sealing the deal and tying up loose ends

so today we had lots of real estate things to deal with.

first up was trying to convince this guy, ray, from NYC to reconsider this home in the hills that he and his wife really liked. they had been pretty gung-ho on this house, but they wanted to find out how it would be to rent it out when not using it. veronica had referred them to a prop mgmt/rental company that C21 recommends. well, during the course of this conversation with this company, they were told that they had to essentially fire the caretaker (and his family) who lives on the property and takes care of it. oh, and by the way, that they would need to pay these people's pensions, as they had worked for XXX amount of time for the owners of the house.

well, turns out that this was how they had interpreted the information, but that in fact much of this info was tainted with reasons as to why they should use that prop mgmt/rental company versus keeping the caretaker employed. ray's wife had a serious moral issue with displacing this family and thus had ruled out the house. ray and she were now going to put an offer in on an oceanfront condo instead (not through C21).

veronica figured out the real story, which was that the current owner would have to be the one to finish out the "contract" with this caretaker, pay his pension etc. then, the new owner could essentially rehire the same caretaker under a new contract. v got back on the phone with ray and pushed them back on to considering the home.

we'll see what happens. hopefully they didn't get too wedded to the oceanfront condo after obtaining this tainted info. :-(

next up was to deal with the developer who had been encroaching on v's land on her plot in perla marina. last week we figured out that this developer, who is building a spec home on the adjacent lot, was building about 70cm beyond his property line and onto v's land - both with a stone wall and with ditches being dug for the home's septic system. he's an architect from chile who has lived here for many years and has a small hotel in the same community. doesn't speak any english, or well, i think more conveniently doesn't speak english at opportune times. his partner, a kind of surfer like kind of dude and an architect as well, speaks spanish and english. he was also present during the original conversation regarding this issue.

actually though this whole issue was resolved very smoothly. it went like this:

• chilean architect (in spanish) -"how about i just leave the wall?"
• v - "no, i don't think so. besides i want to sell the land and don't want any discrepancies."
• surfer dude architect - "ok, well, how do we know whether it's us encroaching or if it's the home's lot on the other side of you?"
• v - "i measured the width of your stone wall, and it's too large for your allotment, according to this plot plan i have of perla marina from C21. C21 were the ones who orginally divided up the land."
• surfer dude architect - "oh ok. well, maybe we want to buy your land. how much do you want for the land?"
• v - "$57 per sq meter."
• chilean architect (in spanish) -"oooh, no, no. that's too expensive. we have to think about it."
• susie - "lots in this community in less desirable locations than this are going for $59 per sq meter. anyway, if you buy the land, there's no problem with your wall etc. being on our land. if you don't buy the land, you need to resolve this. so how will you resolve this?"
• surfer architect dude - "we'll think about the price. in the meantime, we'll get the surveyor out here to resolve it. maybe you can ask Pablo at C21 to do that."
• v - "no, i don't think so. i think it's your responsibility to arrange all of that.
• surfer dude architect - "ok, then we'll do it."
• v - "ok."

so a few days later, they offered v a price for the land that she didn't accept. then they called yesterday and said that the surveyor was coming that day. so today, we went to see if the land had indeed been marked out..... it had, and the workers were busy knocking down the stone wall and moving the ditches back on to their land. problem solved. BUT good thing we were here to see & deal with it. otherwise, there went a small chunk of v's land. i must say though that in the end, resolving this went pretty smoothly. it could have been a nightmare, but the 2 developers did the right thing and expeditiously. 2 things that don't always happen here.

third item of the day was to finish out a sale with a client on one of the C21 pre-construction condos. a couple from NJ had decided to buy one of The Victorian units. they also decided to hire the big gun lawyer in town to handle their transaction. no surprise, the big gun lawyer has lots on his plate and is not expeditiously (i like that word) getting the necessary paperwork in to veronica. so, v had to do a lot of back and forth emailing and calling to get this lawyer dude to get going. maybe we're there, maybe not. nothing is easy in this country, except kicking people off your land! ;-)