The nightmare of our attempt to purchase a house is now blessedly over, thanks to some very good luck for us and a very selfish owner nearly going into breach of contract on the sale of his house (the one above). I first mentioned the mess in this post, and asked you to think “desired outcome” and “Hope.”  Read on to see why!

We will be buying a house and moving by mid-February, no thanks to the owner of this house who was quite happy to refuse to honor his word and signature on the sale contract and apparently quite happy to force a family, who had sold their house ONLY so they could buy his (and weren’t otherwise planning on moving), into homelessness in a Maine winter because of his contemptible selfishness.  Can you tell I’m ticked?  I am SO not a vindicitive person, but what this man has put us through the past four months is beyond the pale.

We are happy to report that we will NOT be buying this house, on which we placed a contract in September and did everything by the rules and actually really wanted the house at first…until we got so fed up with the absolutely unconscionable and unethical (if not illegal, but I’m not a lawyer so can’t say for sure) actions of the owner.  If you know of anyone who is looking for a house in Rockport, Maine, and they see this one, have them e-mail me.  I’ll be happy to provide more information not-on-the-internet!  The petulant bully of an owner will never see a penny from us, and all his own fault!

Before I get into the nitty gritty, I want to say that our real estate agent, the listing agent for the seller, and the owner of Camden Real Estate (the two agents work for CRE) have all been fabulous and supportive; though we have had minimal dealings (as is appropriate) with the listing agent, she was great too.

Here’s the lengthy sequence of events, if you want the gory details.  I am sharing them so that potential buyers (and realtors) can protect themselves  in the unlikely event there is some other person in the US who would behave as badly.  What I discovered is that most of the boilerplate in the Real Estate contracts protects the Seller on the not-unreasonable assumption that a seller actually wants to sell their house, but does precious little to assure that the Buyer is protected from unscrupulous sellers.

In August hubby by utter random chance saw a house listing in the online newspaper for what looked like a dream house and price for us.  It wasn’t, but that led to us finding a different house–the one in the photo– that we thought WAS the dream house—high end builder, a little small, but with a view and due to the economy a price we could manage.

In September, we made an offer just above assessed value, as that is about where things are selling now in this area–that was about 5 percent below asking price;  owner said full price or no deal.  Figuring properties like this (awesome view but in our price range) are exceedingly rare–usually the really rich people get these lots and build McMansions–and that the economy is turning around and values will go back up, we agreed to a full-price offer which was accepted.

Mid-September: While we are finalizing the contract to purchase this house, we get our house ready to list.  Our current house (well, at the moment we are tenants!) got lots of views the first week, including several with serious interest.  It is on the market TWELVE DAYS before we have a signed deal in early October.

Early to mid October: That’s when the trouble began.  Owner of the “new” house we wanted balks despite the fact that he has THREE MONTHS until he needs to move out…he wanted to stay in his house until JUNE 2011! (reportedly because he does not want to take his kids…ages 3 and 5…out of school!!!!)  and when he discovers he’ll need to move in early January because closing will be either December 28 or January 5th, he starts throwing up road blocks. It  has been a nightmare of contrariness and attorneys ever since.

The day after the owner is informed about closing in late December/early January, his second wife telephones (we were luckily out and she left a message)  “to chat.”  Right.  Then we get an e-mail in which the wife purports to be friendly.  Yeah right.  Please bear in mind that neither seller nor wife know anything about my business other than what they saw on this blog, and most of the statements about my business in the e-mail are gross inaccuracies or downright false assumptions.  Here’s what she wrote:

I wanted to give you a heads up about an email that my husband sent to Xxxxx (the listing agent) a few minutes ago.  We aren’t sure whether you are aware of the following. Thanks!

“Hi Xxxxx,

You might remind Sarah Smith that she may not run a business from a home in Tolman Park.     I believe you will find that written in the phase 3 covenant, paragraph 10.   I am aware of Sarah’s business because we have seen her blog.

You might remind the Smiths.    I just verified the business angle with the president of the Tolman Park Association board of directors, and she let me know it would not be allowed to run a business out of my home because it will involve extra car traffic.     It would not be allowed to have a show room or ship goods from a business inside Tolman Park.

I also want to warn the Smiths that association dues do not cover plowing the drive way.     It will cost at least $200.00 per storm to plow my road and likely more.    I will be taking my plow with me along with all my fire wood.

If the Smiths plan on using the wood stove effectively they will need to buy around two and a half chords of seasoned dry hard wood.    Mine is seasoned for two years before I bring it in to dry.     If the house is heated using propane alone, it will cost plenty for propane, likely 3K more.

Attached find the pdf of phase 3 covenants.”

I would be happy to email you the PDF if you would it as sent in the email to Xxxxx (listing agent).  Please just email me your email address.  Thanks!

I promptly located and spoke with the President of the Owner’s association, explained there were inaccuracies in how the owner represented my business, explained what REALLY happens, and she said “Oh of course that’s fine!”  And we are eminently smart enough to read and understand the Association rules and what the dues do and do not cover!  The man is…well….. you can draw your own conclusions.

Friday, October 8:  we arrange to have the house inspected on the following Tuesday.  The owner REFUSES to allow us access!  We had to hire an attorney to talk to his attorney and request said person inform the owner that he HAD to let us inspect under the contract.  First attorney is suddenly out of the picture (we guess she told the owner what he had to do, and he didn’t want to hear it, so hired someone else).  The second attorney must have told the owner the same thing.  At first, the owner said we could inspect the house on the last possible day we had in which to do it.  Our attorney had to protest that we had to get in sooner to do the radon and water tests.   It took another 10-14 days, but we finally got to inspect the house, though not the outbuilding.  The owner still refused to permit us to test for radon, which is quite common around here.  If radon levels are too high, mitigation is easy but could cost about $2000.

Late October/early November:  to get a mortgage, you have to have an appraiser from the mortgage company visit the house, including inside.  The owner refuses to allow the appraiser on the property.  HELLO?   What about “must permit the buyer to do what they need to do” to buy the house does this nitwit (what I really want to call him is unsuitable to a public forum!) not understand?   The owner finally says OK, but not until he is home, as he is in Alaska.  The fact that his WIFE is at home appears not to help.  Hello??? Appraisal is finally done with maybe 24 hours to spare in terms of the mortgage company’s timelines and requirements.

December:  request owner agree to a “simultaneous closing” so we will own a house and have a legal right to evict him if need be and  sign a rentback contract to confirm a date by which he will be out of the house.  He refuses to respond.  His attorney says first that he needs to be in the house until Jan. 22, then Jan. 28, then no more replies.  In mid-month, sick of the utter lack of cooperation, we finally said fine, no rentback.  Closing will be January 11th (the last day permitted under the Purchase and Sale contract) and he will be out or be in default.  No reply from owner or his attorney.  Can you say thoughtless, selfish, petulant bully?  The owner, by the way, is from a well-known, wealthy New England family and is described by most as “independently wealthy, never worked a day in his life.”  He is 48–not old, just …well…another one of those things I can’t call him here.

After discussions between the attorneys, our attorney suggests we ask the buyers of our house if they can extend  OUR rentback two weeks.  They can and do, but due to their timelines and move-out dates, can’t offer a day more.  They are nice, reasonable, sane people!

December 24th:  our attorney calls with an update about the latest lack of response from owner and  his attorney.  As I have several times over the past few months, when confronted with yet more petulance and obstinacy on the part of the owner, I check the real estate listings at about 2:30 p.m. to see if there are ANY viable alternatives to this moron’s house.  (Cue thunderclap, flash of light and parting of the clouds!!!!!) This time (unlike every other time), THERE IS!   There is a new listing…on the market only two weeks.  It has more land, more square footage, we like the location better, and it costs less! We e-mail our agent that afternoon to see if there is any way we can see this house before we go to closing to sell our house on the 28th. Merry Christmas from all the gods and spirits and house karma!

December 25th:  we all take a bit of a break from the nightmare.

December 26th:  our agent calls / e-mails, and we can go see the new listing later THAT morning!  We all meet there, and we love it!  The new listing is a well-built lovely home, but doesn’t have as high-end finishes and isn’t as dramatic looking as the first house.  But we VASTLY prefer where it is, it too has an unblockable great view, and has more than double the acreage.  The studio for me needs to be finished, but with the savings in price we can do that–and I can make it “just right”!  Best of all, the listing agent thinks the owners will agree to a closing that is in the first two weeks of February, meaning we don’t have to find a temporary rental and storage for a large house of stuff (meaning we are not out more big bucks!).  Blessings to the new owners of this house, which make all this possible!

December 27th:  we call our attorney and tell him that we now  have a Plan B, which we actually prefer.  This means we can play hardball with owner of the house above.  He is out and we buy the house per the contract signed in September, or he is in material breach of contract.   He is offered the right to walk away from the contract and both of us agree not to pursue legal action against one another (this is called a recission agreement).  If he hadn’t done that, we were fully prepared to take him to court for all expenses, including temporary housing, storage, and so on.  I’ve never had to take ANYone to court, and didn’t like the prospect, but his actions were just unconscionable.

We sold our house on Dec. 28 and have a rentback thanks to sane and reasonable buyers for our house.  We still don’t know where we will be living in 6 weeks.  We notified the seller as required under the contract, and he was still apparently willing to leave us without a home and refuse to honor his signature on the contract and move out of his house and sell it, as he had promised four months previously.  To me, that is utter disregard for the contract and the law.

Last week of December:  we work on a plan with the owners of the second house which means that if the owner of the first house defaults, we can buy their house.  Still no word back from the selfish toad.  We were still willing to go through with the purchase of the first house IF the owner vacated it on time, in full compliance with the contract.

January 5:  our attorney calls and says the owner of the first house wants out of the contract and will sign the agreement to walk away from the contract.  Except he doesn’t.  Once again he seems to think he can just string things along and get away with whatever he wants because  he is a rich, selfish xxxxx (can’t put that word, either).  On the 6th, his attorney says he’ll sign on the  7th.  On the 7th, he says the owner will sign on the 8th.  On the 8th, the attorney says his client will sign on the 10th.  Like I believe that!

January 6th:  we receive a phone call from a former neighbor asking where we are going to move since the first house fell through.   Hunh?  How did he know that…neither we nor the realtors have breathed a word to anyone?  Turns out he is friends with the owner of the first house.  The (expletive omitted) appears to have sent his friend on a fishing expedition to find out what we are doing.  None of his business.  I politely decline to answer as “things are not settled.”

We are only putting this information out in public now that the owner was on the brink of  breach of contract.  All along (as the owner’s own attorney put it to one of the parties in this transaction) we have done everything right. As our attorney said way back in October, the courts do not look kindly on people who willingly sign a contract and then try to break it on purpose.  Like this jerk. As I mentioned above, if you know anyone who is thinking of relocating to this area, they can write and I’ll share a few more details privately –like his name– so they can be forewarned!

Monday, January 10th:  we schedule the walk-through due to lack of response. At 9:30 in the morning we get a call from the owner of Camden Real Estate:  the recission agreement is finally signed by the seller!  The contract for the purchase of the first house is now null and void and we can go forward with the other property!!! WOOOOHOOOOOOHOOOOOOOO!

WE ARE FREE!!!!!!!

Now, let’s all hope no one else will come close to offering what we did for that first house, that the owner has to wait forever for another offer, and that every realtor in the region is unwilling to touch him or his selfish money with a ninety foot pole.  I believe in Karma.  I believe that I don’t need to waste another second of my life on a man who is, frankly, a waste of the planet’s oxygen.  Because Karma will come back on him.

But after telling our agent that, I realized, maybe GOOD karma came to us.  That Christmas Eve gift of finding the Plan B house is the reward.

We will be out several thousand dollars, which for us a sizeable sum.  The costs were the usual:  inspection, septic inspection, mortgage application fee, appraisal, and the UNusual:  lots of attorneys fees (they use attorneys instead of title companies for closing up here in Maine).  The sad fact is that we are glad to be rid of this jerk even at that cost.

And thanks to any of you who managed to read all of this ranting blather!  Can you tell I needed to get it out?  I won’t tell you more about the Plan B house for a while, though, because the owner of the first house is sufficiently spiteful (and in my opinion, unbalanced), that we don’t know what he will do; the good news is that the Recission Agreement means he can’t change his mind (again) and try to sue us for not buying the house.  Fortunately, they are moving to Alaska eventually, so they will be far, far away.  My condolences to the population of the town the plan to call home.  And for us….HOOORAY!  All’s well that ends well!

Life will be good!  And by the way…the new house, the one we WILL buy, is in the town of Hope!  See?  Think “Hope” worked!

Here’s what we woke up to this morning….much more snow than anticipated…WOOOHOOO!

Looking over the front lawn to the street

The front porch...hmmm....

The driveway---or it will be once we shovel!

And a perennial favorite of mine, snowy woodpiles!

Our younger son has joined jazz band, and practices are Weds. mornings before school.  So instead of sending him to the bus at 6:50 a.m., I drive him to school.  In winter, this means GLORIOUS sunrises, and today was one of the best.  The pictures are with my cell phone camera, so not as good as my good camera, but still pretty darn amazing.  So just an hour ago this is what I got to see after dropping Eli, snapping a shot over town to the harbor and distant islands.  I uploaded LARGE files, so I apologize if they are slow to load; they should be clickable to see a larger view.

Sunrise over Camden, 6:55 a.m. That tall thing is the smokestack from the old woolen mill. Notice the cool vertical flare from the sun peeking through layers of the clouds. The vertical brightness was there in real life; it's not a camera flare!

And here is the sunrise in my neighborhood:

A woodsy sunrise, downhill from our house

And from the road, by the driveway of a downhill neighbor whose house faces more towards the East:

From a neighbor's driveway, looking East

Ahhhh…..Maine!

I keep thinking of my Dad…he was born in 1899, when gaslight was not common, was a teenager when the Wright Brothers flew at Kitty Hawk, when telephones were rare. He used to be amazed at men on the moon, think of what he’d think of the internet and cell phones!  I can’t imagine what he would think to see me have a phone smaller than a deck of cards, that is also a camera, so I can send a photo to my son and to myself then post it to share with the *world* in a matter of minutes.  He’d be amazed and smile!

A while back I learned something from Lisa W. (then at Curves, now at Quarry Hill where mom lives, first in assisted living and now in the memory loss unit…mom lives there that is, not Lisa…she works there!):  every day say what was a good thing or the best thing that happened to you that day.  And nothing backhanded (saying that the best thing was that the day wasn’t any worse than it was doesn’t quite cut it).  So I try (but don’t always remember) to give thanks daily.

At our local quilt chapter auction this past month I bought the adorable felted wool mat and --for the first time in memory-- remembered to bring out my Thanksgiving candles, which I have had since I was about 6! I believe these are now beyond "vintage" and headed towards "antique." And that is my October Angel (my birth month) in the background, a gift from gramma about 50 years ago!

But today is the annual U.S. feast and giving of thanks.  This year, I am so glad that despite our very small numbers, the four of us are here, happy, healthy and together.  As you can see from the photo, my pleas to “wait for the Thanksgiving photo” were this year greeted with “heck no I’m eating!” <grin!>

Wait for the photo? Apparently not this year LOL! PS--notice Joshua, on the right, wearing Elmo pants! Love 'em!

Here’s the repast in preparation….I try to clean as I go, otherwise it would be impossible in our no-counter-space kitchen!  After breakfast I started with the pie crust, then the cranberry sauce, then the pie filling, then the stuffing, then putting the hot pie filling into the just-baked crust (A recipe from The Cook’s Bible, where you bake the crust separately as if making a banana cream pie, cook the pumpkin pie filling on the stovetop, then combine and finish in the over for about 25 minutes.  Helps avoid soggy crust.) Anyway, once I get that done, I clear out and hubby does the turkey. I do NOT “do” raw birds or large meat…they need to be mostly cooked before I get near them!  Then I do the potatoes, veggies and gravy.

In progress...pie made, Turkey in the oven......

As far as I am concerned, the best reason for roasting a turkey is to make the gravy that goes on the potatoes.  Half the pan of potatoes is for me (ditto with the gravy, tho I usually get a fight on that one) and half for everyone else.  Can you tell I’m Irish?  Life is GOOD!

I hope whether you are in the United States celebrating also or elsewhere in the world that your lives are filled with goodness, love and light.  And thread and fabric and time to create!  Blessings be, Sarah

After the breathtaking walk that Paul and I took (see the pics here), the twelve middle school teams (at least I think it was 12 teams) began to arrive.   Each school was allowed to select its seven best boys and seven best girls for the “varsity” race of about 2.2 miles over the hilliest (and therefore slowest) course in the region; the rest of the teams were invited to be in the fun run, a bit more than a mile, after the main races.  Since not each team had enough students to field a full seven in the varsity race, the field for each (boys and girls) was in the upper 50 range.

Coach Morse (aka the 6th grade social studies teacher!) talks to our very large team

The girls ran first....about halfway down the photo you can see a long line of girls.....far in the lead, as usual, was Camden-Rockport's Jacquie

Each team lined up in the tent, then was announced and ran past the spectators, up a small hill to the starting line; that's Eli in the middle

And they're OFF and running! Talk about a thundering herd of boys!

And away they go!

The pack of about 56 boys soon draws out into a long line headed down the to lagoon, peninsula, up the hill, up another hill, around past the start for another loop and repeat on the hills....

Look at that sunlight! What a place to race! The gray line shows the boys spread out on the trail

Heading into the woods and out to the little peninsula

On the right, our fastest runner is Ben W. Tho small, he is unbelievably fast, and has won most of his races this season!

Eli is on the left, with hair spray painted red--go Schooners!, heading out for his second loop around the course

Ben sprints up the final hill (GASP!)

This photo shows how steep that hill is. Eli is the one in red, and he actually OVERTOOK the boy in burgundy and black (one of the fastest kids in the region) on this hill! Alas, in the last 30 yards, the boy ahead in this photo overtook Eli just at the finish line!

Headed to the finish line! Eli had his fastest race of the season, on the toughest course, had his his highest finish amongst his team for this year (second only to Ben--there have been other team members who have been faster than Eli up to this race) and actually outran one or two of the kids who were thought to be Ben's stiffest competition!

Eli and Ben after the race. Ben and his twin Kyle have been Eli's best friends since we arrived in first grade. It has been so heartwarming to see them grow, mature, come into themselves as 7th graders turning into young men. Ben finished second (a boy from Belfast I think won) and Eli finished 5th!!!!!

The Camden-Rockport Girls team wins the Championship!

Eli gets a ribbon for 5th place (out of a varsity field of about 56+ boys!)

Ben W. receives his second place trophy (and I think he set a personal best time too!)

The Camden-Rockport boys win! the championship

What an incredible season!  The C-R team had such depth that many of the kids who didn’t make it into the top 7 for the varsity race were actually faster than kids from other schools who led their teams!   Even the slowest of the kids finished all the races, with love and support and encouragement from their teammates!  Mr. Morse, one of the awesome-est teachers ever, was just as outstanding as a coach.  He researched on his own time issues the kids were having to figure out what they needed…in Eli’s case, his side cramps indicated he needed to hydrate in the mornings on the day of a race.  How amazing is that, for Mr. Morse to do that for ALL of the kids?  It goes to show why they dominated and what makes Mr. Morse so wonderful as both teacher and coach.  And it was a good race all around for the Great Salt Bay course, with the winning boy (from Belfast I think) and winning girl (Jacquie from Camden) setting course records…WOW!

BOTH the boys and the girls were not only the Champions, but they both had undefeated seasons–every meet they were in, they won! And in addition to being outstanding athletes, their sportsmanship and grace were tops.  Well done to everyone:  kids, coaches, bus drivers, parents…what a season–one that will definitely go down in the school record books!