I mean, I guess it's okay to blog through the pain-in-the-ass stuff, too. I keep thinking that if I just wait another couple of days everything that's stressing me will be all settled, but that doesn't really seem to be happening. At that rate, it could be April before I blog again, so I just decided to jump back in and whine.
Yeah, I'm going to whine.
So, run now or grab a block of cheese and read on...
We went to see a lawyer about the nondisclosure of the neighborhood covenants and the drainage issue. He said that either or both could be enough to void the contract on the house, but if we succeeded then we'd have no contract but we'd still owe a mortgage because the agreement that we made with the bank was a whole other contract.
What?
Huh?
Yeah. That's how the real estate lawyer explained it to us. So, the gist of it is - If we succeeded in voiding the contract on the house then we could try to tackle the mortgage issue, but somewhere along the line of battles our luck would probably run out no matter how honest and innocent we are. "Virginia is a 'buyer beware' state," he said.
Good grief.
So, we gave up on that idea all together. We did, however, get a letter of permission from the builder to keep our fence and our trees! And that is very good news. I'm currently looking for a gold frame for that letter. It's going to save us mucho bucks between the cost of the fence, the trees and any legal fees that we would have incurred trying to fight for it... and potentially the cost of having them all removed if we lost. So, we avoided court and Annie and Ernie get to keep their fence! Woo Hoo! That is what matters.
The trees?
Yeah. We are having new trees put in. The whole idea from the beginning was that we'd put up a chain link fence because it would never require any maintenance, but knowing that chain link isn't exactly fancy-schmancy we intended to completely obliterate it by wrapping it inside and out with ornamental trees and shrubs. That was the plan all along.
However, when one of our lovely neighbors saw the fence going up she nearly had a coronary and spent the better part of the last two months trying her best to get us to tear it down... which, in turn, put the whole camouflage/greenification plan on hold. (Who wants to spend thousands of dollars on something that may be getting ripped out the next day?) In the end all that really happened was that she ended up having to look at a bare fence for about two months as a result of her little fit.
Oh sweet irony.
Oh, yeah, and she pretty much ruined our holidays.
Yeah... Pretty much.
Did I already say Good Grief?!
Anyway, for the past couple of days the landscaping guys have been digging holes around the fence to place the trees and shrubs. I think they should have most of them in by the middle of next week. The dirt is harder to dig than they expected and they keep having to go back to the rental place and get bigger and better diggie thingies. They finally settled on something that looks like a cross between a four wheeler and a baby dump truck.
We ordered so many Otto Luken (it's a flowering shrub that will turn into a hedge as it grows) that the nursery ran out and they have to order more. They are coming from Oregon state and won't be in until sometime in March. So, they'll have to come back to finish planting. We are going to have them do something with the front of the house then.
I cannot wait for this all to be over with!
TTFN
0 comments:
Post a Comment