FIREWORKS NOT INCLUDED!

As you can see, the demolition has begun. You would assume that this only began after great fanfare, excitement and a fireworks display that’s comparable with those seen during the bicentennial celebration. Yes, we had received the good news that the Construction Loan was approved but for some reason, that did not translate into “we can commence immediately with demolition”. God only knows why but once again this was the beginning of yet another long, drawn-out, series of non-events.

The main question/concern, Gina and I had throughout this entire process, is when can we begin demolition? That’s all we were looking for and all we really cared about!! Regardless of all the times and dates that have been bandied about from the financial institutions, we’ve learned that none of these dates have any value nor should be used to actually coordinate any sort of tangible forward progress in the construction process. We’ve have a General Contractor (GC) that’s been displaying near-saintly patience for more than two months now. Keep in mind, we don’t want to lose him...or lose him to another job! We’ve been keeping him updated as best we could, and have set numerous demolition dates based on information we’ve been given over the last few weeks....only to break them when not receiving the okays required. Do we dare tell him that we’ve been told that everything will be in place so he can begin his work on Wednesday?

From what I’ve learned, here’s the sequence of events after the loan is approved. For the GC to begin demolition, he needs to first get a final inspection from the city. He then removes the windows and doors from the structure. Only after that, can he bring the ‘dozer in to level the joint. One would assume that this “pre-demolition” could be done while all this financial minutia was wrapping up. Again, not so. The title company often sends an inspector to the house right before they fund, to make sure no construction has begun. They do this so that they are confident that no liens could be put on construction done prior to their official entry into the process. If they see so much as a temporary power pole or some brightly-colored porta-potty on the site, all bets are off!! If they so choose, they can make us jump through some additional bureaucratic hoops which at this stage, we wish to avoid at all costs. We could jeopordized the funding of the loan with any hint of demolition (or pre-demolition). The most ironic part of this entire process is no one was telling us when we could push the button and begin demolition. Are we really asking too much? Was there no “green-light” moment to be savored? And why did we suddenly feel our finances were being handled by a group genetically linked to the Three Stooges?

Allow me to digress for a second so I can share with you exactly how the events unfolded...

It all began on Wednesday, Jan. 23rd. After many passed deadlines and much waiting, we were verbally informed by John at IndyMac, that all our documents were in order and the Construction Loan was approved. Don’t get me wrong, I’m happier than a pig-in-shit that we finally reached this point, but I sensed that we were not quite ready to break out the wrecking ball. Upon asking additional questions, we discovered that this was only the first step in our quest for the holy grail of demolition. I learned that once “approved”, documents then had to be signed. After that, the loan would be “funded”, at which time, they would immediately payoff the mortgage on the existing house. Once the payoff was “recorded”, we could then begin demolition. My joyous, anti-climactic conversation with IndyMac John, ended with an agreement for us to talk (or should I say, for me to call him), again on Tuesday after 2 pm to confirm funding.

At that time, an appointment was also made for Thursday (if the documents were ready), for a “travelling” notary to come by the office for the traditional signing ritual. Documents were explained, signed and initialed until my Uni-Ball screamed from exhaustion. This took about 90 minutes or so. Though everything was now signed, we were told no demolition could be started until the loan was funded...but before any funding could occur, there was one more minor delay. In an effort to protect the consumer from dubious lenders and their oft mystery-shrouded paperwork, there’s a 3-business day right-to-cancel period that goes into effect. Regardless of how ready we were, we could do nothing until the three-day period passed at midnight on Monday.

While perusing the docs during the signing process, I became aware that I had some questions regarding some of the data on the documents being signed. On the advice Tony, a good friend of ours who owns a funding company and is the closest thing we have to a financial advisor, we were told to sign all the documents...regardless of any questions or errors on the docs. Not signing them would only hold up the process. I was told, any errors could be corrected after-the-fact. My major concerns with the documents were three-fold: 1) the interest was stated at at least three different rates throughout the batch of docs. 2) What I though was to be a fixed interest rate, was now stated as “variable” and 3) for some reason, the amount we applied for was now $100,000 less than we requested...and what we needed. Upon receiving additional counseling from Tony, he told me not to worry about the interest rate and the “variable loan” elements. Though not what we expected, because of the current nationwide economic upheavals, this will all work to our advantage and will save us money. But with regards to the disappearing $100,000, he had no answer. He was concerned and asked me to call John at IndyMac for some answers as to how this happen and why it came to be that we were not informed of this earlier.

Come Friday morning, I attempted to call John at IndyMac to clarify this less-than-anticipated loan amount. Though I had a pleasant conversation with his answering machine, speaking directly with John on this day, was not to be. Come Monday morning, I received a call from John’s manager Cameron. He call to introduce himself and asked how he could help. I asked him about the missing $100,000 and he told me that the loan-to-value ratio on the loan has been changed from 75 to 70%. When asked why we had not been informed of this, he responded in a nonchalant fashion, “Someone should have called you on this.” His concern that no one called us and that we now had $100,000 less to use towards the project, was non-existent. He did though give us a green light to commence with the demolition. Though still lacking in the “fireworks” I had anticipated, this is all we needed. Chris (Mr. GC), was called immediately after hanging up the phone from Cameron, and told he could begin with his demolition process. After yet another conversation with Tony shortly after, I was told that Cameron is not the person who can give me the demolition green-light, this could only come from Sean at the title company. For the novice home-builder who has never done something like this before, I was completely baffled. Not only am I waiting for the word to begin demolition, but now I have to question where this final approval (that no one seems to want to give), needs to come from. Deciding not to frustrate Chris even further at this time, we felt the word of the IndyMac manager is good enough for us...and Chris was not informed of the new development.

My 2 pm conversa-tion on Tuesday with John turned into an e-mail saying “We received your signed loan docs late this afternoon and our funder did not have enough time to review and fund before our 2 pm cut off time. I will check with her, but it seems that everything is in and will be ready to fund tomorrow morning.” The pictures you see where taken at just about the same time. Thanks to IndyMac being ever-alert and on top of their game, we had begun the demolition process before the house had been paid off and recorded...and to make matters worse, it seemed as though now the earliest this could happen would be sometime on Wednesday.

Maybe our desire to have an definite, concrete moment where we could open the champagne and celebrate, was asking too much. I’m not certain at this stage that there even is a point where we can declare some sort of momentary victory. We’re looking for nor do we expect any sort of fireworks at this stage of the game but just some sort of sparkle of life from some of these people would have been encouraging. Regardless, we are on our way!


P.S. Because writing this has taken so long, I have a last minute addendum. After calling IndyMac earlier today (Wednesday), I was told that the loan was still not funded and that it might happen later today. I could contain myself no longer and had a very heated conversation with John where I’m certain I impress him with my vocabulary. Surprisingly, I received an e-mail from John informing us “I am happy to tell you we funded your loan this afternoon and wire was send out to the closing agent.” Though the funding will not be recorded until tomorrow, the bulldozer is at the house literally taking out the garage as I write this. I’ll have pictures for you tomorrow, if I head doesn’t explode first!!