A Wedding at Your House the Day After You Close?

Owning a new house in a new part of a new community, there are always some interesting challenges. For example, outside my window today there have been two cement trucks, one dump truck, one bobcat tractor that is scraping the front of the lot next door preparing it to pour the driveway, numerous people digging, pounding, and sawing, not to mention the roach coach that arrives with food for the workers and beeps the horn loudly.

When you close on your new house, there are always little system glitches that need to be straightened out. For example, in our current house, they hooked up the upstairs air conditioning system to the downstairs thermostat. It took us 10 days to figure that one out. My personal favorite, however, was in my last house when they hooked up the hot water to one of the toilets.

One of our soon-to-be neighbors is going to have her wedding at her new home the day after she closes. She wants to walk down the beautiful staircase. (The staircases in our builder's houses are perfect for a dramatic entrance) but what in heaven's name is she thinking? Outside the house the street is packed with contractor vehicles, there is dirt all over since they're doing the site preparation across the street, and there is very little parking due to the construction. For starts, I would be having a fit about tracking dirt all over my new carpets and floors, but that's minor compared to what could happen.

Transactions, especially in this market, don't always close on time. What happens if this deal doesn't close? Does she postpone the wedding? Does the builder rent her the place for the wedding? What about insurance if someone slips and falls? If the transaction doesn't close, who's responsible for any damage that a guest might cause?

When I was working in L.A., a seller let a buyer into a vacant house early to paint. The painters didn't realize that the floor furnaces were on and left a drop cloth over one of them. The house caught on fire and burnt to the ground. One of my cardinal rules was to never let buyers in early, no matter what. If they absolutely insisted, there was a full lease agreement in place, complete with deposits and renter's insurance.

We wish our new neighbor well (wedding is scheduled in 10 days) and hope her wedding comes off as planned with no glitches.

Since we're on the topic of weddings, I thought it would be fun to share the winners of the annual toilet paper wedding dress contest. To see all of the entries, click here.

Posted by Bernice Ross, www.RealEstateCoach.com, The Place to Go to Make Real Estate Dough!

Update: The bridge and groom closed at 2:30 PM the day before their wedding. The wedding came off at 7:00 PM on Friday night without a hitch--weather was perfect and the builders had everything looking good, even where there was construction. After a day off on Saturday, they began unpacking on Sunday.