Friday, January 21, 2022

Moving on from the Zoning Board Meeting

So, knowing that there wasn't a chance to keep the chin business / rescue in Chesterton, we started looking for new places to move.  The 1+ acre in Chesterton wasn't right, so the next place, we literally talked about -- the neighbors better be cornfields!

All work stopped on the barn, and we got deposits back on a handful of things, but unfortunately, much of the money -- about $50,000 -- had already been spent on what was already done.

We stopped taking in rescues and worked on rehoming the chins that we had.

...and as there's never a dull moment in the chin world, there was some issues with our boarding situation for where our chins were at Jim's, and we had a bit of a falling out, so the chins needed to be moved to board elsewhere, like ASAP.  This was about April/May 2021.

Thankfully, we were able to find another breeder, a tad closer to home this time, that could take them in and board them for a bit.  We took them there in three trips.

Around this same time, we stumbled on a great farm property a few miles outside the farm town of Wolcott, Indiana.  We went to look at it, and put in an offer right away.  One of the barns on the property was perfect!  It would only have been more perfect if the barn had already been heated and cooled, but heck, it had running water, cement floor, and some insulation, so something better than nothing!

Getting the Wolcott property would be a feat in itself.  From the day we first saw the property, it took 2 days short of 6 months to close.

First, we were a week short of closing, when I got a text from our lender asking for me to call her.  Turns out, they couldn't do agricultural loans, and we had to start the whole process again, with another lender.  So, we do.  Fast forward to almost being ready to close again, and we found out, the seller had not finished parceling the land (there were two parcels available, 2.76 acres with the house and barns and another 8.88ish acres of farmable land -- at the time, we were to the 2.76 acres and plan to somehow get the rest at a later date).  Part of the terms of the agreement was that the seller would have 30 days possession of the house and 90 days possession of the barns after closing.  We asked about this being negotiable due to me needing to sell my house, and he said he would see what he could do about the 30 days for the house.  Long story short, he moves his tenant (from the house).  Well, then, when closing isn't happening, he wanted us to put down money amounting to $2500.  He said he would refund $1250 at closing (if it closed) and that this would cover his lost income from rent.  I was so mad about this, I actually told our real estate agent to tell the seller, that if he wanted us paying rent, then I wanted to move in.  That turned out to be a great idea, because he agreed that if appraisal came back good, we could.  So, we moved into the house about 3 months prior to owning it.  

The seller's meeting for parceling came and went... it was denied for seemingly stupid reasons... so we ended up adding the other acreage to the loan, so now it is a total of 11.5 acres, give or take.  Finally, we closed on 9/28/2021.

Here is the building that will be the new chin barn --

No comments:

Post a Comment