The Great Copper Caper

I’m better than I used to be. In fact, I used to have hardly any at all but I guess it just comes with the territory of becoming older and wiser. Sometimes you’d think I never had any at all and most of the time I wish I had even more but overall, I’m a heck of a lot better than in my younger years. Patience. Yes, for the most part, it comes with age and everyone can use a little more no matter what age we might be.

Within a week after arriving Denver, the waiting game began when we submitted a contract on the Laredo Way property. This house was an REO and working with a bank is nothing like working with a private seller. In fact, unlike a private seller who wants or needs to move right away, banks have no sense of urgency at all. Even though their inventory might hold dozens, maybe even hundreds of vacant homes all waiting for owners, for some reason, they don’t feel the need to hurry things along when they do have a submitted contract from a potential buyer. In fact, I’ve experienced the waiting process with some of my clients which can take up to 3 or 4 months just to hear whether the bank has accepted your contract or not.

We were lucky, or as I like to think, God answers prayers. Within 24 hours we had a counter from the bank. After going back and forth a few times with counters, and signing the mountain of contracts and paperwork required by the seller, on October 12^th, we were officially under contract. The house was soon to be ours but first, the inspections.

Being an REO property, we knew we were buying the house “as-is” and we were fine with that. The house is only 3 years old so we weren‘t too worried. The previous owners were fairly kind to the house when they moved out. In fact, the kitchen cabinets were still in the house. The plumbing was still intact. They didn‘t rip the wiring out of the walls. There weren’t holes in the walls from someone taking their frustrations out on the house when they moved out. Not to say the house didn’t come without any damage at all. The previous owners took the hardware off the majority of the doors including hinges. They took the light fixtures from most of the rooms along with the window coverings and for some reason, they took the door to the basement but other than that the house was in pretty good shape.

We had the usual inspections performed. We hired a licensed contractor to check the house for us. We hired an HVAC technician to check the air conditioner and heating. We hired a roofer to verify the roof was in good order and since it freezes and snows in Colorado and the house was vacant, the house was winterized which means the water was turned off and all pipes were completely drained. The bank de-winterized the property and we checked for leaks. Everything was perfect and moving along according to schedule until the day we closed.


It's Ours!!!

 Closing on our new home took exactly 23 days from start to finish which is some sort of record for an REO property, or again, I like to think it was an answer to prayer. The morning of October 21^st, we arrived at the title company with our check in hand, signed more documents and walked away with the keys to our new house. We were no longer needing to live in the 5’er, we had a house to call ours!!

First things first in our new home - we needed to de-winterize and turn the water back on. We figured we’d save ourselves a call to a plumber and the $150 they charge and de-winterize the house ourselves so we did a little research on line. Step One: Make sure all the valves to the faucets are closed. Check. Step Two: Make sure all the valves to the toilets are closed. Check. Step Three: Turn on the water at the main. As I’m upstairs waiting for the water main to be turned on, I hear Brian yelling from the basement.

“Where’s the water main?”
“It’s the pipe with the red handle.”
“What red handle?”
“It’s the pipe with the red handle in the corner of the basement!”
“I don’t see a red handle.”

Ok, now I’m starting to lose what little patience I’ve collected over the years and I head down the stairs to the basement.

“It’s the red handle on that pipe over… Hey! Where’d the red handle go? I’m going to call the guys who winterized the property and tell them we want our red handle back.”
Yes, the red handle was missing as we stood there wondering how we were going to turn our water on.
“I can turn it on with a pair of pliers but I’m not sure this is the water main. Look at this, these pipes don’t go anywhere.”

Sure enough, my eyes followed the pipe up the wall only to learn the pipe had been cut. As we stood there in a stupor, we discovered the rest of the copper piping in the basement missing. Sometime between October 15^th, when the house was winterized after our inspection to the time we closed on October 21^st, someone had come in and stripped the copper piping in the basement.

Great, what do we do now that we’ve already closed on the house???