The first phone call makes me a little uneasy.
But when my cell phone rings the second time a few minutes later, I start thinking: This does not sound good.
It’s a sunny but cold day in the low 30s.
The calls come while my wife, Colleen, and I are having lunch. The first caller is a woman who lives near a vacant town home we have listed for sale.
It looks like water may be leaking down the side of the house, she says. Not knowing how to reach the owner, but seeing our yard sign, she calls us.
Odd, we think, because the owner had long since turned off the utilities, including water, and moved out.
Imagining a trickle sort of leak, I thank her for calling and say we’ll check it out. We continue eating when the second call comes moments later. Another resident, same message. “It looks pretty bad,” she says. That’s when I start getting a bad feeling in my stomach (and it’s not from the lunch).
We drive straight over.
When we pull up, water is flowing from the house across the driveway and into the street, and it’s moving fast. As I approach the front, I can’t help but hear what sounds like a good sized waterfall inside. Water is pouring (not trickling, pouring) out of both the front and back doors. It’s also coming down the side of the house. 
The scene is almost what you'd expect to see in a movie. The bad feelings in our stomachs have really kicked in now!
I look through the glass in the front door, to see easily an inch and a half of water on the floor. Water is streaming down from the ceiling, splashing below. Streams are running everywhere. The trickle of a leak I had imagined? Not!
We’re talking out of control.
I open the door, and the mini tsunami roars out. Not wanting to get deluged in 30 degree weather, we step quickly out of the way as water rushes out. But my feet still manage to get wet and cold. 
We are stumped. How could water be pouring, uncontrolled, at such a fast rate from inside a home where the water was shut off months ago?
The Seller’s daughter (our contact for the sale) is out of state, so, for the moment, it’s all up to us to deal with. I call the Alabaster Fire Department and Water Board. Moments later, an engine crew arrives, followed shortly by Water Board personnel.
The water crew shuts off the water and unravels the mystery. It turns out that the home has a fire/sprinkler system which is served by a separate water line. When water service is disconnected, the regular water is turned off, but for obvious safety reasons, the workers tell us, the sprinkler system feed is always left on.
I wonder how many people with sprinkler systems inside their homes know this?
Take a home that has no heat, add cold water and temperatures well below freezing, and … well, what results isn’t pretty. The sprinkler system pipes just couldn’t take it, and blew. 
Sadly, none of this had to happen.
We had this home Under Contract as a Short Sale since the fall of 2009. We had procured a ready, willing and able Buyer, who had been told that getting approval from the Seller’s two Lenders could take anywhere from 60 to 90 days.
The Buyer agrees to ride it out, because she really wants the property. Our Seller really needs to sell. So, here you have parties and their Agents on both sides, all working together to reach a mutual goal. We just need one other component to make this work: Cooperation by the two banks holding loans on the property.
The bank holding the smaller loan signs off and says fine. That leaves us needing only Bank of America’s cooperation.
Ahh, so close, and yet, so far.
We used this Contract as a test of sorts, making it our first transaction in working with a new Short Sale/Foreclosure mitigation group we discovered (we wanted to see how well they do their job in helping get Short Sales approved).
The Contract required closing on or before December 30th. Early in the process, we thought that—surely to goodness with so much time involved—we can make this work.
But at the rate we would be getting information out of BofA, (can you say ‘molasses pouring’?), we started realizing that success was not a sure thing.
As it turns out, the Foreclosure team we hired does a very good job trying to get information out of Bank of America, responding to our inquiries, and keeping us up to date on their efforts. On one day in December, they call BofA no less than three times, never getting a response.
At one point, BofA says only that the sale is proceeding according to their timeline. So, just what is their timeline? That was never answered. It obviously has nothing to do with the Contract timeline.
We start feeling uneasy about the time between Christmas and New Year’s.
The Buyer even agrees that—if BofA will at least give an answer by the deadline—she will extend the Contract. Come on, here. Throw us a bone. Throw us something. Anything!
Bank of America’s response: Nothing.
Here’s the big question: It's after Christmas, and with the deadline now staring straight at us, will BofA be continuing to try to get this Sale through?
We get our answer: Our Foreclosure team is told that BofA’s negotiator assigned to our case is off that week and, no, there’s no one else who can help. No supervisors. Nobody. Call us back next year.
After just over three months of waiting, the Contract expires. A sale that would have helped a Buyer and Seller get where they need to be—as well as helping recover at least some of the Lenders’ money—crashes and burns.
So, the property remains vacant. And then it gets colder. Temperatures drop into the teens.
About a week later, the sprinkler pipe blows. Water floods our Seller’s home and leaks into the adjoining town home. 
What a shame.
If Bank of America had approved the Short Sale in anything close to a reasonable time frame, they would have gotten at least some of their money back, there would likely have been an owner living there keeping the place maintained, there probably would have been heat, and the pipes might not have blown.
We have no idea what the damage is going to cost, but to think the Seller will be in a position to pay for it would be … well, I’d call that a sprinkler pipe dream.
If Bank of America forecloses, they will probably wind up taking an even harder hit when it comes time to sell, now that the property is damaged.
Would you pardon me for saying something ridiculously obvious?
There’s something very wrong with a system that can’t give a Buyer an answer in three months. At least as far as Bank of America is concerned, the system (if you want to call it that) in place now provides good reason for Agents to suggest that their Buyers not walk, but run, from a Short Sale.
What good is a good deal if you can’t get an answer?
What’s with calling it a Short Sale, anyway? I’m thinking … Long Sale would be more fitting. And when some Lenders are involved, maybe it should be ELS (Eternally Long Sale).
This sale was never about the money to us. We had charged a reduced fee for service, because we knew the Seller, knew he really needed to get the home sold, and we just wanted to help. That’s what drove us and the Seller, jumping through all the hoops of submitting all the required initial and ongoing documentation, calling, being called, waiting, waiting and waiting some more.
Even though this sale crashed (or should I say sank underwater?), we knew it was through no fault of the Foreclosure team we hired. They did a good job trying to make the deal fly, and we’ve decided we’re definitely using them on future Short Sales.
We feel badly for our Seller. And we felt badly for the Buyer, too--at least, up until the day the home she had wanted suddenly acquired an indoor pool.
Everyone involved wanted this to work … except, it seemed, for one needed party in the Sale.
If I hear other Agents describe dealing with Bank of America as a horrible experience, I’ll nod my head in agreement.
Yep, I’ll tell them, we’ve been there and have the T-shirt.
And it’s wet.
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