Expert: Ray Beggs - 11/26/2007

Question
Hi Ray,

My husband and I are in the process of buying our first home and boy, has it been a nightmare!! We found out the home we want belongs to an HOA. The home we are interested in is a single family detatched. We asked for the rules when we decided to put an offer in and were told we would receive them in about 10 business days. Well...stupid us...we went ahead and put an offer in and figured we would have the rules in time. The bank accepted our offer quickly and then we were in a pickle because we had to have inspections completed within 7 days and we STILL didn't have the HOA rules. We FINALLY got the rules, but not after shelling out close to $500, which we can ill afford to lose, only to find out they do not allow ANY reptiles and have other strict restrictions! We have 7 reptiles, a dog, and a cat. All they allow is one dog or 2 cats!! I guess my question to you is, why aren't the HOA rules provided for potential home buyers? We have now wasted a load of money and lost precious time looking because we flat out didn't know. Also, we just found out that our lender sent an appraiser out without our knowledge, so now we have to pay for that too! Don't they have to let us know before they do that? Sorry if my questions are silly or incoherent...I'm just SO frustrated!!!

Thank you so much for any help/advice you can offer.

P.S. We do have an AWESOME real estate agent, so that's a plus! :)

Answer
Hi Aimee,

Well, I sure feel for you and what you've gone through and I can tell you that these situations are very common, unfortunately. Now, you asked me, so I'm going to give you my best answer, even though it may not be the one you're looking for. First off, it is pretty common for lenders to order the appraisal right away. The reason being is that the appraisal takes awhile and if they didn't order it right away, the loan might not happen in time. The appraisal must be done before the bank can give you full loan approval and you need that within 17 days of acceptance or you could lose your deposit to the seller. This puts the lender under a real time crunch so they are geared towards really getting things done quickly. Put it this way, they will get yelled at MANY more times by not having the appraisal done on time then they will if they have ordered one too early. Now, as to the CC+R's, it is customary in the contract for the buyer to receive them within 10 days of the deal going into escrow. The escrow company needs time to order them and then get them to you. Did you tell your agent that you had reptiles and other pets? This is where the breakdown occured, in my opinion. Your agent should have checked with the selling agent and asked these questions ahead of time and all of this could have been avoided. Even though you get the CC+R's in the escrow, that doesn't mean that you can't ask the seller or homeowners association questions ahead of time.

I wish you the bet of luck finding your perfect home,

Ray


Follow up - Yes, Aimee, you should be able to get your deposit back because you found something in the CC+R's that made you not want to buy the house anymore. Just make sure that your agent cancels the escrow in writing and uses the CC+R clause as your reason. It must be done in a timely matter.

Best of luck,

Ray

P.S. Thanks for the feedback!