Fieldstone Farmhouse

March 08, 2019

Welcome back to the story...

We talked a lot about this property. Tad and I have experience in building and remodeling. We knew this would be a huge undertaking. In our initial walk through the house, it was pretty dismal. Aside from the desperate cosmetic changes needed, there was scary stuff. The main bearing wall was rotted out (though we didn’t really know the real extent of the damage until we started tearing the wall out.) The bathtub was in real danger of falling into the cellar. The front wall of the house had rotted where the windows had leaked for years. There was a huge hole in the drain pipe of the kitchen sink. On and on. We wondered how was it possible that a young family with four small kids had lived here for 9 years?

We took about a month to think about the house. We figured if it sold before we made up our minds, then it wasn’t meant to be. We were excited by all the possibilities, but also very aware of how much work it would be. We decided to make an offer. Knowing the place was being sold as is, and that the owners had already moved out of state, we didn’t ask for them to do much. We only asked they remove the furniture and appliances in the yard; and remove the remaining furniture and the stove from inside the house. That might sound like a lot, but believe me, it was only a fraction of what needed to be hauled away.

Our offer was accepted and we called a home inspector to make sure we hadn’t missed something. We proceeded with the bank. We had previously used this bank for a mortgage, but this time around our experience wasn’t so great. After apparently letting the paperwork sit on the underwriters desk for a couple weeks they suddenly came back to us to say that we’d need to fix the electrical, plumbing. & a couple other things. We laughed. Um, what part of “As Is” did they not understand? The owners couldn’t/wouldn’t fix this and we sure as heck weren’t going to fix a house we didn’t own. Thankfully our inspector was able to address each issue with the underwriter and resolve things.

Next, although not required by Iowa state law, we asked for a well test so we’d know what we were up against. (boy was this a big mistake) The well test came back and showed coliforms and E. coli. No problem. Shock the well and move on, right? Not so fast! The ONE and ONLY person to test well water in our county said he would not retest for two weeks. Why we asked? We knew you could shock a well and retest 24 hours later. No reason. This is just his policy. Ugh. We were supposed to close in two weeks. A few days later we’re told that he has a family emergency out of state and he can’t retest the well until May.

It’s February...

We ask if we can collect a sample and send it to a certified lab. They say yes! I do so. I send it to the state hygienic lab and get results back the next day. The bank has now changed its mind. They say they won’t accept the results because I’m a biased party and might have collected water elsewhere to get a good result. Okaaay. That’s insulting and frustrating. Kris (friend and rockstar realtor) starts trying to see if we can have someone else do it. A different county tester? No. Herself? No, she’d be biased too they say. Someone at the bank? No. Biased. Kris asks if her kid’s school principal can do it? No, surely he’d be biased too. The bank said no one except the original tester was acceptable. Obviously we are very frustrated at this point. We ask the bank why this is even relevant? It’s not required by law. We just wanted to know for ourselves. They, essentially, tell us too bad. After many emails back and forth between all of us, the bank accuses us of wanting to hurt our children! That was the end. Tad fired them; and let me tell you, they were completely shocked. I guess people don't do this, but they were supposed to be working for us.

Now we had to redo the entire process with a new lender, but, thankfully, were able to get it done and done a lot faster. Again, thanks to Kris. (I definitely need to link her information on here somewhere.) Finally, the first week in April the place is ours.