This has been one of the most stressful weeks of my entire life.
First of all, we are 11 days away from closing on our first house. We thought things were going smoothly.. everything is signed and sealed with our broker, we have the home insurance in place, we've contacted our hydro company, we've chosen our lawyer, we've contacted and scheduled hookups for our tv/internet/phone companies, we have an appointment this week to sign all of our mortgage papers from our lenders.
Things were going well, or so we thought.. We received a call this morning from our lawyer asking what is going on because they were just told that another firm, that we never heard of, stated they were representing us, not them. So, they called, and we said,
'uhh, no, you are representing us.. we have never heard of this person and have been working with you for over a month now!' Then, our realtor calls and says,
'well yeah, you guys agreed to this lawyer when the deal was finalized'
Now, no we didn't. We never heard of this other lawyer and law firm, no clue. We have never spoken to them about this, at all, but apparently our realtor set it up and they have been working on our stuff for over a month.
Then we're getting calls from the mortgage place to schedule an appointment this week (that I will need to take time off work for!), calls from our lawyer asking whats going on, calls from our realtor questioning what's happening, and calls from the home insurance company asking which lawyer to send the paperwork to.
This was all happening as Barry was walking out the door on his way to work and I almost broke down. It was too many calls happening at once.
Too much.
We believe we have everything cleared up, which is good, because things needed to be done by tomorrow or everything would have fallen apart. We weren't even aware there was an issue, we thought it was smooth sailing.. in the home stretch, but no, I guess it was going a bit too smoothly for a first home buying experience.
Second of all, our landlord is really stressing both of us out! Here in Ontario, it turns out, there are no laws that protect your rights as a tenant or your privacy. Basically, since we handed in our notice, our landlord is allowed to show our apartment from 8am to 8pm any time they want, as much as they want, without notice.
And they are fulfilling that, for sure!
We are very private people, we like our privacy and we like to enjoy our home.. for the last 4 weeks, we have been unable to do so. We thought our landlord was great, we never had any problems, they were kind enough to buy me a plant when my father passed, etc. We thought we were on good terms and they were great people. We were wrong.
As soon as we told them we were moving out, it has been nothing but problems.
We gave them 50 days notice, and the law states 60. We expected this could be an issue, but hoped that they would give us a break since we have been good tenants and friends for the past 2.5 years. Wasn't going to happen. They immediately began showing our unit, every day, sometimes once a day, sometimes several times a day. We finally had enough, and said that we would pay for an extra month even though we aren't going to be here for the entire month of September. Their response?
Well that's fine, but we are still going to show it.
So, we are now out an extra month's rent of $845 for September when we won't be here. And, they are still showing our apartment every. single. day! Enough is enough.. but there isn't much we can do about it at this point, but I am very close to losing my cool over zero privacy.
We have graciously asked that since we are paying for September and won't even be here, why can't they wait until then to show it? Nope. They have been showing every weekday for the past 4 weeks, at least. There needs to be some sort of harrassment or reasonable enjoyment law in regards to this; we both feel so helpless right now. And it honestly feels like they are doing this just to be spiteful sometimes.
Barry works shift work and has been interrupted many times last week with absolutely no notice whatsoever. It's clear to me that the real true person comes out once money is involved, or no more money for that matter.
I legally don't have to leave when they are showing the apartment, and I refuse to do so from now on. The last showing I sat here, wet hair from the shower, in my pink housecoat. I'm sure it was uncomfortable for the person who is viewing the apartment, but I have a right here too.
So.. I was just told, another showing tonight at 7pm - awesome!
