the closing
I now own a house! The closing was Monday but I am only now caught up enough on life to write about it.
I didn't know until that morning exactly when it would be -- the closing can't happen until the parties know exactly how much money is moving from point A to point B. And that depends on things like "the water meter reading" and "did the tenants pay their june rent yet"?
In any event, I drove down the Middlesex County Court building (near Lechmere and the Galleria Mall) around 11am on Monday. On the second floor of the courthouse is a large rotunda, with round tables and chairs a bit like a cafeteria. After some stumbling around, the seller's agent recognized me, and then a few minutes later, the lawyer representing me and the bank found us. In all, there were five of us around a table: me, the seller, the real estate agents for the two of us, and the lawyer.
The lawyer had a stack of about 100 sheets of paper that we went through one by one. Most just needed my initials. Some needed signatures. A few happy pages needed nothing. This stack of paper accomplished several things: confirming the final dollar amounts of the sale, borrowing a huge amount of money from the bank, putting a lien my house to cover the loan (this is the mortgage), transferring the deed, and promising that we'd sign more things if anything went wrong. It was very relaxed and ended with a handshake.
My broker hadn't brought the keys with him at the closing, so he stopped by a few days later to hand them to me. At this point, I think all is done except the moving.
I didn't know until that morning exactly when it would be -- the closing can't happen until the parties know exactly how much money is moving from point A to point B. And that depends on things like "the water meter reading" and "did the tenants pay their june rent yet"?
In any event, I drove down the Middlesex County Court building (near Lechmere and the Galleria Mall) around 11am on Monday. On the second floor of the courthouse is a large rotunda, with round tables and chairs a bit like a cafeteria. After some stumbling around, the seller's agent recognized me, and then a few minutes later, the lawyer representing me and the bank found us. In all, there were five of us around a table: me, the seller, the real estate agents for the two of us, and the lawyer.
The lawyer had a stack of about 100 sheets of paper that we went through one by one. Most just needed my initials. Some needed signatures. A few happy pages needed nothing. This stack of paper accomplished several things: confirming the final dollar amounts of the sale, borrowing a huge amount of money from the bank, putting a lien my house to cover the loan (this is the mortgage), transferring the deed, and promising that we'd sign more things if anything went wrong. It was very relaxed and ended with a handshake.
My broker hadn't brought the keys with him at the closing, so he stopped by a few days later to hand them to me. At this point, I think all is done except the moving.