We have accepted a conditional offer to purchase for our country house. The conditions must be lifted within weeks, and then we will know if the deal will go forward. The country house had been on the market ten days when the first offer was made. If the deal remains intact, it will close at the end of August, which is when we will need to reside somewhere else. I got a little less for the house than I had wanted, but only a little less. I could have pushed for that little bit more, but I slept on it, and decided not to push hard, for no other reason than it felt right to accept the offer as it was. The person buying the house loves it, and will be happy here. So, you might say I put my money where my intuition is, I sold the house for a good price, far more than was predicted by the appraisal, but a little less than I had in mind. A home is more than just a financial investment.
Excitement, trepidation, and weariness!
So much can go wrong with a sale, so really, it isn’t over until closing, which is a long way away. I will be on kept on my toes for the next few months, as it falls to me to administer our interests in the sale!
Attila takes care of the physically demanding aspects of our existence together, and I take care of most everything else. It is a balanced approach, we both use our strengths, and have our weaknesses covered.
There are new complications with the camp lot. The man who owned the lot died some time ago. His wife did not hire a lawyer and transfer the deed. Then the wife developed dementia and entered a home. The daughter gained power of attorney, decided to sell the property, then (after she sold it to us) discovered that the deed had not been transferred to her mother, yet! So, the seller’s lawyer is scrambling to transfer the ownership, and then complete the sale. My goodness, estates are a real mess to deal with!!! Where it stands now is that it could take weeks more, even months more, for the necessary deed transfer to complete, and the sale to close. The universe is taking care of us though, I am sure… we just don’t understand how exactly.
My realtor says she deals with a lot of big dollar estate situations, and her advice to people with children is to sell before you go, and divide the money between your children… if you want them to speak to one another after you go! It has been her observation that some siblings, usually but not always the executors of the will, feel entitled to skim off the top for their perceived “sacrifices and services”, to which they attach a large monetary value. She says she has only seen one group of siblings remain on friendly terms after dealing with an estate situation. They apparently lost their parents when they were little, and relied on one another throughout life, so that they understood that no amount of money in the world is enough to justify greed, and the personal loss of loving relationships.
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Worldly Distractions
Weather
20°C
Date: 12:00 PM EDT Saturday 24 May 2014
Condition: Sunny
Pressure: 102.0 kPa
Visibility: 16 km
Temperature: 20.1°C
Dewpoint: 9.1°C
Humidity: 49%
Wind: WSW 11 km/h
Quote
“If you don’t risk anything you risk even more.”
Erica Jong
I think the sale will work out for you in the end. I feel a little anxious for dear sweet Mist. Moving house for a pet is quite difficult and they can’t tell us what they are going through. They don’t understand it all but must accept it and adjust… a lot to expect of a little kitty-cat.
Do you already have the mobile home or trailor (?) that you plan to live in if/when the property sale is finalized? Maybe if you need to, you could pull it up to someone’s driveway and plug into the outside outlets on the house. My in-laws did that here with us for an entire summer when they sold their home. They had an airstream trailer that they traveled in and lived in in Florida in the winters, but that first summer they lived in it, in our driveway… it was, let’s just say, “interesting” that summer…
Maggie, now you’re dealing personally with the part of life I deal professionally and I wish you all the best. Most of the time, things do work out, but if there aren’t at least a few hiccups along the way, we wonder what’s wrong and what we missed!
It’s always a pleasure to see a photo of Mist. I think the white muzzle is quite becoming.
Bex, yes we are thinking there will be challenges finding just the right home, so that Mist will be comfortable. We may move her down to the little house in the city for the week of the actual move out, she knows the little house, and likes it there, so it won’t be too traumatic. Bringing her back North will be the big change, but she responds very well to nice bowl of cold milk!.
We are not sure what we will do yet! We have not got a trailer or mobile home. I used to own an Airstream, but a windstorm brought 30 feet of tree top down on top of it and destroyed it, a few years ago. We will be leaving the country house, if the sale goes through as planned, in the autumn, which means cold weather. So, in mid-summer we will begin a search for a reasonably priced apartment, in the nearby town, close to shops, banks, and boasting a thermostat. But who knows what will come up between now and the autumn, things seldom pan out according to our plans.
Thanks Wendy! I am expecting those hiccups, part of the “fun” I reckon, as long as they are resolvable. Mist is flattered by your comment! She is a very vain feline, although she seldom admits to this. I think I detect a little added lilt to her step since I told her you find her white muzzle becoming!
That’s so good that plans look good for the sale of the country house. I hope things continue to go smoothly. (Yes, Mist looks so peaceful in that photo!)
Thanks Joan! The new owner was apparently over the moon that we accepted the offer, and I saw them slowly drive by the house this evening, I think they will be very happy here! It seems, so far, to be a win/win proposition.
Well, this couldn’t get much more exciting and we have front row seats! Love the kitty pic – so sweet. My eyes absorbed her with such tenderness. As always, I’ll be waiting for the next installment of Moving with Maggie.
LOL Reenie, life by installment certainly seems to be what we are doing at the moment. When my son-in-law was in the army he talked about long periods of boredom, interrupted by short bursts of intensity. Buying and selling property is a little bit like that, long periods where nothing is happening, with a few short periods of crazy busy.