Don’t bring us presents…
Some of you who know our history know that about two-and-a-half years ago, while we were camping in the middle of the Sierra’s Emigrant Wilderness, the City of Beacon gave my neighbor a variance to build a deck on my property. Come to find out, there was a discrepancy in my neighbor’s survey that lead her to believe she owned a 10 x 100 foot section of my lot. During this process, because the City of Beacon provides no grievance process for errors committed by the Zoning Board of Appeals, I had to sue the City and my neighbor to stop her from building a deck and to force the City to rescind the variance they had granted. All a barrel of fun that made me seem super-neighborly and nice… (Note the gift baskets showering from the skies.)
The City, after realizing the error of their ways, quickly rescinded the variance, but, in order to finish the process with my neighbor, we had to create a Boundary Line Agreement; essentially a document stating that we agreed that my property line was the correct line and that hers was incorrect. Money changed hands (her title insurance company and my title insurance company both cut her a check), and after a thousand documents were signed, everything was finalized and everyone was happy… almost.
It turns out that my neighbor’s title insurance company didn’t file the paperwork with Dutchess County until about two weeks ago. I discovered this little fact last Thursday when the Mortgage Company that will not be named gave me a call to say that I would not be receiving my next draw. The draw that would pay for the lumber bill that I had been in arrears on since, oh, the framing idiots left in the middle of August. Needless to say, I almost had an aneurysm.
What makes this even more frustrating is that I disclosed the fact that there was a boundary line agreement in process, that had no effect on my property line, at my closing. The bank, or at least the bank’s attorney, had this info in hand ahead of time. Way ahead of time, in fact. And yet, I was told last Thursday that the filing of this document with Dutchess County was a BIG surprise and that, until there was a new survey in place and there was some sort of proof that nothing changed as far as my property line was concerned, no more dough would be forthcoming.
Upon hearing this there was immediate and profuse weeping and gnashing of teeth. (Maybe even an expletive or two.) I spent a good portion of Thursday and Friday tracking down vacationing lawyers and almost vacationing surveyors, to get the necessary paperwork to the bank. What’s sick is that, when everything was said and done, and the Mortgage Company that doesn’t want to be named finally called to say that, yes, money would appear in my account on Monday, what I was told was that, from everything they could see, there was no change to my property that would have effected my mortgage.
No duh! That’s what I told you when we closed and two seconds after you called me to say that my boundary line had changed!
So, thanks for the mental trauma, can you pass me the Valium now?