A Glimmer of Hope... Finally!

I'm sure you were wondering if I was ever going to post again. I was honestly beginning to wonder myself.

The good news is we finally have a clean title!

The short version of how we got here:

We had a court date scheduled for early December but it got postponed multiple times because they were unable to serve papers to the next of kin for the guy who died but still had a contact on our lot. Why were they unable to serve papers you ask? Well, that's a funny story. The next of kin is in fact a convicted murderer serving a very long sentence in prison. You would have thought it would make serving papers easier since you know exactly where he is, but it didn't. Regardless, on December 31st the judge finally gave the stamp of approval to cancel the contact and a couple weeks ago we got the document in the mail, which means we can resume the process of securing financing.

So not a huge leap forward, but certainly a very important step!

I guess this means we'll have to shovel the sidewalk now! A small price to pay for finally, legally owning our lot!

And More Bad News

Well the tiny house dreams seem to be going up in flames.

First, on the title front. We have hired a real estate lawyer. He's working on it. The good news is, the person with the contract we have to get voided is NOT a murdered. He just happens to have the same name as a murderer. However, he is deceased. So you know, there's that. At least we aren't suing a murdered.

However, even when we get the title cleaned up, we are back to square one because the bank is refusing to fund our project because of the "uniqueness" of the property and the "undesirable" location (near train tracks and a busy street). I'm not sure where we will go from here. I suspect once we get the title cleaned up, we will have to look to local banks or programs affiliated with the revitalization of the city in hopes of getting funding. The house appraises over what we want to borrow. Our credit is stellar. But we can't get funding. Two hard-working, employed people who pay their taxes and have excellent credit can't get funding to build a house when people are defaulting on mortgages constantly? It's mind-boggling really.

Please send us your positive vibes. We need them.

On Hold. Indefinitely.

Well, my friends. We have nothing but more bad news. The title wasn't processed correctly when we bought it from the county. We can partially fix it, but apparently to 100% fix it we have to hire a real estate lawyer and go through a not so easy process of removing the previous owner from the title (not to mention the expense). How can Hennepin County sell us a piece of land without actually doing this first? I have no idea.

But I basically feel like someone pulled a fast one on us, and we were dumb enough to trust the system.

So, as much as it pains me to say this (and it does), the official "hold" button is being pushed. We'll pay the remaining bill to the architect and surveyor. And just hope for the best when we get this all straightened out.

I wish a miracle could take place, but I think we've used them all up. Perhaps there will be a tiny house coming in 2016. But for now, we will work on this title mess and then re-start our savings to hopefully build this house down the road.

Until then...