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CONFESSION #0422 — SELLER WHO KEPT CHANGING THINGS
Friday, April 3, 2026
The inspection came back clean. That's what kills me. We were good to go, buyer was happy, seller was happy, everyone's signing in three days. Then my seller calls me and says she wants to replace the kitchen faucet before closing. Not because anything's wrong with it. Because she saw one she liked better at Home Depot and thought it would be a nice gesture.
Should have said no. Should have said we're not touching anything, we're locked in, leave it alone. But she seemed so sincere about it and I figured what's the harm.
Her brother-in-law does the install. Cracks something under the sink. Now there's water damage to the cabinet base, and the buyer's inspector comes back for the final walkthrough and catches it. Wanted a $4,000 credit. We settled at $2,500.
She asked me afterward if she should have just left it alone. Like I wasn't going to say yes. Like that wasn't obvious from the beginning.
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Judge Reginald Escrow III
⚖️ Presiding
GUILTY OF CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE IN THE FACILITATION OF UNNECESSARY PLUMBING INTERVENTION, RESULTING IN GOODWILL-INDUCED PROPERTY DAMAGE
The Court has witnessed many tragedies in its tenure, but few as preventable as this symphony of well-meaning destruction. Your seller saw a faucet at Home Depot and thought it would be a NICE GESTURE, and you, Agent, you let her believe that niceness has any place in the final days before closing. This is not a Hallmark movie. This is real estate. The brother-in-law, a man whose only qualification appears to be marriage adjacency, was unleashed upon functioning plumbing like a golden retriever in a china shop, and now everyone is twenty-five hundred dollars sadder. Reginald himself once allowed a cousin to hang a ceiling fan before a showing, and that cousin is no longer welcome at Thanksgiving OR in any property The Court represents. When she asked you afterward if she should have left it alone, that was not a question, that was a confession of her own guilt, and you should have handed her a mirror and a invoice. The road to cabinet water damage is paved with Home Depot impulse purchases, and The Court finds you complicit in failing to barricade that road with the word NO. Order the Roomba is circling the bench in what I can only interpret as disappointment. This Court is adjourned because Reginald has a showing in forty minutes and must now go pretend to like barn doors.
Faucet of Folly
Have a confession? Judge Reginald Escrow III's docket is always open.
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