Day in court

Filed under AFK on April 14, 2006
Tagged: small claims court

I had a date with a judge on Wednesday. Remember that buyer we had so much trouble with back in February? Well, on the advice of our realtor and lawyer, we filed a small claims case to get the earnest money.

I was on the Speech & Debate team back in college. I find a lot of satisfaction in presenting a good argument (and winning ). While there was some anxiety, I was actually looking forward to this opportunity.

I’m not going to go into details, but the judge interpreted part of the contract pretty much the opposite of what we had been told. Thus, he found in favor of the defendant. He did, for all intents and purposes, dismiss her countersuit, in which she was seeking damages for wages lost, interest on the earnest money, and some steep legal fees for a threatening letter she had her lawyer write us. All we had to do was sign over the money and write her a check for the small claims filing fee.

We were also fortunate to receive a better offer on the house not two days after it was back on the market. The process couldn’t have gone smoother this time around. We closed in just over two weeks, partly due to the fact that the new buyer signed off on the old buyer’s inspection and the repairs we did.

I won’t say I wasn’t frustrated. When I started this post on Wednesday, it was a tirade against injustice. I’ve put it mostly behind me, now. There are so many things to do, and I’ve wasted enough of my time on dealing with this woman.