Just when I thought I'd skated through the easiest, most carefree home purchase experience in history, I discovered that there's no such thing. Yesterday my banker told me that the amount I owed at closing would be $500 more than we'd anticipated. Not good, but I decided that it could have been worse. Well, today it got worse. I found out from the settlement company that the new number was another $500 more, this time due to an accounting error. It may not seem like much, but a $1,000 increase in less than 24 hours really made a dent in my home improvement budget!
When the settlement rep told me that several people had reviewed the numbers several times, and it was finally the seller's attorney that noticed the error, I felt like kicking myself for not heeding my mother's advice that I retain my own real estate attorney to represent me at closing. Don't you just hate it when Mom's right ? Unless, of course, you're the Mom.
It's too late, and now I'm really too broke, to hire a real estate attorney (closing is less than 48 hours away), but all was not lost. Had it not been for these errors, I probably wouldn't have spent the last three hours pouring over every line of the Settlement Statement (several times) to make sure that everything else was in order.
Thank God I did, because I found several potential "issues" that I have concerns about. I've just sent a two-page (single spaced) letter to the settlement rep with a series of specific questions about 6 line items. There may be perfectly reasonable explanations for some of them, but I'm absolutely convinced that I'm right about some of them. If so, I may have just saved myself more than the $1,000 that just got added to the amount I owe at closing.
Regardless of how this turns out, this experience has reminded me lnot to assume that the "professionals" are always right. And even if they are, it's still better to understand exactly what you're getting yourself into before you sign on the dotted line.
I'll post the results once I have them.
When the settlement rep told me that several people had reviewed the numbers several times, and it was finally the seller's attorney that noticed the error, I felt like kicking myself for not heeding my mother's advice that I retain my own real estate attorney to represent me at closing. Don't you just hate it when Mom's right ? Unless, of course, you're the Mom.
It's too late, and now I'm really too broke, to hire a real estate attorney (closing is less than 48 hours away), but all was not lost. Had it not been for these errors, I probably wouldn't have spent the last three hours pouring over every line of the Settlement Statement (several times) to make sure that everything else was in order.
Thank God I did, because I found several potential "issues" that I have concerns about. I've just sent a two-page (single spaced) letter to the settlement rep with a series of specific questions about 6 line items. There may be perfectly reasonable explanations for some of them, but I'm absolutely convinced that I'm right about some of them. If so, I may have just saved myself more than the $1,000 that just got added to the amount I owe at closing.
Regardless of how this turns out, this experience has reminded me lnot to assume that the "professionals" are always right. And even if they are, it's still better to understand exactly what you're getting yourself into before you sign on the dotted line.
I'll post the results once I have them.
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