we met with our agent this weekend to do the final walk through for the house and on our way to the house, i get a call from the agent and he tells me, “there’s a problem.”
my heart sank. was there a problem processing the loan? is the house on fire? what could it possibly be??
it turns out that the owners of the house were currently occupying the house. WHAT?? the house was supposed to be empty 5 days prior to the close of escrow so they shouldn’t be there anymore. it turns out that the selling agent didn’t make this clear and the sellers were just hanging out in town for a little bit before leaving back to their other home.
we ended up canceling the inspection and rescheduling it for later. so that’s going to happen later this week. it should just be a formality, but while we are there, i think we are going to take some measurements to see how much carpet there is in the house and where we can put some furniture.
Any time the seller outstays the agreed-upon move-out date, you can charge them a pro-rated per-day “rent” based on the selling price. That’s a pretty normal thing. They just deduct it from your sale $.
from what i understand, it’s pretty standard practice to charge a per-day rent after the close of escrow, but before then, they aren’t supposed to be there, but it’s still technically their house. we didn’t want to cause a big stink about it and from what we hear they are replacing broken bulbs and the like while they are there so we didn’t make that big of a fuss about it. i don’t need any more house drama.
That’s a bummer! I hope everything runs smoothly and you get to enjoy your new place!
Oh, it IS the close of escrow. I wasn’t thinking/reading straight.