The closing that didn't

I hate lawyers. I really do. They all have their place in the world, my father was a lawyer, and I wouldn't be here without him, but ultimately, I hate them. They make the simplest things in life so fucking complicated.

The house was finally completely cleaned yesterday. Nothing left, floors laid bare, save the rest of the dust. The weekend was the final push of moving furniture and boxes to storage and cleaning (I'm still sore). Yesterday the absolute last of the moving and cleaning was done. We were supposed to go to closing today and have check in hand.

Then the lawyers stepped in.

Deb's parents had a lot of medical problems and not a lot of money. They let bills go to collections, leaving liens on the house. We knew this and planned to pay off as many as needed and get lien releases from all debtors. There was one bill where a small claims judgement was made in 1989 for $280. 1989, folks. Small claims statutes end after 10 years so it should have been written off. Despite the obviously small amount (including interest, not even $800) and the fact that the included court costs were $20 - practically guaranteeing it was small claims - the paper didn't say small claims, but Superior Court. A Superior Court judgement is open for 20 years.

Ok, so we need the lien release signed from the debtor. One problem. The company that won the settlement NO LONGER EXISTS. Therefore we couldn't get a lien release. The lawyer that represented them DIED 2 weeks ago. Despite a month of letters, faxes and phone calls, his firm never got back to our lawyer.

So we're sitting around the table, and after a lengthy phone conversation with their title company, the buyers' lawyer decides that since they plan to flip the house before fall, they can't go ahead with this sale with the lien on the house. Our lawyer pulls an asshole move and while talking to the buyers' title company, refuses to go ahead if they don't accept his wisdom that it's small claims and should be closed.

They walked away from the table pissed. We walked away from the table pissed. The real estate agent walked away pissed.

Yes, their lawyer is doing her job and protecting her clients. So is ours. Their lawyer is picky as hell, ours pulls an asshole power move and gets caught.

After they left, Deb went back in and somehow convinced our lawyer to dig deeper into the aforementioned closed company. Initially he didn't want to overstep the other dead lawyers boundary, but fuck, he should have done that after a month of no responses. In less than 10 minutes, he located one of the doctors that was part of the defunct company and agreed to pay him what was owed, theoretically resolving the entire issue. Deb thanked him. I told him I wish the phone calls had happened a half hour ago.

With any luck, we go back to the table before the end of the week and sign everything and BE DONE WITH IT.

I hate lawyers.