This is going to be a little long, bear with me....
Hi, do all new builds in CA require a cert of occupancy before the loan can close? We are doing a VA loan. Our builder finished the house later than planned. Original completion date was supposed to be 9/25, but carpet and appliances weren't even installed. The week after, the appraiser went out and noted house was 95% complete and wrote it appraised for the entire cost of the house. We had all our conditions docs in the day after the conditional approval, which was like 2-3 weeks ago. But for the last 2-3 weeks, there has been utter chaos with the builder getting the docs from the conditions list satisfied. My LO wasn't getting responses from the builder in a timely manner. The builder had 3 people working on this issue - The title company, their escrow coordinator, and the sales agent. NOBODY was getting the docs from the list. Finally, I called last Thursday directly to title company. The bank wanted the building plans and certificate of occupancy from the city. Title co said "they don't need that to close! that doesn't come until later anyway" but she said she would try to help clear this all up.
She gets on the phone directly with the bank. The bank tells her we have a governent backed loan and for all govt backed loans have to have this COO. I find out the next day they hustled the city inspector over there and we get the COO. However, NOW the appraiser has to go out again. That's happening today. We were supposed to close on 10/14 originally and I was CERTAIN we'd be moving by 10/24, but nope. The appraisal probably won't be emailed until tomorrow, CTC will probably take a couple more days and then we've got to wait for closing dept to assemble all the docs, etc etc. If everything happens lightening fast it's possible we'll have keys on Friday but it's not likely.
So, now I had adjust my time off of work, my moving plans, coordinate childcare differently, and hope to God that we can get out before the end of the month. So, I was a little irritated and called our agent to ask them if they could compensate us for the delayed closing by offering us a fridge. Sales agent tells her the reason for the delay was that I changed lenders in the middle of the process - a month and a half ago! I was so pissed! So, I emailed him and explained the timeline of events. I did change lenders a month and a half ago, but that had no bearing. Even had I not, we would still be in this predicament because the house wasn't done on time. Lennar seemed to not realize we need this COO before we could close and I am astounded by that!
I can only assume a COO is not needed on new builds for other types of loans? VA loan is pretty common though, I don't understand how they couldn't know we couldn't close until the house was done? How can the Sales Agent, Title Co, AND Escrow coordinator NOT understand this? What am I missing here? Anyway, I was pissed because if they were under the impression this was my fault then they could charge per diem. Now, my sales agent is telling me he understands and there will be no per diem charged thankfully. But no fridge either ;(.
