Reflection on the Second Week of Fall – No Worries?

    After months of scrubbing and painting the Cleveland Heights house, months of keeping it viewer-visiting clean, and weeks of negotiating with a buyer, we signed the contract to sell the brick house where we'd raised our children. Relief. Time to relax. I could let the stress of maintaining two houses evaporate. We only had to wait for the buyer to get his mortgage, remove our last few possessions, and sign the closing papers.

   Or so I thought.

   This past Monday morning, Kate, office manager for our Realtor Paul Blumberg, emailed to say the appraiser would be at the house Thursday morning. “All utilities need to be on. Turn the furnace on too.” Spence had already left for a day in Cleveland. I sent him an email in hopes he'd get it at a coffee shop, since we'd already canceled Internet at the house, and left a voice message on his cell phone. Success. He got both messages and turned on the furnace.

   No worries. I relaxed.

   Late Wednesday afternoon. Sharon, from the Competitive Title Agency, called to say we had to clear the lien on the house.

   “We paid off the mortgage years ago,” I said.

   “Key Bank says there's a open mortgage on the house. They won't tell me the balance,” Sharon insisted.

   Did Sharon mean the home equity line we took out when we built the log house in Pennsylvania? We payed off that loan too. The bank had sent several notices saying the home equity line would expire if we didn't renew.

   We didn't renew and let the loan expire.

   I called Key Bank. In a polite, methodical tone, Vivian explained we had a zero balance but needed to “pay a twenty-eight dollar fee for closing the account.”

   Sheesh. Expired didn't mean closed? Was this a variation of a Wells Fargo banking technique?

   Spence had spent Wednesday at meetings in Cleveland. Sharon's call came too late for him to close the account at a Key Bank office. That meant Thursday, armed with the letter, account number, and routing number, we had to drive half an hour to the Huntington Bank in Greenville. We sat with Sandra, the personal banker who had let me use her bank computer to pay bills when our Wells Wood Internet went down for a week. She walked us through the procedure for wiring money then shook her head. “Are you sure you want to do this for twenty-eight dollars? The fee is another twenty-five dollars.”

   “We're sure, and could you fax the letter to the bank too? We must submit a written request for closing the account and releasing the zero balance to the title agency.”

   Sandra looked over her shoulder toward the glass enclosed office. “If SHE weren't here, I'd do it gladly. But, I can't today.”

   No worries. Spence had to drive to Meadville to get groceries.

   We drove home. He drove another half hour to Meadville. Letter faxed, medicine ordered, and groceries bought, Spence called me on his cell phone. “I'm stuck in the parking lot of Giant Eagle. The truck won't start.”

   “I'll come get you,” I said.

   “No need. I called AAA for a jump.” He called back ten minutes later. “The truck started so I canceled the AAA request.”

   Though not as easy as turning on the furnace Monday, the problem was solved. Time to relax.

   But Friday morning, Kate, the office manage, emailed with an addendum to the contract about the point of sale inspection being extended. I signed electronically, replied with a note summarizing what we'd done about the lien, and asked if there were anything else I needed to do.

   Kate emailed back. “Please call me.”

   Drat.

   Now what.

   “There's the matter of the easement,” Kate said.

   “The six inches our driveway curb overlaps the neighbor's yard so our cars don't slide onto their property on icy days? The driveway was already there when we bought the house in 1975. We gave Paul the easement papers last April.”

   “I know. It's just a technicality. But the buyer made the sale contingent on resolving the easement. You can't move the driveway. There's nothing to do except explain it. The title agency lawyer can handle that.”

   Now I'm waiting for the next phone call or email request to jump another house-sale hurdle.

   No relief.

   I can't relax.

   Not yet.