The brother still lives in the Greater Buffalo Metropolitan Area, if there is such a thing, and the sister (a true Buffaloonian) lives in North Carolina. The siblings, it seems, cannot stand the sight of one another and do no speak unless absolutely necessary. The sister seems far less motivated to sell, and will go through extended periods of time where she is unreachable.

Their agent is the acting manager of another branch of our agent's company. He is, by all available accounts, a mildly retarded prick. The agents in his office hate him because he claims first dibs on any new properties that filter in, despite company policy dictating that he should only be taking on sales when all his agents are busy. The agents outside his office hate him because he doesn't answer phones, emails, or sharp slaps to the forehead.

The sellers had two major things on their list of things to do. The roof, which was done. The electrical work, which the sellers' agent told our agent was done three weeks ago. Our agent is a childhood friend of The Wife, and I have been pissing The Wife off by pointing out that I objected to her hire at the start of all this. Things went well enough at first, so well that I admitted to The Wife that I had been wrong about her friend. Here I am, today, admitting that I was probably wrong in admitting that I was wrong. She treats us as though she is doing us a favor by being our agent. She's getting her full commission, but somehow we don't get the same attention a regular customer would. Yesterday was the first day in two weeks that we heard from our agent, and it was to deliver bad news and tell us that there is nothing she can do.

The news. An electrician went in last week (but wait, we were told the work was done three weeks ago...) and told the sellers there is no work to be done. That the electrical is all up to code and there are no problems. I know this isn't the case, as there are a couple of problems beyond what we specified in the contract. No honest, competent, impartial electrician could inspect that house and say it's up to code. So the sellers hired a) a liar, b) an idiot, or c) a friend, or friend-of-a-friend. A liar would likely try to sell them more, so the electrician was likely either and idiot or someone's friend. Whatever the problem, the answer doesn't satisfy the terms of our contract which spelled out specific repairs.

The contract. We still don't have a signed copy. The first time it was in the selling agent's hands, it got destroyed by some natural disaster. We think it likely that either he, or Seller Sister, spilled coffee on it. All that got signed and returned to us was the addendum extending the inspection phase. The second copy is in the wind. Whether it is unsigned and sitting on the selling agent's desk, or with Seller Sister in Carolina, we do not have a signed contract.

We are supposed to close a week from Friday, and we have to requalify the loan if we close later than the sixth of March. We lose our rate lock if we don't close by the sixteenth, and we have locked in at a better rate than we'd get now. We signed a contract on January 20th, and the other parties haven't returned the favor.

This is clearly an unacceptable situation. When we point this out to our agent, she inevitably responds that there's nothing she can do. She's not dealing with another agent, she's dealing with a branch manager. Personally, I find it hard to believe. Everybody has a boss. If a branch manager is fucking things up, go over his head.

As it stands, we're circling the wagons and asking our attorney to tell us the best course of action. Sitting on our hands is getting us nowhere. The sellers have invested money in the property in preparation for the sale, so I doubt they're looking to back out. All we need is a well-placed threat and things will start rolling again. I still think we'll buy this house, and even close on time. I just think we may have to do some figurative skull cracking to get the job done.