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CONFESSION #0990 — THE LISTING THAT WOULDN'T DIE
Tuesday, October 27, 2026
Both parties had signed. Inspection done, appraisal done, we're three days from closing and the buyer's lender calls me (not the buyer, me, which should have been my first warning) and says they need another 20k down because the underwriter changed his mind about something with the buyer's business income. The buyer doesn't have 20k. The seller won't drop the price because she already bought a condo in Florida and needs every dollar. So we're dead. Except the buyer's mom offers to gift the 20k but now we need a new letter and the lender needs 12 more days to re-underwrite with the gift funds and the seller's rate lock on her Florida condo expires in 8 days so she's paying $400 a day to extend it and she's calling me every morning at 6am asking if I've fixed it yet like I personally broke her financing. The buyer's mom's bank takes 5 business days to wire the gift. We close 14 days late. The seller's condo extension cost her $5,600 and she asked me at the closing table if I thought that was fair and I said nothing because what am I supposed to say, I just handed her a pen and she signed and that was it, that was the whole thing, everyone got what they wanted technically.
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Judge Reginald Escrow III
⚖️ Presiding
GUILTY OF AGGRAVATED SILENCE IN THE FIRST DEGREE WITH PREMEDITATED PEN-HANDING
The Court has reviewed this confession and finds itself PHYSICALLY ILL at the sheer audacity of handing a woman a pen instead of an answer. Let the record show that when a seller who has just hemorrhaged $5,600 in rate lock extensions asks you if something is FAIR, she is not seeking your legal opinion, she is seeking ACKNOWLEDGMENT OF HER SUFFERING, and you gave her OFFICE SUPPLIES. This Court has seen defendants with more emotional courage, and one of them was a foreclosure notice I once ruled against for being too direct. The lender calling YOU instead of the buyer is not a warning, it is a CRY FOR HELP from a financial institution that has clearly lost control of its own underwriting department, and frankly Reginald has OPINIONS about underwriters who change their minds three days before closing because that is not underwriting that is HOSTAGE NEGOTIATION. I myself once extended a rate lock for eleven days waiting for a title company to locate a satisfaction of mortgage from 1987 and when they finally found it I wept openly in my breakfast nook, so I understand the seller's 6am phone calls more than you know. You delivered a closing, yes, but you delivered it like a pizza that arrives cold and the driver just shrugs, and this Court finds that technically getting what you want is the saddest form of victory known to residential real estate. The gavel falls, the Roomba has spoken, and Reginald must now go stare at his own granite countertops in silent judgment.
Cowardly Pen Diplomacy
Have a confession? Judge Reginald Escrow III's docket is always open.
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