Hospital Care and Buying a Home

Hospital Care and Buying a Home

By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, June 20, 2017

What is so similar between receiving Hospital Care and Buying a Home?  So glad you asked.

Based upon my over 30 years in the real estate business, I can assure you that most, probably in the 99% range, of home buyers sit at the closing table and simply sign their name to the volumes of paperwork that the closing attorney puts in front of them.  In fact in all those years, I had only one buyer ever take the time to actually read the documents.  The result of that?  The closing, which usually takes less than 1 hour, took over 6 hours to complete.  Now for the rest of that story.

In sales you are suppose to create relationships that hopefully will help you with future sales regarding their friends and family.  After that one closing I swore I would not keep in touch with the buyers as I never wanted to see them again.  Then about 2 years later I get a call from the wife and she said the home across the street from their home was up for sale and that her husband, who read all the forms, said he would never do a real estate transaction without me.  Go figure.  I must have done something right.

One closing attorney put it best to the home buyers:  “You will be asked to sign a lot of paperwork.  If any of the terms and conditions turn out to be in your favor, you can consider that a mistake.  If you want the home, signature on the paperwork is required and there are rarely if any alternatives to signing all of the paperwork.  Do you want the home?”

Can’t get any more clear than that.  If you want the home, sign the papers!  And the attorney was absolutely correct.  Rarely if ever are any of the terms and conditions going to be in the home buyer’s best interest, it just does not happen.  Again, if you want the home, you sign the papers.

I have recently had some issues that required surgery, 3 surgeries in about 3 weeks to be exact.  It involved a knee replacement I had done in March 2016 that needed adjustment.  The adjustment became infected and two more surgeries were required plus 6 weeks of antibiotic daily drips plus a visit to the Wound Doctor because the incision was not healing properly. 

Before any doctor and even some nurses would see me and/or work on me, they would ask me to sign documents, lots of documents; sound familiar?  Was I actually going to read all the documents I signed?  The question is also the same as buying a home, do you want the treatment or not.  If you do, sign the papers.  If you do not, thank you very much, NEXT!

The papers that were presented to me before each surgery had all types of conditions and concerns.  One such paper was a warning of all the things that could go wrong during or immediately after surgery.  One of which was that the area of the surgery, my left knee, could become infected; infections happen and they happen more than anyone is probably willing to tell you.  So when a friend asked if I was going to sue anyone because of the infection, I responded, what good would it do?  I signed a paper acknowledging that an infection at the site was quite possible.  The surgeon explained all the precautions he took including taping the door to the surgery room to prevent outside air from contaminating the area.

At the end of the day (I hate that phrase but it fits) if you want the home or if you want the surgical procedure whatever that may be, you must sign the papers.  Should you read them all?  Probably.  Will you, absolutely not!  In buying a home you probably do have a choice like buying it or walking away from the deal when you don’t like the terms and conditions provided your Agreement to Purchase permits that to happen.  But when it comes to your health, what options do you really have?  You either have the procedure and hopefully get better or you learn to live with whatever the problem is.  It truly comes down to sign the papers or not; receive the procedure or not.  Buying a home, having a procedure, it is your call, choose wisely.