Sattua - check your local renters’ rights laws! Assuming you’re a USAian, some localities have extremely lenient laws about evicting renters. Even if they agreed to leave. Even if they stop paying rent.
In addition to asking your realtor about protecting you from damages, you need to HAMMER them about this: if the rentbackers who didn’t pay their mortgage decide they won’t pay your rent and won’t leave, what recourse will you have then? And how long will it be after notifying them of eviction that you can have the local sheriffs kick them out?
If you don’t already have a real estate attorney, now is the time. Your RE agent should have one at his fingertips. A call from your attorney to the bank should get the bank hopping. And he can tell you about any obstacles the selling bank and you will run across in getting the tenants out, moreso than your agent can.
Well, I “provided” dinner (Chinese delivery!) and put the kids to bed, but they got it taken care of with no electrocutions or missing parts, and I was able to take a hot shower this morning.
Sattua - if it’s a short sale, is it their house or their bank’s house? Because if it is the second, the people who have to leave the house are not the ones who sold it; one of the things you may want to check with your lawyer is what are the tenant’s rights when the house they’re living in gets short-saled ahead of the leaving date they’d already been given. Another, who is responsible for damages incurred between the time of closing and the time they leave: is it only the tenants (who, if they are the people who defaulted on the mortgage, will probably be broke and may be officially bankrupt), or would the bank be a secondary responsible party (they’re the ones who got itchy after already having agreed on dates)?
Good luck Sattua. I’m not understanding the rent back thing, but if I’m understanding the short sale that’s basically what happened with my house (though I guess all foreclosures in Alberta they try to sell to get as much money back to cover the defaulted mortgage and any other loans as possible). I took possession on the 18 they weren’t out until the 22 I think it was. It was a bit of a mess to clean up but nothing wrecked so I hope yours goes as well or better than mine.
When I bought my house back in 1991, I rented it back to the seller for a month on the condition that I was allowed to come over on Saturdays and put stuff in the basement. Didn’t have any issues, but then it wasn’t a short sale.
Anti-rant: The porch pillars are now replaced, and - combined with the removal of the old gnarly porch rails, plus about $30 worth of landscaping, thanks to a clearance sale at the garden center - the front of my house looks about 3000% better already. Boy 2.0 and I managed to shore up the porch roof with about 4 hours’ labor, 3 trips to the home improvement store, and about $150. Quicker and cheaper than I expected. I still need to scrub the siding and make a couple of minor repairs to that, plus replace the porch rails when I have the $$ to do that, but I’m pretty freaking proud of what we’ve already done! (Plus, you’d have to know my gardening history to know what a big deal this is, but: Several weeks ago, I planted 30 azaleas from the clearance rack. It looks like at least 28 may actually survive, along with the 2 sago palms my aunt sent from her yard, and the hydrangea I got for Mother’s Day. The hydrangea is actually putting on new flowers. Up to now, the only plant matter I’ve ever managed to grow successfully were the various science experiments that spring up when I forget something in the refrigerator drawer. Hell, even tomatoes, parsley, oregano, and cilantro that I’ve sprouted from seed are actually growing this year. You have no idea how truly shocked I am!)
Anti-rant Part II: Internet! I haz it! (Still haven’t received that phone call from the escalation, but I’m not totally shocked. Because Frontier remains a second-rate company.) But I have internet, so woohoo!
Hope everyone else has similar good juju regarding their own challenges. I’d be losing lots of sleep over that rent-back thing on the short sale, too, Sattua. I hope everything smoothes out for you - buying real estate is stressful enough without this complication. I hope you’re still alive, TheVorlon, and much much stronger. And MissTake? Keep smiling. Cheese.
HURRAY for you and your plants! I’m currently growing milkweed, yeah, I actually bought weed seeds. Monarch butterflies are dying out due to lack of plants to lay their eggs. If you go online and look up free milkweed seeds, there are places that will happily send them to you.
Why can’t I manage to fry eggs the same way every time? I turn the stove to the same heat, use the same pan, put in the same amount of butter, and some of them are so hard that we could use them for Frisbees, others are so soft that there is icky white floating around. IN THE SAME FUCKING PAN FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!
Anti-Rant Part 3: My computer has been home two days after a quick trip back to the Fixit Shop to replace a sound card that didn’t like the new version of Windows and it’s been working for two whole days!
See my above comment about how I will not allow that abomination known as the Playskool Operating System in my house. My old sound card decided it didn’t like 7 anymore, so it got sent to the Land of Wind and Ghosts.
