Circa 2008-2009: Emotional real estate (cont'd)

While we waited on TTMF to process our application for the land in Couva, I began doodling house plans like crazy. I found a free program online that converted your 2D plans to 3D so I was hooked. I was seriously addicted sometimes up all night in the dark like a weirdo, on my laptop adding furniture and landscaping and slowly turning into an obsessed zombie... but a happy zombie nonetheless :)



Just when we thought everything was going smoothly, we got a call back from TTMF stating that the lawyer assigned to our application found one problem that had to be addressed. We went in and our representative explained that the deed for the land doesn't show any road access. This means that if anyone owns the property where the track to the land runs, they can cut us off at anytime leaving us with no access to our land. She explained that the seller either had to 1) visit a legal firm to modify the deed indicating 'right-of-way access' or 2) the seller constructs an actual road to establish access to the property.

We went back and forth with the seller on this matter via the real estate agent and eventually, she agreed to construct the road as she lived abroad. We kept getting updates that the construction will be started soon by her brother. The construction never started however and instead, we were informed by the agent that the seller wanted to pull out of the sale. I was heartbroken. I asked and pleaded with the agent to convince her to change her mind and I believe he really try but he said she(the seller) just couldn't handle all these extra matters and was just expecting a smooth sale of this property. He said she wanted to hold out for a cash sale instead to avoid all of these issues.

I was MAD at first. We both were. We already paid legal fees amounting to over $5K, we paid for that evaluation and other minor expenses relating to the sale. We were informed by our TTMF rep that we had the option of 1) just bowing out of the sale or 2) take legal actions to force them to proceed and the contract was binding and really could not be broken without agreement from both parties. The rep gave us her own personal advice that option two may not be the best choice because why force someone to do something they didn't want to. She explained to us that what was meant to be will be.

So instead, I sat down an wrote a long letter to the seller indicating our desire to continue but if she still refused I quoted all the expenses, including our down payment, that we were subjected to thus far regarding the sale and that we were requesting that she fully reimburse us as she is responsible for ending the agreement. I thought this will deter her, but it didn't. Instead, the agent just called and told us that the seller's brother would be preparing the check and would have it ready for us in a week. When he spoke to me on the phone while walking around Port of Spain, I couldn't hold back my emotions... I cried, I told him how hurt and disappointed we were, I told him we were too far in to stop now. I was mad angry and sad but he couldn't much more than what he did. All he could have done was apologise and bid us luck as we start the property hunt all over again.