11-07-2025, 10:56 AM
Today, Nov 7, is the day we are supposed to close on the Cambridge house. It is still up in the air whether that will actually happen.
When they gave us this closing date over forty five days ago, I asked why it was going to take so long. I mean the guy was paying cash. Just give us the cash and we'll give you the keys. Move along. I was so young, then.
Things are different in the Massachusetts Real estate market. First off, both parties need a lawyer to go over the paperwork. Here in CA, the escrow company takes care of all that. Not so on the east coast. Another hiccup along the way that almost cost us the deal that our realtor didn't fully explain to us was that the seller pays both the buyers and the sellers fees during the deal. In CA, buyer and seller pay their own costs. Which I think actually costs the realtors money. but what do I know.
But, Ha! We had a secret weapon. My mother's uncle Ralph was a lawyer and also an accountant. He lives in Massachusetts. He's been giving us a lot of free legal work for which we thanked him vociferously. Uncle Ralph was on the case and it was on to closing.
About that. Two weeks ago, just after I returned from Boston where I tried to get in contact with Uncle Ralph to no success, Uncle Ralph emailed the family to say that he was out of gas and could no longer help us with the real estate paperwork. Did I mention Uncle Ralph is 97? No problem, Uncle Ralph. Thank you for all your help. One of the things Uncle Ralph did for my mother was to place the Cambridge house into an LLC to save her a bunch of money on taxes. Excellent!
We hired a new lawyer on the recommendation of our Real Estate agent. He said it would be a flat fee and he would take care of things. The flat fee was reasonable. We all signed off. But then he started asking pesky questions like who controls the LLC? Who is the LLC manager? Where is the bank account and EIN for the LLC? We knew none of that. Uncle Ralph had all that info. But Uncle Ralph wasn't returning anyones phone calls. One of the reasons he did bail on us was that his son, who was also his clerk, had a stroke. On the one it was reasonable that he didn't want to deal with any of us. On the other hand, answer the damn phone, Uncle Ralph.
It all kicked into high gear on Monday when I asked, thinking everything was in the final stages, who needed the banking information on where to send the money. That's when our Real Estate lawyer realized what a mess the LLC was in. The LLC hadn't been renewed for this year. We needed to make sister Roberta the managing officer. We needed to get a bank account for the LLC. And we needed a bunch of documents notarized. Funny story. The way we notarize documents in CA isn't acceptable to the way they notarize in MA.
At this point, our real estate lawyer realized his flat fee didn't cover all the work he was going to have to do to get us across the finish line. In my mind, I wanted to say "But you said Flat Rate?", but I agreed to the new fee. Uncle Ralph did finally surface and straighten things out but the EIN he gave us had more digits than an EIN should have. The real estate lawyer was going to drive to Uncle Ralph's house on Thursday to hopefully straighten everything out. At some point Roberta is going to have to go to MA to sign the documents and have them notarized the way MA wants them to be notarized.
So, here we are. Friday. Hoping everything shakes out and I can no longer own a home in Cambridge.
When they gave us this closing date over forty five days ago, I asked why it was going to take so long. I mean the guy was paying cash. Just give us the cash and we'll give you the keys. Move along. I was so young, then.
Things are different in the Massachusetts Real estate market. First off, both parties need a lawyer to go over the paperwork. Here in CA, the escrow company takes care of all that. Not so on the east coast. Another hiccup along the way that almost cost us the deal that our realtor didn't fully explain to us was that the seller pays both the buyers and the sellers fees during the deal. In CA, buyer and seller pay their own costs. Which I think actually costs the realtors money. but what do I know.
But, Ha! We had a secret weapon. My mother's uncle Ralph was a lawyer and also an accountant. He lives in Massachusetts. He's been giving us a lot of free legal work for which we thanked him vociferously. Uncle Ralph was on the case and it was on to closing.
About that. Two weeks ago, just after I returned from Boston where I tried to get in contact with Uncle Ralph to no success, Uncle Ralph emailed the family to say that he was out of gas and could no longer help us with the real estate paperwork. Did I mention Uncle Ralph is 97? No problem, Uncle Ralph. Thank you for all your help. One of the things Uncle Ralph did for my mother was to place the Cambridge house into an LLC to save her a bunch of money on taxes. Excellent!
We hired a new lawyer on the recommendation of our Real Estate agent. He said it would be a flat fee and he would take care of things. The flat fee was reasonable. We all signed off. But then he started asking pesky questions like who controls the LLC? Who is the LLC manager? Where is the bank account and EIN for the LLC? We knew none of that. Uncle Ralph had all that info. But Uncle Ralph wasn't returning anyones phone calls. One of the reasons he did bail on us was that his son, who was also his clerk, had a stroke. On the one it was reasonable that he didn't want to deal with any of us. On the other hand, answer the damn phone, Uncle Ralph.
It all kicked into high gear on Monday when I asked, thinking everything was in the final stages, who needed the banking information on where to send the money. That's when our Real Estate lawyer realized what a mess the LLC was in. The LLC hadn't been renewed for this year. We needed to make sister Roberta the managing officer. We needed to get a bank account for the LLC. And we needed a bunch of documents notarized. Funny story. The way we notarize documents in CA isn't acceptable to the way they notarize in MA.
At this point, our real estate lawyer realized his flat fee didn't cover all the work he was going to have to do to get us across the finish line. In my mind, I wanted to say "But you said Flat Rate?", but I agreed to the new fee. Uncle Ralph did finally surface and straighten things out but the EIN he gave us had more digits than an EIN should have. The real estate lawyer was going to drive to Uncle Ralph's house on Thursday to hopefully straighten everything out. At some point Roberta is going to have to go to MA to sign the documents and have them notarized the way MA wants them to be notarized.
So, here we are. Friday. Hoping everything shakes out and I can no longer own a home in Cambridge.
As a matter of fact, my anger does keep me warm