I was supposed to have a settlement yesterday. My clients are buying a foreclosure. (The one that we've been working on for months and months and months!)

I know it will come as no surprise to many of you that the settlement didn't happen.

Why, you ask......?

The original estimated settlement statement (HUD1) differed from the final numbers by.....TEN CENTS.

Ordinarily, the change would be made and we'd have approval from all parties for the change in a matter of minutes and would proceed with settlement.

But, this ten cent change had to go back up the chain of command on the bank's side. And, so, we're still waiting. Since this was Friday and no bank is going to give us final approval over the weekend settlement won't happen before Monday.

Except that this week, Monday is a holiday. So, now we're looking at Tuesday at the earliest.

So, how much do you think it cost the bank, to approve this ten cent change? How much in lost time (wages) for the employees who worked on this? How much did it cost them to have this money in my clients' pockets and not theirs for these extra few days?

This is the culmination of months of negotiations as the bank continued to get lower offers from my clients after they rejected higher ones. And, in one case, lowered the price while we had a higher offer on the table!

There are very well managed financial institutions in this country. This isn't one of them.