Happy Dance

Well, we kind of closed last Friday. We just could not take possession or legally get the keys until the title company received the signed contracts via FedEx on Monday. 

Point of information: no lawyers are involved in house sales/purchases in Florida. Instead, an Unholy Trinity of realtors, lenders, and title companies process all house sales/purchases.  I hate to admit it, but I think the absence of lawyers is why house purchases are so complicated down here.  Duh… There are no overpriced legal superheroes to move things along or intimidate lesser beings with their legal expertise and authority. Consequently, you end up putting your hopes and dreams in the hands of entrepreneurs, egomaniacs and bean counters. It is kind of a crap shoot. I am finding that quite a bit is different in Florida. 

There was no advance warning that we would not get the damn keys on Friday. The notary who was doing the remote closing for the title company (located hours away in Fort Lauderdale) did not even know. But one of the last documents was a form for our realtor to sign stating she would not release the damn keys to us until the title company received the “wet signatures” of the signed documents.  In realtor world “wet signature” means the original signature.  Very descriptive, I think.  I use that term all the time now because I think it is cool. Wet signatures.  “Excuse me, I need a Wet Signature over here.”

Anyway, our lovely realtor had never heard of such a thing in all the closings she had done.  We had already wire transferred our down payment to them the day before so it was not a matter of seeing the money.  The signed closing forms were scanned and emailed immediately after closing.  They had what they needed to release the damn keys. The closing took place on Friday afternoon.  The FedEx package could not arrive until Monday.  The whole weekend would be lost. No one at that table could believe that we could not have the damn keys. We thought it must be a mistake.

Our lovely realtor called to clarify and get their approval to give us the damn keys so we could get in to the house over the weekend and start cleaning. The movers were to arrive on Monday.  Unfortunately, the lady at the title company was adamant that we could not be given the damn keys until the FedEx package arrived on Monday with the Wet Signatures.  Our lovely realtor asked to talk to the manager.

Then a heartless bitch with an attitude like you would NOT believe got on the line to read us the riot act. She said she was the owner AND the president of the company, ha! She acted more like the Queen of Sheba. She was horrible. I simply cannot believe someone that rude could own a successful company. I think she was lying about being The President and must just have been the clerk sitting next to the one who answered the phone. They probably play good cop/bad cop all day long and then laugh about it afterwards. Had we been in the same room with her (a room with an exposed light bulb hanging from the ceiling), I have no doubt whatsoever that she would have sucker punched our lovely realtor and kicked me to the floor. 

Our lovely realtor got in a huge and nasty argument on the phone with Ms. Monster Mouth (aka The President) over the damn keys.  Our lovely realtor was kind enough to put the phone call on speakerphone so we could hear both sides.  You should have seen the look on the notary’s face.  So what can I say?  I quite enjoyed it. Most fun I have had in months. I even managed to stay out of it. Really. I am not kidding. Well, I did yell something out at one point, but only one time. I am pretty sure that one “shout out” does not really count.

We moved in on Monday, right after getting the okay from The President. The movers met Tom at the storage unit at 3:00 pm and loaded up while I took the damn keys to the new house and cleaned furiously. The movers brought all our earthly belongings around 6:00 and were gone by 8:00. They did a great job.  

The past few days we have been nesting, buying odds and ends we need, opening boxes and putting things away. There are so many boxes. I am quite sure it will takes months, if not years, to empty them all. We have cable TV and internet – real fast internet, not like in the travel trailer. The long wait is over. We have a home.  Life is good. And it will be even better when the pool is functional.  I could cry I am so happy. But of course I don’t cry, so that’s not gonna happen.  

Cheers!