Category: Life with Pratts

Legally, responsibility for connecting the house to the town sewer, and paying for it, had undoubtedly passed to the Smiths. But my name was on the contract, and it was my money being held in escrow by the attorney, so I felt responsible. I told Mrs. Smith to not worry, and that I would take care of paying the balance.

Next, I called the contractor. He said he had also left several messages at the lawyer’s office, without receiving a reply. He knew his daughter had made friends with Mrs. Smith, and he felt badly about threatening to place a lien on the property, but the payment was more than 30 days overdue. I told him I’d get a bank check for payment in full and he’d see me in an hour.

[It’s worth noting that, back then, I could tell my co-workers, “Something’s come up, I have to leave, be back tomorrow,” without needing to stop on the way out to inform the boss. My understanding is, those days are gone. Employees now have their time tracked very closely.]

After getting a cashier’s check, I drove up to the contractor’s office. He made out a receipt and I used his fax machine to send it to the lawyer’s office. The cover sheet had a scribbled note demanding that my escrow money be reimbursed upon demand. I called the lawyer’s office, telling the woman who answered the phone to look for the fax. I was on my way there, and I was not happy.

First, I stopped by the house to give Mrs. Smith a copy of the PAID IN FULL receipt. It was a bit strange, being at the house again after a few months and seeing someone else living there. Mrs. Smith thanked me and we chatted briefly. So far, everything else with the house was okay.

After the near-catastrophe caused by BankBoston’s underwriting failure on the house I bought, I wasn’t going to tolerate more professional incompetence. With business screw-ups like those, I am not a nice guy. You wouldn’t want to be around me, let alone be on the receiving end.

I couldn’t see it being an honest oversight. It sure seemed to me the lawyer was stalling. Had she used the money to pay bills? Did she mingle it with other funds for a short-term investment?

When I got to the lawyer’s office I made my presence known, loudly. I didn’t care what the lawyer was doing, or who she was with, I demanded to see her immediately. She stepped out from her office, to find out what the commotion was about. I read her the proverbial riot act.

“My wife and I resented your insulting crack about the Smiths being screwed. Why haven’t you returned their calls? Aren’t you curious why the contractor has been leaving messages? He threatened to put a lien on the property! I have paid the bill myself, in full! You have the receipt! Who’s the one looking after the Smith’s best interests? I am!”

I cut off her weak comeback of, “We’re very busy –” “So you must not have time for any one of your clients!”

With my fury receding, I took a quick read of the room. The lawyer had three women working for her, and I could see they were suppressing smiles from witnessing their boss getting chewed out. The lawyer herself was looking nervous, even a bit scared.

I took a breath, settled down, and prepared to leave. I demanded a cashier’s check for the full amount of the escrow account to be delivered to me the next day via FedEx. I was told it was too late for next day delivery, but I’d have it the day after tomorrow. It was late in the day, and I reluctantly agreed. A check was delivered as promised, and I was done with the whole mess that had begun almost two years earlier.

We were finally able to start getting settled, after one of the most challenging summers of my life, until last year’s cancer treatments. When passing papers on selling our place, I made a point of giving our new phone number to the Smiths, in case they had any questions or problems.

A few months later, my wife called me at work. Mrs. Smith had called, and she was upset. There was a problem with the sewer hookup! I called her, and the story wasn’t at all what I feared it could be.

About a month after the closing, the town had given the okay for sewer connections on the street. Mr. Smith, holding the agreement I signed with the contractor, had contacted him. The contractor coordinated everything with the town. He pumped out the septic tank, did all of the digging and pipe work, and there were no problems with putting the house online with the sewer. What a relief hearing that!

There was a plot twist that was very gratifying to hear. Mrs. Smith had become instant best friends with the wife/mother next door. I was so pleased having confirmation that I was right about them being right for the neighborhood. Icing on the cake was that, unknown to me when I signed up with the contractor, his daughter was that neighbor!

Such good news! So, what was the problem?

The lawyer. She wasn’t releasing the escrow money to pay the balance of the contractor’s fee. The Smiths had called the lawyer’s office several times, providing all of the required information, but nothing was happening. Their calls weren’t being returned, the contractor wasn’t getting paid, and he was talking about needing to put a lien on the property.

I was furious!

Based on the timetable I had from the town, the sewer line was supposed be ready in time for the connection to be completed before passing papers. I became concerned when the date began to slip. Then I was told the engineers had decided the lines needed more time to settle underground before they’d be ready to use. Argh.

I had to tell our real estate agent the house couldn’t connect to the sewer service until after the sale had been completed. She informed the buyers, who I’ll call the Smiths. They knew there was a chance that would happen, but I really wanted to go to the closing with everything already done.

The meeting was held at the office of the attorney who was hired by the bank writing the mortgage for the Smiths. My wife and I were there with our real estate agent.

We immediately liked the Mr. and Mrs. Smith. The same cannot be said of the attorney their lender was using. She had the same last name as the creator of a new Apple TV series. The same name as the first mate on a boat that gave three-hour tours.

Getting down to business, I explained the situation. The town expected a delay of two months. A licensed contractor had already been hired to remove the septic tank and connect the house to the new sewer system. I would put plenty of money in escrow to cover not only the balance of the contractor’s fee, but the cost of pumping the septic tank as often as the Smiths wished.

The attorney turned to Mr. and Mrs. Smith and said, in a very snide tone, “You’re screwed.”

My wife and I were dumbfounded. Not only was the lawyer being unprofessional and insulting, the fact was that nobody was being screwed.

Our agent immediately spoke up in our defense. She told the lawyer that I had done everything possible to have the sewer work completed ahead of time, but it was entirely out of my control. Then she revealed there had been another offer on the property, for more money. My unprecedented gesture, of accepting less money, without asking for a counter-offer, was news to the Smiths.

After that bizarre upset, we passed papers. We agreed on an amount to be held in escrow by the attorney, and I wrote a check for even more money. We left the meeting feeling good about the Smith family, but with the lawyer’s rudeness leaving a bitter aftertaste.

It was hot mid-August weather. Driving home on the highway, the radiator on my ’89 Honda Civic blew out. We had to drive to our new home with the heat in the car turned up full blast.

I paid the $800 betterment fee to the town and signed up for the coming sewer service. Huge concrete forms were dropped off along the street, including some placed in our front yard.

Hoping the sewer connection could be done before closing on the sale of the house, I contacted one of the contractors authorized to do the work. He came to the house, saw what he would need to do, and quoted a more than reasonable price of $2400. As I recall, the deposit was only $600.

While I was doing that, my wife looked for a real estate agent. The first one she talked to wanted to list the house for what seemed to me a giveaway asking price. Another realtor, who we hired, told us the other agent’s sister lived in the house behind ours. Ah. The lady was trying to arrange a shady deal for herself. I should have reported her, but I didn’t. There was too much going on, in addition to my job, to bother with that.

The concrete forms were still there when the agent held a Sunday open house. She saw them as a selling point. Overnight, a powerful storm had dumped a significant amount of rain on the town. When the agent arrived, I told her I had to mop up some water that had appeared under the oil tank in the basement. She was relieved, because the other houses being shown that day in our price range all had flooded basements.

During the open house we were killing time at a museum, when the agent called my wife’s (analog) cellphone. There were two offers; one was for the asking price, the other was for $500 above asking price.

When we met with the agent later, I asked her what she was able to learn about the people who had made the two competing offers. She handed us a nicely written letter from the couple who were offering the extra $500. They were young professionals who were hoping to start a family. The offer for asking price was from a couple with two small children. He was a truck driver with a tile contracting business on the side. I accepted their offer.

The agent said she’d never had a client turn down an offer for more money, even a small amount like $500. The thing to do was ask if they would match it. I explained to her that I simply felt the couple with children would be a better fit for the neighborhood. Also, I liked the idea of the kids playing in the backyard. I’d put a lot of work and money into making the backyard nice for us. That was another reason why I didn’t want a new leaching field that would require removal of the above-ground pool and leave a huge mound with a vent stack.

So, everything was in motion. My mother made it through her medical crisis, I was going to buy a house (while not yet knowing about the bank’s underwriting screw-up), and there was a contract to purchase for my house. It was a great week when the street was dug up and all of the concrete forms were buried underground. It then became a question of how much of a delay there would be before the town gave the okay for the sewer hookup.

Thanks to the intervention of my employer, the closing went through for the purchase of my present house, with only one more snag in the process. The lawyer had to fix a problem he found with the original filing of the deed in land court. It was in my favor, adding a nice chunk of woods to the back of the property. I own it up to that distant stonewall. That stream is dry during most of the year.

Now, about the sale of my first house. As I explained before, my septic system had failed, but I’d been told the street was on the town’s schedule for a sewer line extension. We spent the next year keeping our water usage low and the septic tank pumped out.

I was relieved to receive a bill from the town for an $800 betterment fee (equivalent to $1600 today), because that made it official. Hooray! Every property owner who was eligible for a sewer hookup had to pay the fee, whether or not they chose to connect.

I attended a town meeting about the sewer project, where people complained about having to pay the one-time fee, regardless of their need or interest in not needing Rid-X. Having a flashback to the many city council and school committee meetings I’d attended as a radio reporter, I stood up and did what I couldn’t do as a reporter. I stated an opinion.

“The sewer is good for our property values. My septic system has failed, and connecting to the sewer will cost a tenth of what it would be to replace it. Many houses in town with septic systems date back to the Fifties. Eventually, they’ll all fail. $800 may be a lot of money to pay all at once, but they said you can pay $200 quarterly, with your property tax bills. We need to do this.”

It was my George Bailey moment.

What I didn’t say was that we were selling and leaving! Longtime friends who lived in town called to say they saw my little speech on cable TV. My friends were comfortable living there, but we weren’t a good fit.