Well, we're off to our meeting with the lawyers at Thompson & Ball to hand over the money. I'm trying to not get too upset, but I feel like I'm being strong-armed by the mafia! Here's the breakdown of how this all happened...

Bay West is having our walk through on the 28th, three days prior to our possession date. Because I didn't want to hand over the money to Bay West's lawyers until AFTER I've seen my house in a completed state (is that so crazy?), we're on the hook for 36% INTEREST PER ANNUM. That's 3% per month, or 0.10% per day. That's $198 per day - I think Tony Soprano would be nicer to us than that! The money doesn't come into Bay West's possession until after land titles has processed the paperwork, which apparently takes five business days. So what that means is that if we sign off on the money transfer on Monday after the walk through, we'll be one day over our possession date and thus owe Bay West $198. Further, if the land titles office is back logged and the process takes a few extra days, we have to pay for that as well. Incredible - we're giving them nearly a quarter of a million dollars for this home, and they want to charge us $198 a day because someone in the land titles office can't push paperwork fast enough?

Oh yeah, they're also billing us $85 for a courier and $10 for photocopies. < sigh >

I'm really frustrated over this - all I want is to see my new home in its completed state before handing over more money than I've ever paid for anything in my life. Does that sound unreasonable? My walk through on the condo we're in now was one week prior to possession. I saw the condo, felt like it was finished, met with their lawyers and signed over the money. That seems like a logical progression doesn't it? Marlene at Thompson & Ball was trying to convince me that most builders do the walk through the same day as possession. I don't really care if that's the way it's normally done - it's not fair to the buyer. The last time we saw our house, the hardwood flooring wasn't finished, the carpet wasn't installed at all, the painting wasn't done properly, our appliances weren't in, etc. And now we're supposed to place our trust in our builder that everything is completely finished? That requires a little too much trust for me.

So, new home builders, here's what I suggest you do: when you sign the contract for a new home, add a clause stating that you want the walk through to be done 1 WEEK PRIOR to possession, and that you won't release funds until after you've seen your house in its completed state. If you're spending that much money on it, don't you want to see it finished before you hand over the money?