The Part of the Story I Didn’t Want to Believe

Last week, I shared how a sale began to unravel when a basement tenant asked for cash for keys close to closing.

Here is the part I did not want to believe at the time.

There was no agreement in place until seven days before closing.

For weeks, my clients lived in limbo. The tenant went quiet. Then came back asking for more money. Then hired a paralegal. The number kept changing. The pressure was intentional. The leverage was time.

By that point, my clients were trapped.

They had already purchased their downsized home. They needed the funds from this sale to close. Every delay put both transactions at risk. The tenant knew this. She had already secured another place. She did not need more time. She wanted more money.

This was not confusion or poor communication. It was calculated.

In the end, an agreement was reached just days before closing. Twenty thousand dollars. Paid with help from my clients’ children because the parents simply could not afford it.

What made this especially painful was knowing how my clients had treated her over the years. They never raised her rent. They trusted her. They believed that decency would be returned. Instead, it was used against them.

They did close. They did downsize successfully. But the stress of those final weeks stayed with them.

Here are the three lessons I now speak about very openly.

First, timing creates power, and that power grows as closing approaches.

Second, kindness is important, but it is not a substitute for protection.

Third, structure early in a sale is not about being harsh. It is about preventing someone from controlling your future.

This is why I push for difficult conversations before listing, not when everything is already on the line. My job is not just to help you sell. It is to protect you when situations stop being fair.

Essam

P.S. This deal closed, but it came far too close to collapsing. Earlier planning would not have removed the stress, but it would have limited the damage.