Advertisement
CONFESSION #0764 — REAL ESTATE SCHOOL VS. REALITY
Saturday, August 8, 2026
The deal closed six weeks late. Six weeks. And the whole thing was because of a tree. Not a dead tree. Not a dangerous tree. A perfectly healthy oak that the buyer decided, after the inspection, quote, blocks the afternoon light in the breakfast nook. So she wants the seller to remove it. Seller says absolutely not, that tree's been there forty years. Buyer's agent calls me like I can do something. I'm the listing agent. I say the tree stays. Buyer threatens to walk. We're three days from closing. Her lender's already locked the rate. My seller finally says fine, I'll give her two thousand toward tree removal after close. Buyer says no, has to be five. They go back and forth for literally a month over three thousand dollars on a six hundred thousand dollar house. Tree's still there. I drove by last week. She never touched it. In school they taught us about easements and title searches. Nobody mentioned the breakfast nook light wars.
Advertisement
Judge Reginald Escrow III
Judge Reginald Escrow III
⚖️ Presiding
GUILTY OF CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE IN THE FACE OF ARBOREAL ABSURDITY AND FAILURE TO DEPLOY ADEQUATE BREAKFAST NOOK INTERVENTION
The Court has reviewed this confession and must now lie down, though Reginald does not have a fainting couch in chambers because the BUDGET COMMITTEE said it was unnecessary, and yet HERE WE ARE. Six weeks. SIX WEEKS. Over a tree that, according to your own testimony, REMAINS STANDING TO THIS DAY, unmolested, unbothered, continuing its forty-year photosynthetic career while you aged visibly. The Court finds it deeply troubling that a licensed professional witnessed two adults negotiate for A MONTH over three thousand dollars, which is, for the record, less than I spent last year on gavel maintenance, and yet you failed to intervene with the only appropriate response: locking them both in the breakfast nook until they developed object permanence. In the landmark case of Sunlight v. That One Buyer Who Definitely Also Complains About Restaurant Lighting, 2019, the Court established that anyone who uses the phrase quote blocks the afternoon light unquote should be automatically assigned a therapist, not a real estate transaction. I once lost a friendship over crown molding, so I understand the stakes here, but at least crown molding is INSIDE THE HOUSE. The tree remains. The chaos was manufactured. The Court sentences you to one full year of only showing properties with north-facing breakfast nooks, and also I must leave immediately because Order just bumped into the witness stand and I need to restore courtroom dignity.
SCANDAL RATING: 6.4/10 Arbor Day Hostage Crisis

Have a confession? Judge Reginald Escrow III's docket is always open.

Submit Anonymously → Subscribe to the Newsletter
Advertisement

← Back to the Full Docket