<p>Maybe you can have a heart-to-heart conversation with the listing agent. Tell him that if the appropriate documents can’t be produced, not only are you not going to use him as the listing agent for the later sale but (a) he won’t even get his commission for this sale and (b) he won’t be able to sell this house to anyone.</p>
<p>Perhaps that will light a fire under his butt.</p>
<p>ETA: Does the elderly seller have a younger relative who could help him with this stuff?? </p>
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<p>My mother has a great tile guy. He did extensive tiling in the house when she and my father remodeled it. In addition to being an excellent tiler, he also has a sideline plowing driveways and does hers. And when she has other jobs around the house, he can either do them himself, or refer her to decent, reliable guys to do things like fix chimneys. When he comes over to do a job, she gives him lunch and they have a glass of wine together. :)</p>
<p>But he’s in CT. A bit of a commute to San Diego. :)</p>
<p>Can’t recommend our tile guy. The dude’s dog bit the paint guy, and after that out GC had one heck of a problem scheduling the two of them so if one was present the other would not be here. Plus, I have a suspicion he participated in the anti-WTO marches because he disappeared at that time (when his presence was critical for the completion of our house). Needless to say, I threw away his card and learned to do tiling and grouting myself. I even have all the tools, but I’m not for hire. :)</p>
<p>Good luck with the paperwork! Hope the title materializes soon, otherwise, my suggestion would be to run as fast as you can from this property “with cockroaches” (as one of my Russian friends says such problem properties are called there). </p>
<p>I’d be sure and document everything (write down when the phone calls came in, etc), because this guy is sleazy. You can always throw out all the documentation after you sell the house.</p>
<p>He really should be concentrating on providing a clear title. After all, no title = no sale = no commission.</p>
<p>This afternoon the Escrow office sent over the Escrow Instructions and the Final Estimate Sheet for my signature.</p>
<p>Of course, the ‘Fixed Commission’ showed up on the Estimate for me to bring funds in tomorrow. I sent back to email to Escrow Officer and asked if he could provide documentation for this charge. I said that I understood it was a Transaction Coordinator Fee and I would need to see the invoice from the Transaction Coordinator for my review.</p>
<p>About an hour later, new Estimate Sheet shows up for my signature and there is no fee anywhere. I think the Escrow Officer realized that he had no authorization for that charge and no invoice from anyone, only an email directive from Listing Agent’s Transaction Coordinator adding the fee. </p>
<p>Not good enough!! I signed quickly and am not planning to bring the funds for the fee to escrow tomorrow</p>
<p>They found some way to get a bunch of stuff notarized by the Seller regarding the Title issue and it looks like it will close tomorrow. Four business day escrow - I think it’s a new record for me!</p>
<p>cb, you deserve a medal for this one!! I’m impressed that you finally were able to get rid of that fee the agent kept slipping in. And apparently he was slipping it in past everyone but you. </p>
<p>Coralbrook - so happy yo hear the good news. Way to go on getting rid of that fee!</p>
<p>Glad to hear the fee disappeared! Hope closing goes smoothly.</p>
<p>For some stupid reason the Seller’s documents didn’t get delivered into escrow until end of the day today. We should be closing escrow. Its funny that the only thing I’m focusing on is making sure that fee doesn’t get slipped in somehow at the last minute. I can guarantee that the listing agent never pays attention to details and wont realize that the fee was not paid for several weeks.</p>
<p>cb, be careful that you don’t overlook something else important in those papers. I know when I focus too much on one thing, I sometimes miss the other things. Especially with this listing agent, and the seller with no title, and yada yada. </p>
<p>You’re a professional; I’m sure you’re on top of it all, and you don’t need my jabbering.</p>
<p>Remodel Progress Update
Meanwhile, back at the remodel project. We really have to get this project done!! The owner has scheduled house cleaning on Tuesday Sept 2 and movers Friday Sept 5th. We made a commitment to be done by Friday August 29th because she wants to use Labor Day Weekend to paint her daughter’s rooms and get some things installed. </p>
<p>This week things are finally coming together. The tile guys showed up yesterday and bathroom tile is all done. He just needs to come back today and grout in a couple of places. This is critical because we need to start installing vanities, toilets, lighting, mirrors, etc. However, some of the Owner’s purchases have not arrived yet.</p>
<p>Kitchen flooring and countertop have been installed. Owner wanted a very neutral kitchen and I think the kitchen is TOO neutral. There is not enough contrast between cabinets and quartz countertops. She wanted a very sleek contemporary design.
But I noticed an issue with the countertop installation (see pictures) and I don’t know how we are going to fix it. The quartz countertop lip over the edge of the countertop is sticking too far from the wall and you can see a gap with the plywood underneath. I don’t like it, but when I called him his answer was “this is how we always do it, if you wanted it different you should have said something”. Uggh, I just cannot catch every little detail while everything is being installed. I have been too distracted watching the escrow on my purchase like a hawk!!!</p>
<p>Pictures loaded with description. Today I am going to take a lot more pictures because the electrician is coming to install some huge unusual lighting that the Owner selected and we should get some areas finalized and cleaned up.</p>
<p>In the pictures, take note of the unusual quartz countertop installation. We wrapped the quartz countertop down the floor at the end of the peninsula. it’s called a ‘waterfall’. I recommended this to her and she saw the results and just loves it. First, it creates a contemporary design in the kitchen and second, this is a high traffic area with her kids. They will be bumping into the quartz instead of the edge of the cabinets. Really good for wear and tear around that corner.</p>
<p>But I’ve noticed something that I don’t like about these high gloss cabinet faces. Any fingerprint or mess really stands out. And, when I try to just wipe everything with a wet rag, it leaves streaks and water marks… like cleaning glass. Yuck, what a cleaning nightmare!! On the other hand the finish is really easy to wipe off, not like wood cabinets.</p>
<p>I like the waterfall. I saw one recently on HGTV but expect they will be “dated” in a few years. The “gap” is odd. Can’t they stick a chunk of stone or drywall in there?</p>
<p>Love the waterfall. Can you drywall in the gap, painted to match the walls? It would be a lot less noticeable. </p>
<p>I like the waterfall (both the look and your logic about wear & tear), but the gap in the countertop lip looks bad. It’s almost like there needs to be some wainscoting on the wall at the left of the picture you took to stick out and meet up with it. That’s going to be tricky, IMO. I think the installer was just jerking your chain when he said that’s how they do them all. I’d want to go to his house to see if that’s how he’s done it there!</p>
<p>I would think just pushing it forward would make it stick out too far on the other side.</p>
<p>A piece of quarter-round or some other type of molding will cover it underneath, then just plug the holes at the end.</p>
<p>The countertop guy is coming Friday to fix it. I dug through the trash (job is so glamorous!!) and found a piece of quartz and saved it. I’m going to ask him to cut a small piece of quartz and glue it in there somehow.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, we are going one step forward and two steps back on the remodel. Yesterday I went to pick up the baseboard. As he was coming out of the warehouse, I could not get the back window of the truck to go down. It is impossible to transport 25 pieces 16’ long without dropping the back window of the cab and pushing it through to the dashboard. So, I am stuck there with no way to get the baseboard back to the project. Luckily he volunteers to delivery it for free to the project (about 20min each way). But… But… do I look at the product before I drive away?? No, of course not, I’m an idiot.</p>
<p>Poor guy drives all the baseboard to the project this morning, it’s a madhouse. All kinds of people working. He unloads one bundle and I take one look at it and it’s the wrong thing. I had ordered it on the phone and the poor kid who took the order didn’t understand what I was asking for. And, of course it turns out what I really want for the contemporary look of the home isn’t in stock. It has to be ordered! I had a whole crew scheduled to arrive on Friday to install baseboards and now I don’t have any. Mad scramble to reschedule everybody and everything.</p>
<p>The lighting fixture the owner wants for the staircase requires special tall ladders to install because the ceiling is too high. Electrician is scheduled, he opens the box and discovers that the fixture was a floor sample and the wires have been cut. They are not even long enough to hang properly from the high ceiling. Now I have to rush around and buy some special type of ‘rope’ wiring and get the electrician to come back another day.</p>
<p>The other lighting fixture she had in a box for the powder room looks ridiculous. She is going to have to get another one.</p>
<p>But the worst is… she has been stalling about deciding what the master bathroom floor tile should be. We just couldn’t find anything that looked good on ‘paper’. So we needed to wait until shower tile was installed to lay some things down between the shower and the wood floating vanity she has. We decided that the grey slight wood grain 12 x 24 porcelain that was used for shower walls is OK and we can do the floor in that. We found it at Home Depot, which is very rare because they usually do not have large tile that I like. It must have been a special buy. I like some of their mosaics, but their basic tile is too old fashioned and cheap looking. So, I go to Home Depot to get 2 more boxes and sold out. I go to another store, no such tile. I finally get online tonight to discover that it is ‘discontinued’. I can order some to be shipped, but that is going to take 2 weeks!! OMG, I have to start all over again trying to find floor tile.</p>
<p>Never a dull moment! </p>
<p>Flip House #3 is finally closed and I have the keys. I had to meet the agent’s ‘assistant’ at the house to get the keys and he didn’t mention anything about the fee. I think I dodged the fee bullet, but we will see if it sneaks in when I get my final return from escrow. Escrow had added a ‘$500’ pad, which I usually don’t allow them to do, but I didn’t want to rock the boat at the last minute. There is a chance this fee will find it’s way into my final accounting, but I don’t think so.</p>
<p>He shared with me that there were 29 offers on the house!!! Ten of the offers were close to mine, but I edged them all out by $800, my cover letter and my offer to help move the elderly man’s possessions.</p>
<p>If you can believe it, the Listing Agent called to congratulate me and immediately started in about meeting me to make a presentation to list it. Told him to call me in 3 months, it is going to take a long time to remodel.</p>
<p>Worst part was I had to go through the house to make sure that the water wasn’t running anywhere and no gas smell. It smells so bad in that house I couldn’t stay long, but I discovered there was a piano under all that stuff. What the hey am I going to do with a piano??? Can you imagine trying to get that down those stairs??? How did that thing ever get in there??? Oh lord, help me. I sure hope that isn’t one of the ‘important personal things’ that he wants me to throw in the back of the pickup truck and take somewhere. This is going to be a really tough project.</p>
<p>We have to grind the padlock off the garage tomorrow morning and see what surprises are in there - besides the 1999 Buick that sticks out too far. I will make sure and take pictures for a new Flickr group!!! </p>