Share your home buying horror stories!

[IBrakeforPastry]

Well, this isn't my story, but it might cheer you up. About three weeks after moving into a beautiful penthouse with a magnificent view, my brother-in-law decided to oil a few small tables, out on the rooftop terrace. He left the rags with linseed oil in a small metal bucket, as he had heard they could smolder, then went to hang out and relax on his boat for the afternoon.

Got called up by a vet a few hours later, who wanted to know if he was maybe the owner of this cat they had got in, with a little smoke in her lungs. Yup, the rags had ignited, the terrace had ignited, the full length windows had exploded in the blaze, the sprinkler system had gone off and the entire apartment was covered in soot and water and stank to high heaven. (The cat was fine!)

So instead of enjoying his lovely new apartment, he got to spend six months in his old teenager room, living with mom and dad while his apartment - and five more apartments below - were being renovated.

Way to make an impression with his new neighbors! What a shame, though, and I'm glad the cat was okay.

[NoNo]

Wow! Glad everyone was ok. I guess that's got to be just as heartbreaking: Going through this whole terrible process only to lose everything right after. And now I've learned something about linseed oil!

[Helene2013]

Quite a story!!!

I bought 3 houses and sold 2 (still in the 3rd one since 1992).

But when we sold our 2nd house, the guy had visited many many too many homes before. He came visit ours probably 4 times. I will spare you all the discussions about questions that were useless, and even his home inspector did not do the right checks!!! Oh well.

But the worst is that we're about to close and go to the notary (in Québec notaries do closures - not lawyers). We get a call from him...when he should have gone through his agent. He said he was not sure he could take the house as he no longer had a job. WHAT!!! He already had his credit approved, we were 2 days from changing owners. I can't back away from the one we just purchased, etc... I called my agent who call his agent. It was a mad rushing thing! He kept bugging us until we told our agent that we did not want to hear from him and only see them (the couple) at the notary for the sign off.

Long story short....he made it there and we were able to move on. But we were always afraid he'd come back to hunt us about a hidden vice or somethig...nope...all was good. whewwww!

But the stress level you can get to when you find something like this is unbelievable. Worst he still had his job...just different title, etc... I can still see him coming with his back pack (looked more like a student than an engineer!), checking out for couch sizes, wall sizes.... heck...you're buying a home that has a decent living room. If your couch won't fit...get something else and put this one in the basement. haha Would you believe it took him 2 visits...and hours wasted just to measure things like this!!! I do understand the need to have stuff fit. But there is a limit. You come out from a tiny apartment...into a decent bungalow. Certainly things will fit no???? argggh

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Ah while writing this...my nightmare in a few lines...we were young adults hubby and I (proabably 22-23) and moving into our 1st home. Family came to help. One brothers gets drunk and the other one is pulled over by the cops and arrested....because a friend of his use a small knife years ago...to damage a bench in a park. He had a search warrant on him but since he was living out of the province and never got arrested for anything, they nailed him.

So while I was trying to understand why he was taken in (we did not know anything at that time), the other "drunk" brother was almost making out in the u-haul with his girlfriend. arggggg The joy of moving sometimes!

Does that help you with our "humor". hihi

[SheFly]

We were moving from Mississauga, Ontario to Calgary, Alberta when I was a kid. Movers came and loaded all of our belongings onto a big 18-wheeler for the trip out. Somewhere in Thunder Bay, Ontario, the truck rolled over with our load, a car, and another household in the truck Much of our furnishings were destroyed, clothes (including my dad's underwear) strewn about the highway... It was a nightmare. Somewhere around 20 moves later, this one still sticks in my head.

SheFly

[ny biker]

Holy cow. I feel like I really can't compete here, and frankly I'm not complaining about that!

[NoNo]

I knew I couldn't be alone in this! Thankfully I'm only moving a mile away, so hopefully no chance of underwear being strewn across the road. Today I woke up at 4 with a terrible neck ache from sleeping on the futon. And by "woke up" I mean, gave up on the hope of sleep. I'm so used to having my own bed, this whole sharing thing isn't working very well for me. The good news is the mortgage company called last night and said I'm cleared to close, so the end is near!

[Pax]

Good deal!


When we were in the process of buying our current place here in FL, the mortgage company did everything in their power to make the process awful. Phone calls every day wanting "just one more" letter of explanation about our bank accounts (my mom had passed away and I paid many of the expenses while waiting for her life insurance to come in), after three weeks of their nonsense they sent us a packet of 75-100 pages of documents we needed to sign including a visa form to authorize payment for the appraiser... only to find the address of the property wrong on every page as well as multiple other mistakes. Thankfully we were in a position to switch our offer to cash; the mortgage people had the gall to seem surprised we no longer wanted to work with them.

[Trek420]

Way to make an impression with his new neighbors! What a shame, though, and I'm glad the cat was okay.

Glad the cat is fine. How're the bikes?

I'll post later when not on the tiny screen. My Yelp revue of our mortgage broker should just read thus;

"I deeply and daily regret not going through our credit union for our mortgage"

The rate was/is great but it was the worst customer service experience ever.

[malkin]

Late to this party, but here's another story:

We were working with our bank for the mortgage, and the loan guy misspelled my name which is Virginia to another word that starts with V, with many of the same letters, but with a two times and only one i. Perhaps an ok name for a porn star, and certainly a fine bit of human female anatomy, but not really what I wanted on my home loan. The bank insisted that it could not be changed. We went to another source for our mortgage.

[Wasp]

This moving in day horror happened to my best friend whom I helped move. After a rather nasty divorce my friend was finally getting her life together and moving forward. A huge part of her "new" life was her purchase of a really nice 3 bedroom home. Included in the sale was all window covers, kitchen appliances (fridge,stove,d/w) and washer/dryer. It was written into the sales contract pretty much the way I just wrote it. Moving in day arrives and upon arrival to the new house she invites us all in prior to unloading the trucks to check out her new digs. Everything was fine until she walked into the kitchen. The appliances she thought she was getting with the house were no where to be seen, instead the former owner had replaced all the appliances with second hand shop 20 year old miss matched appliances. The fridge was replaced with a bar sized fridge (white) the stove was a nice olive green 20 yr old stove, and the dishwasher replaced a really old almond coloured dishwasher which the inside had a huge amount of rust stains plus wasn't even hooked up. The full sized washer/dryer had also been replaced with apartment sized washer/dryer stack. Needless to say she was completely distraught and after many frantic phone calls the end result was she had no legal recourse because the sales contract did not contain any make/model or serial numbers of the original appliances. It only stated that included in the sale was fridge/stove/d/w and washer/dryer which was all there but total junk. Lesson learned!, need to be very specific about including details in a sales contract.

[Helene2013]

This moving in day horror happened to my best friend whom I helped move. After a rather nasty divorce my friend was finally getting her life together and moving forward. A huge part of her "new" life was her purchase of a really nice 3 bedroom home. Included in the sale was all window covers, kitchen appliances (fridge,stove,d/w) and washer/dryer. It was written into the sales contract pretty much the way I just wrote it. Moving in day arrives and upon arrival to the new house she invites us all in prior to unloading the trucks to check out her new digs. Everything was fine until she walked into the kitchen. The appliances she thought she was getting with the house were no where to be seen, instead the former owner had replaced all the appliances with second hand shop 20 year old miss matched appliances. The fridge was replaced with a bar sized fridge (white) the stove was a nice olive green 20 yr old stove, and the dishwasher replaced a really old almond coloured dishwasher which the inside had a huge amount of rust stains plus wasn't even hooked up. The full sized washer/dryer had also been replaced with apartment sized washer/dryer stack. Needless to say she was completely distraught and after many frantic phone calls the end result was she had no legal recourse because the sales contract did not contain any make/model or serial numbers of the original appliances. It only stated that included in the sale was fridge/stove/d/w and washer/dryer which was all there but total junk. Lesson learned!, need to be very specific about including details in a sales contract.

OMG. I never thought people would do such a nasty thing..I'll remember that one for sure if I ever get another home (or something that says : include such and such item!)

I remember when we purchased our 2nd home, we thought the alarm system was functioning. NOT! So we had to have it changed and it did end up costing lots of $

So when we moved into our current home, we had an architect do the inspection and he tested EVERYTHING that was checkable! Even run the water in the tub to check if the jets were working. Owners were going nuts. haha It was a $600 well spent! I would not be caught off guard again for some things...but never thought about people switching something when it was specified it would be included.

[ny biker]

Late to this party, but here's another story:

We were working with our bank for the mortgage, and the loan guy misspelled my name which is Virginia to another word that starts with V, with many of the same letters, but with a two times and only one i. Perhaps an ok name for a porn star, and certainly a fine bit of human female anatomy, but not really what I wanted on my home loan. The bank insisted that it could not be changed. We went to another source for our mortgage.

This is too awesome for words.

I would have written to the CEO to tell them exactly why I was taking my business elsewhere. Beyond the humor of the incorrect name, they were insisting on issuing a loan to someone who does not exist. None of your documentation -- pay stubs, etc -- would have matched the application. It's just mind-blowing.