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congrats ham! Wifi Toilet posted:Yeah, sellers weren't getting the money either way so they stayed a day late to ensure Ham would get the money. Then they cleaned the place up and are being nice to Ham hoping he he gives them some of it back even if he is not required to (prorated rent/security deposit, whatever.) This seems like the right take, though it sounds like part of the reason it went smoothly is the implication that the hamfam was looking into how to give the former owners back some or all of the rentback they forfeited by overstaying. I can't say exactly what I'd do in that situation but the opportunity to pay off ~3% of the mortgage more or less immediately would be pretty hard to pass up, especially given how high interest rates are right now.
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Sep 16, 2023 07:53
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drk posted:congrats ham! We're probably gonna need to buy a furnace in a year, so it'd more likely cover that, plus a little electrical work.
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Sep 16, 2023 08:02
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illcendiary posted:It's always really loving funny when a parade of dogpilers tut-tuts about worst-case scenarios to the point where they're attacking every single OP decision and then it basically just works out At least it gives me some solace that I'm not the only one who's broke brain spirals off into every little possible nightmare scenario whenever there is some amount of risk in life that takes time to resolve.
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Sep 16, 2023 09:27
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Ham I hope you're having a little party in the new house tonight because that's what I'd be doing. Now while it's still joyful and the pain is still yet to come.
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Sep 16, 2023 09:44
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yay for no squatters. enjoy the new digs Ham
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Sep 16, 2023 14:29
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Yeah this could have gone comedy awful, hopefully all is well and you never find the Native American burial they pissed on and then buried upside down under the foundation. Kidding! Hope radon checks passed. Glad it worked out 
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Sep 16, 2023 14:38
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Baddog posted:Don't censor your ******* posts lol 
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Sep 16, 2023 14:40
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SmuglyDismissed posted:At least it gives me some solace that I'm not the only one who's broke brain spirals off into every little possible nightmare scenario whenever there is some amount of risk in life that takes time to resolve. "I'm just like an SA mod" should not bring you solace.
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Sep 16, 2023 14:44
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Probably no one in this thread has the expertise to actually know, but the question still lingering in my mind is... DOR told the escrow company "do not release the $25K to fraudster. We have a garnish order, that money belongs to us." So fraudster tokenly violates the agreed upon vacating date, thus making the $25K go to OP because gently caress The Man. Will the DOR really just shrug it off if OP then gives some or all of that money to Fraudster?
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Sep 16, 2023 15:11
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Ham Equity posted:I seriously considered going and posting in the "get yourself a six-hour probe with a cute picture" thread, but then realized there are, like, multiple mods invested in this now and I'd probably get banned eight ways to Sunday. You can still post in the thread anyway, I plan on bumping it weeks after no one else has posted to gently caress with people who forgot they were the last ones to post in it
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Sep 16, 2023 15:19
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Eric the Mauve posted:Probably no one in this thread has the expertise to actually know, but the question still lingering in my mind is... Who knows. The people working at state and federal institutions generally treat people who stumbled into a situation through no fault of their own (beyond a lack of knowledge) very differently than institutions who have teams of lawyers who handle similar stuff everyday. I know I've guided people through stuff and used my discretion to clean up omissions in filings by an individual when I would have absolutely hammered a big law firm and cost their large corporate client $10k+ in filing fees alone (and generally the "gotta respond ASAP" lawyer time is significantly more expensive than the filing fees). Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 15:42 on Sep 16, 2023 |
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Sep 16, 2023 15:40
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Eric the Mauve posted:Probably no one in this thread has the expertise to actually know, but the question still lingering in my mind is... I don't know for sure, but honestly this is likely not HE's issue. Like you said, the DoR said "Don't give the money to Tax Cheat", but they didn't put conditionals anywhere else. It's not like there's a law making it illegal to give money to people who owe taxes, so he's not in any danger of fraud. Like, people who owe taxes spend money, its not like the DoR goes and claws back money spent on hamburgers, rent or car leases. An escrow as part of a property sale probably gets auto flagged by the DoR but beyond that I would seriously doubt they'd give a poo poo about about 15k or whatever HE would send back and I don't know their standing to claw that back. HE should listen to his lawyer but "Don't worry about it" seems like the most likely answer for that tiny amount of money.
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Sep 16, 2023 15:43
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Not sure how the DOR would find out
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Sep 16, 2023 16:03
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Ungratek posted:Not sure how the DOR would find out Any transaction over a few grand triggers IRS paperwork. The bank (read: the IRS, via the bank) will want to know what it's for. If you lie then you're committing tax fraud. If you tell the truth "it's rentback on a house I just bought" the DOR might not... probably won't... put two and two together. But they have the information to do so, and it's not a risk I'd be eager to take. Anyway all OP has to do is not give Fraudster a dime unless legally required to do so (read the contract regarding that $25K ffs) and it shouldn't be a problem.
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Sep 16, 2023 16:48
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Lockback posted:I don't know for sure, but honestly this is likely not HE's issue. Ehh for me it's that this whole situation seems like it was created just to save some cash from the tax man. When it's that transparent, I think you run risks being the guy who holds the $$$ in the scheme. The seller could have at least put in some money for the time between closing and yesterday. Zero discount or security deposit was owed for those 3-4 weeks? Well, now we all know one cool trick to dodge the man that actually seems to work to get around liens. At least in Seattle. Where is the limit? Could you say "im gonna prepay 36 months rent at 20k/month, taken from the sale of this house, but if I get out before x date, I get it all refunded"? I guess the state did disagree with that characterization of the funds. So you have to have things worked out with the buyer too.
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Sep 16, 2023 16:58
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Baddog posted:Ehh for me it's that this whole situation seems like it was created just to save some cash from the tax man. When it's that transparent, I think you run risks being the guy who holds the $$$ in the scheme. Escrow made it sound like they've done this before, and that this is very normal, that the DoR is generally okay with "we get our money from the sale, and the sellers get the holdback." Like, given that the DoR wants their money, and they probably get a lot less of their money from a foreclosure sale, it makes sense to pay off the people who owe a bit to get a lot more...? Especially given that homeless people are a lot less likely to pay them back. None of this is anything I was explicitly told though, it would just track. The attorney at the DoR had reviewed the deal and was fine with it.
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Sep 16, 2023 17:06
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Baddog posted:Ehh for me it's that this whole situation seems like it was created just to save some cash from the tax man. When it's that transparent, I think you run risks being the guy who holds the $$$ in the scheme. I would imagine the more egregious you make this the more likely to draw additional scrutiny. 60 days is a really common rentback agreement though. Also, rentbacks aren't weird or uncommon. They have pretty standard agreements you can get off rocket mortgage or wherever. I don't know I would have done it with sellers who were dealing with a lien but I don't know the order that HE found out about stuff and it worked out anyway. And yeah, if I was HE I absolutely wouldn't give them the full amount back, but they did give back the keys and I wouldn't want to try to gently caress them over either. I absolutely would talk to a lawyer and see if there needs to be any other sort of release, take that fee out of the refund and then take a cut from whatever is left minus the deposit. Lawyer might have an idea on what a fair cut is.
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Sep 16, 2023 17:28
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I guess it's still just baffling to me that OP did a rentback agreement while not fully understanding the terms of said agreement. Like there aren't that many circumstances to have to account for: either the PO leaves before or after the two month prepaid time window starts. And it sounds like documents were signed without actually knowing what legally is supposed to occur if the second option happens (or any of the sub-categories of that, like one day over vs 30 days over vs 2+ months over). I suppose it comes down to another risk tactic, not wanting to spend money on a lawyer for the potential savings of not needing them if the PO just moved out before the prepaid period. But now you're in a situation where all the lawyer can do is tell you what you have to do based on the contract you already signed, instead of being in a position of actually knowing what you signed. Why even bother with the prepaid rentback stuff if ultimately you don't care whether or how much you're going to get if the PO doesn't get out by the date you set? I'm sure that wasn't the intention, but going into this shrugging that you'll just cross that bridge when you get to it suggests as much.
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Sep 16, 2023 19:02
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Yeah I just can't understand how this was such a great deal but if you spent $2k on a lawyer to handle these complicated questions with unclear answers it suddenly is an awful deal? But I also have advised someone to buy a condo with multiple special assessments (after reading all the docs) so maybe I should shut up now.
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Sep 16, 2023 19:44
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I don't think HE ever had major questions about the agreement other than "I don't know what the sellers are going to do" or "I don't understand why they want to give the keys up right after the contract date". It was mostly other goons who were making up weirdo scenarios. There wasn't much need for a lawyer because nothing outside of the contract happened. NOW there is because they are asking for money back but before last night there was literally nothing happening that he needed advice on.
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Sep 16, 2023 20:12
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Lockback posted:I don't think HE ever had major questions about the agreement other than "I don't know what the sellers are going to do" or "I don't understand why they want to give the keys up right after the contract date". It was mostly other goons who were making up weirdo scenarios. Just because someone doesn't have major questions doesn't mean that shouldn't have major questions about a legal agreement they signed and did not understand. Lockback posted:There wasn't much need for a lawyer because nothing outside of the contract happened. NOW there is because they are asking for money back but before last night there was literally nothing happening that he needed advice on. As someone else said: it's likely all of this will go well and nothing will be learned from the whole situation. This is normal and typical, but not a reasonable risk-adjusted reward. Too many people would rather just stick their heads in the sand because their sample size of 1 or a handful says this thing that will really screw you 10% of the time never happened to them. I have this rock that protects me against tigers. Since I've never been attacked by a tiger I know it is 100% effective.
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Sep 16, 2023 20:22
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No one really knows why the previous owners decided to give a bunch of money to Ham, people are just coming up with ideas. "The tax cheats are trying to be tax cheats again" seems like a pretty reasonable hypothesis imo They could also just want Ham to get the money instead of the IRS 
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Sep 16, 2023 20:36
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I do think that it’s generally wise to understand how an agreement works, and more importantly the results of both parties not abiding by the agreement, before you know, agreeing to it.
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Sep 16, 2023 20:51
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QuarkJets posted:No one really knows why the previous owners decided to give a bunch of money to Ham, people are just coming up with ideas. "The tax cheats are trying to be tax cheats again" seems like a pretty reasonable hypothesis imo Untrue. The sellers asked Ham for the money at the key handoff, and Ham went “I don’t have it yet but yeah sure I guess we’ll see ”
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Sep 16, 2023 20:57
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KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:I do think that it’s generally wise to understand how an agreement works, and more importantly the results of both parties not abiding by the agreement, before you know, agreeing to it.
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Sep 16, 2023 21:17
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Ditocoaf posted:I mean, it sounds like he did? Relevant to this scenario, if they didn't turn over the keys in time, he gets the $25k holdback. The only things that took him by surprise is a decision the DoR made, and a decision the sellers made, but when those happened he had a pretty good idea of what that meant for the contract. It sounds like he didn't because he's now in the scenario where they stayed past the deadline and (at least as far as he has revealed to the thread) he doesn't know how much (if any) money he is legally obligated to give back to them, regardless of the DoR situation. If I'm wrong about that, mea culpa, but then we're in a totally different weird scenario where he's thinking of doing something other than what's legally required just to...be nice? I guess? Lockback posted:I don't think HE ever had major questions about the agreement other than "I don't know what the sellers are going to do" or "I don't understand why they want to give the keys up right after the contract date". It was mostly other goons who were making up weirdo scenarios. I wasn't talking about him having questions about weirdo scenarios that goons made up. I was saying it appears that he didn't know what to do in the exact scenario that did happen, which was one of two basic options: leave before deadline, leave after deadline. And like Motronic said, if he didn't have questions about that very realistic scenario, then that's still problematic!
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Sep 16, 2023 21:44
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marjorie posted:It sounds like he didn't because he's now in the scenario where they stayed past the deadline and (at least as far as he has revealed to the thread) he doesn't know how much (if any) money he is legally obligated to give back to them, regardless of the DoR situation. If I'm wrong about that, mea culpa, but then we're in a totally different weird scenario where he's thinking of doing something other than what's legally required just to...be nice? I guess? That's literally the situation as I understand it. He's not obligated to give them anything, except maybe some (much smaller than $25k) security deposit which Ham does know the extent of, but he's going to work with a lawyer to make sure the DoR won't screw him if he gives them the amount he owes, or the amount they were going to get, or somewhere in between. I... think? It's not clear? ... that this $25k is all the money the sellers were ever going to end up with in this entire sale, after the liens. So I can sympathize with wanting them to walk away with something, especially if you "consider that $25k already spent" like Ham said. Ditocoaf fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Sep 16, 2023 |
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Sep 16, 2023 21:47
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Ditocoaf posted:That's literally the situation as I understand it. He's not obligated to give them anything, except maybe some (much smaller than $25k) security deposit which Ham does know the extent of, but he's going to work with a lawyer to make sure the DoR won't screw him if he gives them the rest. Maybe you're reading between the lines, but Ham has suggested giving different amounts back to the sellers, in a way that makes it seem like he doesn't actually know whether it's structured to where they get some back (deposit, or deposit plus one month, etc.) or whether he straight up gets the whole shebang no matter what, and he's just deciding how much to essentially tip the sellers for being cool folks. If you're saying he knows he's legally obligated to give them nothing once they passed that deadline, then why is he even bothering getting a lawyer involved? Just because he wants to be a "nice guy" and be able to give these guys some cash without getting himself in trouble? It's a business transaction and as soon as you make that decision you're effectively, if not legally, complicit in their tax fraud. Which, fine, but know that that's what's happening here. E: I see you edited your post. I can absolutely understand if he's using the lawyer to figure out whether giving them back the amount he's legally obligated to would cause trouble with the DoR, but that doesn't sound like that's (only) what's happening here. Also, if he's asking the lawyer "how much can I give the sellers without getting the DoR on my back," then that's a weird-rear end question because this isn't family and he isn't a charity. The sellers entered a contract, you give them what they're owed based on that contract. If they walk away with nothing that's their issue because of the decisions they made wrt their own personal financial and tax situation. You can feel sorry for them, but as soon as you give them money to address that pity, you're inserting yourself in their financial affairs and why the gently caress would you want to do that? E2: I recognize that in writing, my sarcasm is coming off aggressive, so I just want to be clear that I'm not trying to undermine you or even Ham. I'm just legitimately baffled about the circumstances and motivations here. marjorie fucked around with this message at 22:16 on Sep 16, 2023 |
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Sep 16, 2023 22:05
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Pilfered Pallbearers posted:Untrue. By "give Ham a bunch of money" I meant "the money Ham is supposed to keep, per the contract" - I don't think that they asked for that part back but it's unclear. Probably not? Like I don't think they'd give the keys back if they demanded all of the money and then Ham said "we'll see what our lawyer says"
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Sep 16, 2023 22:23
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Ham, please take a mugshot of your lawyer and then compare it to a mugshot of the previous owner. Does it look like your lawyer is actually one of the previous owners wearing a moustache or sunglasses?
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Sep 16, 2023 22:29
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marjorie posted:E2: I recognize that in writing, my sarcasm is coming off aggressive, so I just want to be clear that I'm not trying to undermine you or even Ham. I'm just legitimately baffled about the circumstances and motivations here. I'll admit that I know Ham in person (no, I'm not part of the home equity polycule), and my biggest take is that he's been very sloppy about his communication in this thread. I don't actually know the details to clarify anything for y'all, but I get the feeling that he's been swimming in this for so long and talking about it to so many people that he never had a good picture of what he's actually explained here. (and of course, clarifying during a goon dogpile is a fool's game)
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Sep 16, 2023 22:36
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Ditocoaf posted:I'll admit that I know Ham in person (no, I'm not part of the home equity polycule), and my biggest take is that he's been very sloppy about his communication in this thread. I don't actually know the details to clarify anything for y'all, but I get the feeling that he's been swimming in this for so long and talking about it to so many people that he never had a good picture of what he's actually explained here. (and of course, clarifying during a goon dogpile is a fool's game) Totally understandable; as we all know, home buying is a complicated process under the best of circumstances and Ham's situation ups that complexity by like 10x. So I can absolutely see things being a communication issue, and I'll drop it and just say that I hope things go smoothly from here for you, Ham (on the buying front - misery loves company in the owner's thread haha), and I appreciate the entertainment of watching things unfold such as it is. 
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Sep 16, 2023 22:42
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Jenkl posted:Yeah I just can't understand how this was such a great deal but if you spent $2k on a lawyer to handle these complicated questions with unclear answers it suddenly is an awful deal? Initially, we had a standard holdback provision on the rentback, which our agent had done a bunch of times, where the sellers got the money if they were out on time. The agent was very comfortable with this, and agents do it in Washington all the time without a lawyer. The lender rejected that, and our MLO said to rewrite it in a different way, then went on vacation. We did that, it got rejected, and the MLO backing up our agent said that our lender wouldn't approve a rentback at all. It's at that point that we re-wrote it to be pre-paid rent and a security deposit; our agent was less comfortable with that, so we had asked our attorney if he could look at it. He said he wasn't a Seattle attorney (he's in another city in King County, but had experience with setups like ours with unrelated, unmarried owners of primary residences), so if we wanted him to look into this, he'd have to bill us an hour of associate time for research. He suggested a Seattle attorney could probably get us the review a lot cheaper. We asked how long it would take him to get back to us if we decided to use him, and he said a day. We got off the phone with him, had a quick discussion, decided it was easier to use him than try to find another attorney (I had gone looking for a Seattle landlord/tenant attorney a year before and hadn't been able to find one), so I emailed him that night, told him to please research it for us. A week later, I've got three emails from him saying he'd get back to us ASAP, and we're under the gun on the mortgage rate lock; interest rates have gone up, and it's going to cost us $10k in points if we go past the deadline, so we said gently caress it, and went ahead without the attorney reviewing it. Maybe not the smartest thing, but at the time, we didn't want to lose the house because our lawyer hosed us, and didn't want to be out $10k. Ham Equity fucked around with this message at 23:08 on Sep 16, 2023 |
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Sep 16, 2023 23:03
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I’m excited to see how the escrow company fucks this up by prepaying for trash service.
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Sep 17, 2023 00:12
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Navigating risky situations is thrilling, I would hate to be there, but thank you for letting us live vicariously Donut thread was pretty good, but dude never actually took any risk. You've hung your rear end out, haha Epitope fucked around with this message at 01:00 on Sep 17, 2023 |
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Sep 17, 2023 00:57
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Ham Equity posted:A week later, I've got three emails from him saying he'd get back to us ASAP, and we're under the gun on the mortgage rate lock; interest rates have gone up, and it's going to cost us $10k in points if we go past the deadline, so we said gently caress it, and went ahead without the attorney reviewing it. Maybe not the smartest thing, but at the time, we didn't want to lose the house because our lawyer hosed us, and didn't want to be out $10k. Ok that scans. Not a fun position.
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Sep 17, 2023 02:53
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We ditched on a house viewing when we found out it has knob and tube wiring in various parts of the house. Some parts were upgraded, but it looked like even the upgraded stuff was kind of old. They claimed the kitchen was upgraded and then had an outlet right on the floor. So it looked like a real wiring nightmare. If it were already stripped down and I would be rewiring everything, then fine, but having to bust through plaster to deal with it? No thanks. I suppose I could just live with that, but I wasn't really keen on having a bunch of circuits that didn't have ground wires on them in particular. But this is all reacting from looking it up after hearing about it since this was actually first time I even ran into the concept in my life. Is this overblown? It sounds like it isn't overblown because insurance would care about that. But I figured I'd ask about this because we might give up moving to that area and instead move some place else that could have older houses that have some k&t wiring going on. Edit: "Ditched" as in "cancelled it like an adult" not "no-showed like some pricks." Rocko Bonaparte fucked around with this message at 03:16 on Sep 17, 2023 |
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Sep 17, 2023 03:10
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It depends. You can call insurance companies and ask though. How big of a deal depends too, but the house hasn't burned down in the 80+ years it's had it so that's a point in it's favor. Basically depending on the area and whatnot it can range from "insurance companies don't care" to "your choices for insurance are limited and premiums are higher". I imagine it mostly comes down to how familiar the local branches are with how houses were built in the area. Lockback fucked around with this message at 04:10 on Sep 17, 2023 |
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Sep 17, 2023 04:08
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Rocko Bonaparte posted:We ditched on a house viewing when we found out it has knob and tube wiring in various parts of the house. Some parts were upgraded, but it looked like even the upgraded stuff was kind of old. They claimed the kitchen was upgraded and then had an outlet right on the floor. So it looked like a real wiring nightmare. If it were already stripped down and I would be rewiring everything, then fine, but having to bust through plaster to deal with it? No thanks. I got a quote to re-wire my entire house, with a new panel, for about $8k. My house is only 1180 square feet ranch built in 1957, so that number could be a lot more for the house you saw, I don't know. But still! If you were looking at a house costing, I dunno, $500k, rejecting it over one imminent repair item of maybe $5-10k might be silly. Assuming it ticked all your other boxes, though. If you're seeing lots of houses that are perfect and it's just this one house that has some abandoned knob and tube plus some older wiring and some outlets in weird places, then OK, might as well go with one of the many options that doesn't have this. Might as well. I've been living with lots of ungrounded circuits. It takes me about half an hour to replace a two-prong ungrounded outlet with a three-prong ungrounded GFCI outlet, which is safe enough for me to use with most anything I'd plug into it. I have tools, but you could pay an electrician a couple three four hundred to do several outlets. So that's another thing you might not know is pretty easy? So knob & tube still energized is something you'll want to deal with pretty much immediately, and you would want to budget some thousands for that depending a lot on how much work actually has be done, your cost of living area, how much demo has to be done to re-wire, etc. Abandoned knob & tube in the walls is a nothing burger Ungrounded outlets can be upgraded to GFCI quickly and that is good enough for most purposes But maybe more important than all of the above: you might be being very unrealistic about how much maintaining and repairing houses costs. Old houses have old house poo poo you have to fix. New houses have faulty lovely work from today's crop of mostly terrible home-builders to deal with too. You should probably assume any house you buy is likely to need $10k+ of work done on it within the first six months. Like it might not, but that's a good assumption to start from.
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Sep 17, 2023 04:33
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It was particularly unusual for that area to run into that and the house was claiming to be around 5400 square feet. I doubt it was that large, and it we've had multiple situations of houses just not being as large as listed in that area. Still, it has a basement, two regular floors, and an attic all fully converted over to living space. I don't think there were little crawl spaces to sneak into and run stuff. What got us to really pause was something like the complete package for trying to do something to fix it up. Pessimistically, we could assume having to deal with asbestos and plaster-and-lathe in tandem with that. We were also concerned about lead in the pipes. When we asked about what was or wasn't updated, we weren't given specifics. I'm not surprised because the default is to act like you know nothing and have it just come up in the inspection. How long ago and whereabouts in the country was it $8k to update? I had a subpanel taken out to a shed in Austin, TX and that was something like $2k and that was after I ran the trench myself. What kind of work did you have to do afterwards to fix things up? Did the electricians just manage to do everything unintrusively? If it matters, the house I was looking into was outside of Portland, OR. Edit: Ehh I don't think we were being unrealistic about it. We were assuming we'd wind up throwing $100k into the place that visually looks okay just to get those nasty bits dealt with and that's why we just bailed on it. I'm keeping tabs on it if the price drops further. It's about to celebrate its 1-year anniversary on the market where houses have gone under contract ahead of us in a weekend. Rocko Bonaparte fucked around with this message at 04:51 on Sep 17, 2023 |
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Sep 17, 2023 04:45
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