Share your home buying horror stories!

[NoNo]

I'm currently in the process of buying a house. A process that was supposed to CLOSE last Friday. Yeah, that didn't happen. My mortgage company completely messed things up. They didn't have paperwork, they weren't prepared, they weren't calling people back. In the mean time, I had packed a UHaul full of my stuff, including all my furniture. Once we figured out the deal wasn't going to happen, we had to unload the entire thing into a garage that my aunt lent. The kicker is that my parents are going to rent the apartment I'm vacating, so they've been living with me for the last three weeks. Now I have to share a futon with mom while dad sleeps on the couch (his choice), we have no tv, no internet. I have no idea when the closing will actually happen, but the thought of moving all that stuff again makes me shudder.

So please humor me. Tell me I'm not alone in this. What closing horror story do you have that you now laugh about about how you got your house?

[ny biker]

As my realtor drove me home from the settlement, he told me that he had spent the last several days on the phone with the mortgage people to make sure everything would be ready on time. The mortgage guy we had been working with had left town due to a family emergency and his staff was not picking up the slack. He told me they almost didn't make it, but he refrained from telling me about it so it wouldn't upset me. (He is a great realtor -- I wish I could afford to buy more houses because he deserves the business.)

When I refinanced, I found errors in the forms that the mortgage people filled out, and also identified a bug in their software that automatically computed some of the numbers. They had to have a special training session for all their brokers about it.

If you want to know when to get the best mortgage rate, wait for me to refinance because the rates will plummet a week after that.

BTW I highly recommend the movie "Mr. Blandings Builds His Dream House" with Cary Grant, Myrna Loy and Melvin Douglas for anyone who is buying or renovating a home.

[lph]

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.

[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.

[Crankin]

Wow, so many horror stories. I've bought 5 houses in 2 states, and everything went perfectly. The last sale, DH went to the registry of deeds to do both the sale and purchase, with my notarized signature. I had to stay home and supervise the movers, and drive several trips of clothing and bike stuff we wanted to do ourselves. DH arranged the dual mortgage stuff himself, but we also had a wonderful agent, who passed away, sadly, 3 years after that. We will be using her partner next time. The worst thing that happened was we had stayed the night at the Colonial Inn; the truck was supposed to deliver our stuff between 9-10, and they called us at 7 and said they were there (not sure why it was the next day, for a 9 mile move). We had to get our breakfast packed up, and let them in, to start unloading and for us, unpacking. Our rule is the kitchen is done before the first night is over.
No No, I hope it all works out!

[ny biker]

When I moved from NYC to DC (rented apartment to rented apartment), the moving company told me that it would be more than a day between packing up the truck and delivering my stuff, because I was not filling the truck so they would be stopping elsewhere to use it for another customer. So I packed a bag with some clothes and a pillow and my sleeping bag. After the truck left I went to my parents' house to spend the night before driving down to DC, thinking I had plenty of time and at least one night of sleeping on the floor in the new place.

A few hours later the movers called to say the truck would be at my new apartment first thing the next morning. But I would still be in NY then, and I had to pick up the keys to the new place before I could let the movers in. I totally panicked. Luckily a friend who was living in the DC suburbs at the time was a stay at home mom, and I was able to arrange for her to get the keys for me and let the movers start to unpack while I drove down.

Of course I made a wrong turn along the way, just to add to the fun.

Moving is like a box of chocolates...

[AppleTree]

I'm currently in the process of buying a house. A process that was supposed to CLOSE last Friday. Yeah, that didn't happen. My mortgage company completely messed things up. They didn't have paperwork, they weren't prepared, they weren't calling people back. In the mean time, I had packed a UHaul full of my stuff, including all my furniture. Once we figured out the deal wasn't going to happen, we had to unload the entire thing into a garage that my aunt lent. The kicker is that my parents are going to rent the apartment I'm vacating, so they've been living with me for the last three weeks. Now I have to share a futon with mom while dad sleeps on the couch (his choice), we have no tv, no internet. I have no idea when the closing will actually happen, but the thought of moving all that stuff again makes me shudder.

So please humor me. Tell me I'm not alone in this. What closing horror story do you have that you now laugh about about how you got your house?

Having worked for a big mortgage company for a number of years, I can tell you this kind of stuff happens more often than you would think. Agents and loan officers would pray that the loan processor would do their job well and things would go through as planned, but every once in while there was a major hiccup...credit rating went down, or inspection found something, or some other technicality. Most of the time it was someone didn't do what they were supposed to do WHEN they were supposed to do it...major panic ensued. It was a VERY high stress job. Big money and peoples lives affected by not crossing T's and dotting I's the way they were supposed to... glad I'm not doing that anymore. At the height of the refinance boom (before the crash) they would haul loan processors out by ambulance for nervous breakdowns every few weeks.

[NoNo]

I guess it's not happening today, either And it's been waiting on one person to sign a piece of paper since 5pm yesterday. Unbelievable. What drives me nuts is there's no accountability. One person messed this whole thing up, but I know he's not going to face any repercussions. If I messed up that badly at my job, I'd have been fired.

[ny biker]

I guess it's not happening today, either And it's been waiting on one person to sign a piece of paper since 5pm yesterday. Unbelievable. What drives me nuts is there's no accountability. One person messed this whole thing up, but I know he's not going to face any repercussions. If I messed up that badly at my job, I'd have been fired.

Boy do I know that feeling!

I hope it finally comes together soon.