Contract

Let me just preface this post with – I am not a lawyer.  I do, however, work in a fairly regulated industry and tend to err on the side of caution.  A big part of my job is to provide recommendations, and sometimes the goal is to mitigate a risk.  It’s life, so risks aren’t always avoidable.  But you have to make a decision one way or another, so I like to weigh my options and, again, err on the side of caution.  If I’ve erred incorrectly, the consequences could be severe.  It could mean fines for the corporation, or an overhaul of a program or service.  Which can be extremely costly.   So what am I getting at here?  No one is perfect, and mistakes aren’t always avoidable.

However… I recently found myself in a situation where someone didn’t err on the side of caution, and it cost me a lot of time and headaches.  I started down a path in the summer, where I decided that it was time for a change.  It was time for new beginnings and a fresh start.  Part of the plan has been to sell my house.  It has been an extremely lengthy process, but it finally all came together about three weeks ago when I signed the papers to put the house on the market.  A week later, it was listed and two days after that, there was an open house followed by several showings.  The housing market is extremely hot right now.  It’s a sellers market, as I’ve mentioned in a previous post.  So by Monday, I had two offers for the house.

I picked the higher offer.  Which is probably what most people would do.  You wouldn’t leave money on the table, so to speak, but maybe it was too good to be true.  That offer had fewer conditions also, which meant that the deal could close faster.  What I wasn’t really prepared for came next. The people whose offer I accepted didn’t disclose everything that they needed to.  Now, they don’t have to disclose that information to me, but there are several people on the other side of this deal that should have caught this.  Someone, somewhere along the line, didn’t get all the proper information that was necessary to ensure that the deal could go through.

So who gets left holding the bag?  Me.  Yes, I could have pursued legal action, but it’s not worth the time or the headaches that it would bring.  Do you see a theme here?  I like my time, and I dislike headaches.  I’d like to reiterate that no one is perfect.  Everyone makes mistakes.  I know that I can, and I do.  But when it comes to something like this, you would think that everyone involved would have ensured that all the i’s were dotted, and t’s were crossed. I am a pretty passive person when it comes to these kinds of situations.  I tend to think that I am not knowledgeable enough and therefore just let everyone else around me give me advice.  Sometimes this is ok, but other times, I get the wrong advice.  Or the advice that doesn’t have my best interest at heart.

Maybe I’m not doing my due diligence either.  In all honesty, there was nothing that I could do about this particular situation.  But that doesn’t mean I can’t do something about the next one.  I need to stand up better for myself and ask more questions, regardless of how stupid I might think they are.  I need to be the one to set the parameters.  It’s my house and my decision to sell, so I will be setting the rules from here on out.  Maybe I will come across harsh, but that’s the risk I run.. and in all honesty, the “b” word has been associated with me, so how will this be any different?

Regardless, this has been a learning process for me.  It could have been far worse than it was.  I’m thankful for the support I’ve had from those close to me, and hope that I can continue to lean on them as I continue down this path.

 

By Staff Writer

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