Selling a house has become a nightmare in patience with lawyers

Our original closing date for a CASH OFFER was 2/15/2017. Today marks a full 4 months of waiting, excuses, other needed information, etc. Last week, I drove 5 hours to get paperwork signed for a shared driveway (it only took 3.5 months to find out I needed that document). Suddenly when I crossed the NY border I was told the paperwork was in hand and we should get a closing date this week. Since then the buyers lawyer has once again prolonged the process by bringing up a fence having been on my property as well as the neighbors property and lost the paperwork from last week (they just found it again). I just emailed the buyers lawyer today to as I'm pretty sick and this sh!t.

When my lawyer responded today, I got smart with him and said, "Sounds like the Buyers lawyer needs me to evoke the breach of contract stipulations in order to finish this before six months have passed. I feel that I've been more than patient with this. That said, I do not know the neighbors who the fence crosses between and if we could just go ahead with closing before I end up divorced, that would be fantastic."

First off, am I out of line by being angry at both the real estate agent (who's both a real estate agent for myself and the buyer, aka dual agent), and making smart ass remarks to my lawyer?

Secondly, what should I do from here? These timeframes are getting ridiculous for something that should be simple and involves only 5 digits of funds via cash offer.

I appreciate anybody's advice. I just needed to vent....

I don't have any advice but that timeline seems way, way out of line unless the title is really jacked up somehow.

You are far more patent than I.

Stories like this make me glad I live & work in a title company state.

I've done numerous closings in NY and I'm always amazed at the complexities and the numbers of lawyers involved. There IS a direct relationship between those 2 facts.

I have closed in as little as 17 days on a cash offer. How they could drag there feet like this is astonishing.

That's why lawyers work hourly and not flat rate.

carguy123 wrote: Stories like this make me glad I live & work in a title company state. I've done numerous closings in NY and I'm always amazed at the complexities and the numbers of lawyers involved. There IS a direct relationship between those 2 facts.

Yea, until you have to actually try to collect on the title insurance. Ask my dad about that sometime. Or don't, if you'd rather be spared the several hours of angry ranting. August will mark ten years for my parents in their current house and there is still litigation pending over that matter...

Well, I really appreciate the responses to my lawyer or the buyers lawyer. So, I guess nobody thinks I was out of line with my responses. I always feel like you shouldn't flip out on people, but I'm at my limit. I've also decided to go to closing and I've decided that if the buyers lawyer is present I'm going to be extremely unprofessional and scream 2 words inches from his face close enough for him to smell my stomach contents, so he knows just how upset I am about the whole scenario and undue stress on my marriage (we live with my in-laws atm).

At closing the seller's lawyer couldn't understand the terms of the agreement with the seller's taking a small 2nd back. I loudly offered to explain it to him outside the office! You are not out of line IMO.

When I took offers on the last house I sold, I stipulated that closing must be completed within 60 days of acceptance of a offer. If not, the contract was voided and the house would go back on the market. They beat the deadline by a 3 days. This was the recommendation of a real estate friend who has had closings drag out for months due to incompetence.

Good luck, you are at the mercy of the bottom feeders from here on out.

In my book, there's a time to be patient and nice, and there's a time to show that you're annoyed and about to become a very squeaky wheel.

Politeness and good manners should always be employed until they don't work any more. Unfortunately, in many situations, being a dick is the only way to get something done.

Furious_E wrote:

carguy123 wrote:

Yea, until you have to actually try to collect on the title insurance. Ask my dad about that sometime. Or don't, if you'd rather be spared the several hours of angry ranting. August will mark ten years for my parents in their current house and there is still litigation pending over that matter...

Title insurance has no bearing on whether you live in a title company state or an attorney state. You buy the same title insurance regardless

I think they are dickin' you around. Like they don't have the money or something. I say give them a real-soon-now-date and then blow the deal off.

From what little information we have it doesn't seem to be a Buyer issue, rather a Due Diligence issue. That's the problem with Attorney states in that there's no central clearing house for all the info so things take longer to happen sometimes.

Toyman01 wrote: When I took offers on the last house I sold, I stipulated that closing must be completed within 60 days of acceptance of a offer. If not, the contract was voided and the house would go back on the market. They beat the deadline by a 3 days. This was the recommendation of a real estate friend who has had closings drag out for months due to incompetence. Good luck, you are at the mercy of the bottom feeders from here on out.

Ours was 30 days. Our mortgage went through on day 29 at 3pm, at 4 we were blowing through stacks of paper to sign, at 4:56 our title lady got the papers to the court. Stressful as heck. On the other house we said yes we have cash, wrote a check and had title in a week.

NSFW! Repeat NSFW! Les Grossman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__qSe1b_ukM

I am missing too much of the story to tell what is really going on, but in my mind, if there is a closing date, the due diligence is done and the deed gets done on the date stipulated or the seller walks away with the deposit.

Strange, I thought the whole idea of a cash sale was to avoid the sticky bits.

And on a property only valued at 5 digits??????

How long did it take for the property to close when you bought it? Have there been geographic changes to the property since you bought it?

It's a long/old family home that I grew up in. It's in the Finger Lakes of NY. If you get away from the actual lakes (my home is 3.5 miles from the lake), property in NY goes down drastically in price. I guarantee you, if you go to Steuben or Alleghany County (South of Finger Lakes), a 100 wooded acres with no house would go for under $250,000. Property values are low as there is nothing in those parts of NY except for potential natural gas pockets (no businesses large enough to sustain large populations).

The lawyers are both guilty of dragging their feet on this issue IMO. I'm tempted to advise my lawyer (and real estate agent for that matter) that I have no intention of paying him if the sale doesn't go through.

Is there anything legally I can do to speed up the process and stop the constant excuses? Are their legal grounds to sue in small claims, or to somehow get some satisfaction over the ineptness that the lawyers are presenting?

It's a simple thing to stipulate that the fence line is not the property line, there are things like rocks trees creeks and crazy grade changes that make it impractical to locate a fence exactly on the property line. You could knock down the fence and push it into a pile and burn it!

Seems like some of the parties are dragging their feet or trying to get you to take less that the agreed price. Or the buyer has gotten cold feet and is waiting for you to pull the plug so he can get his deposit back.

Take out a loan against the property and rent it out if you can't sell it. Move on. Let them wait and hold onto their deposit. As it is they owe you 4 months of rent for tying up your property.

As a lawyer, it is absolutely reasonable to call your lawyer and ask them, what are the issues remaining, what's your plan to address them, when and how much? It is also fair to ask about the past issues so you understand what was done, but you obviously can't get do anything about them now. The lack of a lender should eliminate many sticking points. Is there zoning in the area? In my township in PA, a non conforming fence across a property line would require a variance - about 60-90 days total to get and buyers usually condition purchase on getting the variance. Shared driveway would be a similar situation if there's no recorded easement.

Why wasn't there a stipulation that after 60 days of time without closing the house goes back on the market? There's no way I'd be anywhere near as patient as you.

I would've backed out of the sale due to non performance of the buyers, relisted it and sold it to somebody else.

Your lawyer works for you. As klb67 said finding out what the remaining issues are and the plan to address them is perfectly reasonable and if you're unhappy with his response then you can fire him and get another lawyer. In NY once the initial offer is submitted I wouldn't really expect the realtor to be of much help.

APEowner wrote: Your lawyer works for you.

You have obviously never dealt with a lawyer

I see two lawyers playing a Fi$h until he is spent out and then the problems will magically disappear. Then again, I have been accused of being cynical.