing to pay it out of escrow, and instead requesting to be billed directly by the realtors. My hope is this scenario will force the realtors to reevaluate passing this fee on to us after closing. They may have been testing to see if we were willing to just sign anything put in front of us. Anyway, the mortgage broker and escrow people seemed to quickly waffle over to our side after I sent the short email. I think this will likely go away.

Bustle of activity this AM with a solicitor and a broker seems to have resulted in an estate agent receiving some sort of letter that we are actually serious adults who would actually probably be able to pay for a house now we are furiously walking about our apartment bumping into each other

brace yourselves for the surprise of having your offer accepted.

Well i wont!

👀

buying a house?

C iirc

Homeownership 103: Maintenance of Fixtures

I have replaced these toilet parts on previous occasions. But WHAT a pain to have to order the replacement parts and wait however long for them to be delivered, rather than going to a brick-and-mortar store to buy them.

The net experience of buying a house: C. But you WILL have to face up to all sorts of D events.

Had a brief scare today when scheduling the delivery of our new dishwasher because the woman from the hardware store couldn’t find whether I had paid for the “haul away (the old one)” service at first

In that panickly liminal stage where sale is agreed and contracts being sent for initial inspection, but final mortgage offers are awaited

Picking flooring, fixtures and paint options out with builder tho so yeah this feels like its happening alright?

C so far, tbh. Nary a hitch, he jinxed

Good luck and congrats?

Ty, ty

go deems, v exciting

congrats!

Congrats Big Man D

Congrats!
Last time we did this we had a buyer for our place who somehow managed to have a mortgage agreement with the one lender that routinely takes approx 2+ months to get the mortgage sorted. This was the least enraging thing about them too.

We're renting, this place isnt yet finished, all going well there's enough play in things that we dont get stuck in any mud

Thanks all, this is good imo

Is there a “Selling a house: C or D?” thread?

Update: the bank has said they'll give us some money if they like the home that we wanna buy.

Er, just have to find the home now.

Same, except contracts are with our solicitor

Its all a bit handy, dont like it

sellers of a place we were buying have decided, two months after we made our offer, that they don't want to sell after all. Cheers!

Oof

part of the fun

yeah we're looking at it that way, we'll get somewhere better. Obviously I hope the sellers rot in hell.

maybe their home will just rot

Now fully approved for mortgage, contracts are back with seller

As long as they manage to finish building this thing in the next four months it looks like a safe bet, this

Have we any threads about living in a country town have we

Moving out of Dublin going to be a change?