~~How old will I need to be before it dawns on me that gesturing while holding a glass of iced tea will invariably result in a brown-stained shirt?

~~I have a deal with a local attorney who apparently loves to delegate. I ask for him when I call, and e-mail him directly, but Ms. Officious always intercedes, primly advising me that, “the Contract only requires such & such…” I know what the frigging Contract says, but haven’t you ever heard of a courtesy status report, Ima Intrusive?

~~At a recent closing, the snooty seller regaled us with the narrative of his blue-blood heritage and the trappings of his upper-class life (“While at the yacht club…”).  Yet as I was on my to and from the restroom post-closing, I heard him first fretting forlornly then cussing a blue streak about a floundering real estate listing he “really, really needed to stay afloat!”

~~There are few things more awkward than being greeted by clients (and their teenage kids) while holding some personal items on the pharmacy checkout line.

~~This Rangers-Devils series has been gut-wrenching. I never wanted this matchup, and I dislike their goalie with a vehemence usually reserved for NY Yankee players. I will be watching game six tonight with a heart bursting with hope and lungs gasping for air, fervently praying for a game seven.  However, I am never a doubter, as I believe in my team!

Have a great Memorial Day weekend… I hope we all remember this holiday is meant to honor those who gave their lives to protect us, rather than to make retail coffers fatter.  

LET’S GO RANGERS!

I was holding a closing in my office. It was a small gathering:  one seller (my client), the buyer and her counsel, and the title closer, yet I made sure the bathroom was stocked to the gills.  I put in a full stack of paper towels and two spare rolls of toilet paper.

After the closing, I had occasion to use the bathroom, and was amazed that there was one paper towel left, yet very little in the garbage can.  Moreover, both of the extra toilet paper rolls were missing.

Of course, I tried to recall who had used the rest room, and only the buyer came to mind. Plus, she was the only other woman present, and she carried an enormous purse with her when she went.

While I’ll never be certain who pilfered my paper products, all signs indicate that the woman who paid $789,000 cash for a house stuffed her handbag full of my Charmin and Bounty.

Is this how the rich keep getting richer?

In yesterday’s blog, you’ll note my client listed too-much fishing talk as one of his closing “don’ts.” He mentioned it as part of a bigger picture, unlike the bank attorney, who blathered on only about his love of slaying fish.

Soon the sellers’ attorney chimed in, followed by one of the RE agents, who proudly proclaimed her official capacity as head of some fish slaughter club. These new buddies prattled for more than an hour about the joy they all derive from massacring innocent creatures of the sea.

The title closer knew that I was a vegan, so she kept giving me sympathetic glances and checked to ensure that I was not becoming too queasy.  Alas, I was!

I wanted to shut out the conversation, but 30 years of honing my talent for eavesdropping at closings made it difficult.  So here I was, looking out for my clients in an oxygen-deprived room, listening to graphic boasts about harming sentient beings. My stomach flipped, my brow grew sweaty, yet they never stopped bragging. I mustered all the self-control I had to quell the waves of nausea.

It’s all well and good to be sociable, and when you have something in common with others in closing room, civility usually trumps hostility. But seriously, any topics not concerned with the mortgage, house or money should be limited to less than five minutes in duration!

A tension-filled, ridiculously burdensome transaction recently closed.  I knew that the deal had been extremely stressful for my clients, so I wanted to thank them for their graciousness. I dropped them a note, and one buyer sent me back joyful news.

The other buyer sent me a return note, remarking on the wealth of material I probably gathered for my blog. He wrote, in part:

I'm sure that each deal brings its own peculiarities, but there is little doubt that this one has supplied enough material to blog about for a long time with all its characters, as well as do's and don’ts.

     1.  Don't buy a house from a For Sale by Owner - they're too emotionally attached to do the right deal for themselves.  

     2.  Don't have closings in a small tight hot conference room on enemy territory.

     3.  Keep conversations regarding fishing at the closing to a minimum.    Who doesn't like to fish...but really? 

  “Small tight hot” is an understatement! There were nine people in a room the size of a walk-in closet. It was a humid, damp day, and there was zero oxygen to spare. I took shallow breaths, not wanting to consume more than my fair share of the air.

Moreover, the less I breathed in, the less likely I was to inhale the fusty stench emanating from the other side of the table.

After a week-long trial, a colleague was agitated with his knowledgeable, but exceedingly loathsome, adversary.

When the trial was resolved, he refused to shake hands with said adversary. Instead, he left him with a bit of advice: “There’s a big difference between knowing your shit and flinging poo all over everyone, buddy.”

~~A man at Trader Joe's mumbled something to the checkout woman, who loudly responded, "Sorry, sir. We have no white Americans!" I’m speculating that they were talking cheese, but don’t hold me to that.

~~While waiting (a very long time) for the bank attorney to arrive for a closing, one of the agents was asking about the age of the real estate office where we were closing. When told the building was “old, really old” she exclaimed, “Oooooh, I love old! Just show me a glass doorknob and I’m likely to buy it!”

~~The woman purchasing the house was extending her commute from the office, and her partner was ecstatic about that. Seems they had lived a very short distance from her job, and the post-work “happy hour” was always at their house.

~~The reports I read and hear keep saying that JP Morgan Chase “lost” about $3 billion. I haven’t discovered who “found” the money, however. Does that much money just disappear ̶ poof! ̶   or is Chase’s loss some other entity’s gain? Maybe lose is the wrong term. Maybe reports should say that Chase pissed away billions.

~~Do you trade with TD Ameritade? If you have a conscience, I’d reconsider supporting a  company that has none. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/17/us/politics/gop-super-pac-weighs-hard-line-attack-on-obama.html?_r=1&ref=todayspaper

Have a great weekend! Happy birthday, Shari & Gary! This weekend, my wonderful son turns 21, and I need a bit of time to wrap my brain around that.  Since I'm capital-deficient, I'm hoping the New York Rangers give him a great present! 

LET’S GO RANGERS!

LET’S GO METS!

The school budget season has come and gone around here, and voters approved most budgets. I believe that's because New York State imposed a cap that the majority of school boards decided not to sidestep. I voted for my school’s budget, because I have few qualms about my kids’ education, plus I appreciated the board’s newly found fiscal semi-responsibility. However, I’m stepping up on my soapbox to decry some of the pressure-tactics employed by the board and the PTA to garner yes votes.

Stop saying high taxes equal good schools, then equating good schools with elevated property values.  Countless home sellers in excellent school districts bemoan the negative feedback they get from potential buyers about their astronomical school taxes.  They can change the kitchen backsplash or trim the front hedges, but substantially lowering their property taxes is a lengthy and potentially fruitless process.

Our high school rated very well in a US News & World Report top 100 ranking, a fact stressed frequently as reason enough to raise our taxes. Yet what wasn’t shared was how many of the school districts that rated higher had substantially lower property taxes on a per-student basis!

The most detestable BS argument of all may be, “The district pays such high salaries for the good of the children.” Really? If homeowners can’t pay their $15,000 property tax bill, but their child is thriving in the school, will the powers-that-be allow them to continue to reside in the house? Oh, no! They’ll place a lien, start running interest, and eventually sell the premises. That’s not good for the child, is it?

Just cut the crap and sell the school budget for what it is, which is funding the flourishing business of education. The kids are just the byproduct, because the system as a whole prospers whether or not they all do well. (Most teachers are a commodity, too, as it’s mainly the administrators who get the big perks and paychecks.)

I tried to sidestep, distract, obfuscate, and altogether avoid making the decision, but these potential clients were insistent. Combining the imagined wisdom of King Solomon with the business model of Stub Hub, I finally sort-of counseled them to list the house at a price in between the husband’s and the RE agent’s, while simultaneously instructing the agent to lower the price by a set amount (nearer the wife’s number) if there were no agreeable offers in 60 days. 

I really would do almost anything for my clients, but I don’t think they needed me to settle this dispute. Why hire a reputable RE agent if you don’t respect her pricing model? Or why not just flip a coin?

Real estate contracts deal with the big issues, like financing and the structural integrity of the house. They also deal with whether the garden gnomes stay or go, and whether the appliances are ̶ and will remain̶  in working order.

Though I sometimes think that I’ve heard it all in 30 years of real estate law, I was proven wrong (yet again). Recently, a homeowner answered my query, “Are all your appliances working?” with, “Yes, but the washer walks.”

I thought I’d heard that wrong. “Your washer does what?”

“It walks when it spins,” she responded. “The buyers should know that it travels quite a bit. We keep the kids and dogs away from it. But it works!”

I told this to a friend, and she said that her mom’s washer had done the same thing. Am I the only person who’s never heard of walking washers?

I received feedback about the attorney who thought he was being considerate by allowing me sufficient time to apply make-up first.  One colleague was incensed that he had used the word “gal.” She shared that her old boss, who called every woman “Hon,” was the “biggest pig” she’d ever met.  I replied, “He may be in the contest, but he’s not the winner.  I’ll re-tell a story on my blog that describes a champion sexist!”

At the closing, everything seemed to be proceeding normally. As Seller’s counsel, I had prepared the Deed with the woman buyer’s name first and the man’s second. I listed ownership as “Tenants by the Entirety,” the legal designation when a married couple purchases together. 

Once I passed the Deed over, the Buyers’ attorney acted as if it burned his hand.  He flung it back towards me, as he hissed, “I don’t want any of your estrogen-soaked agenda on my clients’ Deed! You can’t impose your feminist views on my clients.  Change the Deed to make it read properly.”

You should know that many attorneys, from another era, always put the man’s name first, followed by the woman’s, along with the designation “his wife” or “u/x.”  Those designations harkened all the way back to medieval property laws, when wives were considered chattel without independent rights.

 As soon as I collected my thoughts, I decided that this knight jester from King Arthur’s court was too set in his ways to engage in a real debate (it helped that the buyers’ checks were already in my client’s pocket.) I took a deep breath, turned to his clients, and said, “I can’t give another attorney’s clients’ advice, but you should ask your attorney why he doesn’t want the Deed to your home to reflect your equal worth as a married couple. He wants to designate you, Ms. Buyer, as Mr. Buyer’s chattel.”

Then I waited for the fireworks, which didn’t disappoint. Mr. & Ms. Buyer angrily yelled at their attorney in the next room, to the utter amusement of the rest of us left at the closing table.

Nothing was said when the three of them returned to the room. Title was promptly conferred with that estrogen-soaked and radical Deed, with its obvious feminist agenda.