House buying, update

So the home inspection went OK. There were a few items that needed fixing up. A couple of electrical connections in the attic that weren't in junction boxes. A knockout in the electrical panel that was missing, some railings that weren't in place. Oh, and the heat pump might be broken(!).

Late last week, the wife and I received the 2 gigantic binders that make up the Home Owner's Association documents, and the "Cluster" (i.e. group of townhouses to which our townhouse is attached) documents. We planned to leisurely read through the tomes Saturday morning, before signing off on the "Yes, we agree to your silly rules and we agree to pay you silly amounts of money" page, when we came upon a huge potential problem. It seemed the current homeowner was in violation of a number of HOA rules (and knew this since October!). Upon sale of the house, the violations (and responsibility to correct them) would transfer to the new owners(!). Not cool. The new rear sliding glass doors and entire front yard/retaining wall were the main issues. If we had to replace the (new) doors and rip out the front yard/retaining wall, it would be a pretty big expense.

A quick call to our Realtor and we were out of the house and on the way to a meeting. So much for "leisurely" morning.

Our Realtor called the seller's agent and left a message asking, in essence, "WTF?". While we waited for a reply, we drafted some legal document basically saying "This is bullshit. Fix it or we walk". After a couple of tense hours, the seller's agent called back and said that the seller was already working with the HOA and had documentation that the stuff had been either been approved or fixed. Why, oh why, would the seller (and seller's agent) not mention this to us in the first place is beyond me. I mean, it's gonna come up. Just a call saying "Hey, the document you're gonna receive from the HOA is going to show violations, don't worry, they've been approved/corrected. Matter of fact, why don't I fax you a copy of the document saying so from the HOA?"

So we finally got the "This shit is fixed" document. We also got the "We called in an electrician and he fixed all this other crap" document too. Now we're just waiting on the "Don't sweat it, the heat pump is fine" document. They have until next Tuesday, the 27th to get us that. That's closing day.