Here's something else we've learned in the past few days: have all your mortgage and deposit money in place at least two weeks in advance of your possession date. Our walk through is on Monday the 28th, so I assumed the meeting with the lawyers would take place after that point. Seems logical right? You see your house in it's "finished" state, you make a list of what needs fixing, then you hand over the money. Not quite. Bay West's lawyers (Thompson & Ball) called us today once our mortgage paperwork was in place and said they wanted to meet with us tomorrow morning! I'm still in the midst of getting the money in place, because we've opted to borrow some money from my grandmother instead of our line of credit (better rates of course!). We've asked to have the meeting with the lawyers on the Monday, after our walk through, but there's some concern that our paperwork won't be through land titles by the time the 31st rolls around. The whole thing is a little frustrating - the lawyers are saying we might not be able to take possession on the 31st if we meet on Monday, but I think it's unfair to ask us to hand over the money until after we've seen the house in it's final state. Although the money is held in trust, they're Bay West's lawyers, not our own, so I can't help but think they're not entire impartial. And to further complicate matters, Jeff Rust at Bay West said that if there is a delay in getting the money in place, we might be on the hook for paying an interest charge penalty. It's all quite confusing!

So, lesson learned: as my mother would say "Have all your ducks in a row".

In other news, we've sold our condo! That's the good news. The bad news is that they wanted a 90-day possession, so we're on the hook paying for three months of the mortgage and condo fees while simultaneously paying the mortgage on the new house. Can you say "painful"? I swear, I'll never buy another condo as long as I live - they're bad investments for the original buyer if you sell within a couple of years of purchase. I should have listened to my mother when she told me to buy a small house - they're all selling rapidly and with good profit for the seller. Oh well - another lesson learned!