Working as a Real Estate agent in Venice Florida, I had sold my brother a condominium with a beautiful view of the Siesta Key beach.
After having the inside completely redone from the new walls inward, had it turn key furnished by Ethan Allen, he and his wife moved in and I listed the one they had been using as their vacation home.
This one didn’t have a view of the beautiful beach, but they had purchased it new and then had it turn-key furnished by “Butterflies Are Free” and it was just two years old and in the same “Pepper Tree” condominium group.
An agent from Salt Realty in Sarasota had the buyer. For the closing he brought his broker Mr Salt and I had taken my broker manager Martha from my Tam Bay Realty. It was not the norm to have our brokers accompany us to a closing unless we were expecting a possible difficulty. For me it was because the seller was my brother and I wanted to be sure it stayed very professional. I didn’t know why Mr Salt was there.
We met at the condo we were closing on. Seated around the dining room table are the buyers, their agent, Mr Salt, my sellers, Martha, the closing agent from a Title company and yours truly.
As we are proceeding with the closing Mrs Buyer said, “There is a teaspoon, a set of salt and pepper shakers and one cake pan missing according to the inventory”.
My brother’s wife said.”I didn’t know a teaspoon was missing but the salt and pepper shakers were plastic and were ruined in the dishwasher and maybe that teaspoon never was there.”
I said, “When I did the inventory I made the mistake of putting down two cake pans when there was never more than one. Since Mrs Buyer didn’t say anything, I followed with, “You want to close exactly with the inventory?” And she answered with a very emphatic “YES!”
So…..OK! “Martha will you please come with me?” And we proceeded to go into the kitchen. I am only five foot two and one half inches and Martha is considerably taller, so I ask her to reach to the top cupboard shelf for several very nice items and I placed them on the counter. Mrs Buyer comes in followed by the others and said “What are you doing?”
I turned around, looking her square in the face and replied “You said you want to close exactly with the inventory! These items here on the counter are not on the inventory!”
With a look of complete disgust she said, “OH, FORGET IT!” We went back to the dining room table, everyone signed the closing papers, a cashiers check was given to my brother, a commission check was handed to each agent to take back to their respective offices and we each bid a happy goodby.
When all is said and done, this has been a good day! And to all Real estate agents I”d like to say NEVER LIST EVERY THING IN YOUR INVENTORY!!!!!!!
See this video my daughter Pamela took on Siesta Key beach just as the sun was sinking from sight. She entitled this little creation “THE FLIGHT OF THE SANDPIPERS!”
FRF ♥