Furlough Disaster!

It is March 29th as I write this.  For two years, TWO YEARS, Don and I have been working on selling a house on a short sale basis here in Pleasant Hill.  Now, we finally are in the home stretch with it: it is scheduled to close Wednesday, March 31.  The short sale IS approved and the drop dead date to close it  per Indymac Bank's approval is the 31st.  The buyer's loan is approved.  The buyer and seller signed closing papers. The buyer brought in the necessary funds to close.  But we won't close on the 31st!  Why?  The county is taking a furlough day and closing the recorders office for the day, the last working day of the month! 

This is in Contra Costa County and the title company escrow officer that just called to tell me this.  She said other counties are doing the same.  She has at least 7 deals that will not close on time because of this. 

What difference does one day make, you might ask?  When a bank approves a sale to close on or by a certain date they figure out the net to them based on that date.  To go beyond it a day or two means their net will be less; it may require them to go back to the investor who originally bought the loan for approval; it is NO small thing to extend a short sale by a day.  It requires emails and phone calls and communications with the bank.  It changes the bottom line as the bank owns the house, incurring expenses, at least one more day. A buyer who gets their loan pushed in to a new month can incur a very large increase in their closing costs.  Escrow closings are closely planned, calculated, and monitored.

Why a county closes in total is simply crazy!  I feel badly they have budget cuts and furlough days but it would make sense to keep at least a skeleton staff on the last working day of the month to handle recordings of closings.  I am sure this is affecting thousands of transactions throughout the Bay Area!  

I am shocked and the escrow officer was as well! 

I just had to share this with you!