We had to make it Work

Most realtors have some very interesting stories- especially these days with this crazy and unpredictable market.

He is a story from Mike Rampf:

I got a call from a client a while ago, his contractor had skipped town half way through the job. The owner was living in the house in Vancouver with no heat, no running water and no heat. The owners luck did not run out there- he hurt his back and was unable to work. This resulted in him going 2 months in arrears on his mortgage and the contractor had all his money and now where to be found.
He wanted me to sell the house as fast as possible and he wanted to walk away from the property with a certain amount of money. To cut a LONG story short we had an offer on the property in 90 minutes and he was going to expect a cheque at completion for $5,000 more than what he was looking for.
BUT, the contractor found out how the house was on the market and he saw an opportunity to get some more money out of the poor owner of the house. The contractor was going to submit a builders lien on the property forcing the owner to pay him $17,000 for loss of earnings. If the contractor sore that he had worked on the property with in 45 days and was due this money the owner would be liable for this amount. However, this was not the case and it would eventually have to be taken to court and sorted out many weeks or months down the road.
The buyer was concerned about the situation because the completion date was a day away when this Builders Lien was supposedly going to be submitted on the house. If a Builders Lien was on the house the title transfer would not be possible therefore delaying the possession date. The new buyer had set up a work crew to come in and work on the project and had major dead lines to meet.
The contractor had all of us in a bind and I needed to sort this out FAST. I had to get the contractor and the owner of the house to settle on something before the contractor submitted this Lien. I worked hard and late and with one hour spare I got both parties to agree and they settled. The deal went through and I made everyone happy.
Thank you to David Watts who helped me with the process and his in-depth knowledge of property transfer and conveyancing made it happen.