Our Soon-to-Be New Home

Hopefully, if all goes as planned, this will be our new home in 16 days.

I say hopefully, because things have not gone as planned for us lately.

Let's begin with the lovely company of Citibank that will be hearing from me in a letter very soon. I called them a week prior to our Ohio house closing to have them send a payoff amount to the title company. They told me that they were working on it. I called back or emailed every day after, with the response of they were working on it.

The Monday before closing, I called once more, to hear them tell me that they couldn't fax it to the title company because Citibank only faxes to 1-800 or 1-866 numbers. They could fax it to the local Citibank branch that is 5 minutes away, but they couldn't do it that day since the bank would be closing at 4 and it was 3:15 and the fax would take 1 to 4 hours.

I called back Tuesday morning, the day before closing, and get another woman on the phone, who tells me I have to call a touchtone system to request the payoff amount be sent. I tell her that I have been dealing with this nonsense for a week now, and I want her to do it, since tomorrow would be our closing and I wanted to make sure it got done. She says she can't do it, and I have to use the touchtone system. I tell her fine and get transferred to the touchtone system.

After pressing 1 over and over and over again, making my way through the automatic system, I finally get a voice recording stating that Citibank WILL NOT fax to a 1-800 number. OKAY!! Then why hadn't anyone ever faxed the payoff last week, and why did the woman yesterday tell me it could ONLY go to a 1-800 number, and that is why it hadn't been done???????

I typed in the regular number for the title company to see if it would work, and the recorded voice told me the same story of it would take 1 to 4 hours to be processed. Then 30 seconds later, I kid you not, the title company lady that I had been working with calls to say she just received the payoff info.

Because of the delays by Citibank, I had to overnight the signed and notarized papers to the title company, which cost me $40. And we almost didn't close as scheduled on the house, which would have cost us more money.

They will be receiving a lovely letter with my receipts for overnight postage, and a complaint. Well, two complaints actually. They also charged us $25 to fax a one page document. Obviously, no fax costs $25 to send for 1 page, and the fact that they made me fight them for a full week, is not worth the $25 they charged.

Okay, I think I am done ranting. I feel moderately better now.

More pictures will come in 3 weeks or so of the inside of the house above.