Contract Signed...Kinda

I sent the contract on January 2nd. It was 24 hours later before the owner called me to tell me the email they got had no contract attached. I checked my sent mail and it was attached when I sent the email, so somewhere between here and there, something might have happened. I resent the email yesterday with the contract attached (again) and also copied a link into the email with a way to download the contract from my dropbox. The original email had instructions so I didn't resend that. 

Today I woke up to a signed contract. To be more accurate, it was a partially signed contract. Page 1 and 2 never got back to me and only one person initialed the pages that did come back. Both signatures were on the last page, so at least that's good. I replied back the mistakes and then called them to make sure they understood. Now I'm waiting for the contract again.

My original plan was to call the title company in the morning to see what they needed from me and what the next steps were. But I had 2 minutes before 5:00pm and so I called them to get a start on the process. If you have never been offshore, there's about about a 1 second lag over the phone. That's with phone, Facetime or Skype. It doesn't sound like much, but people end up talking over each other and it's kind of a pain, but it can't be helped. I got an email address for a contact at American Title, so I'll forward the contract over as soon as I get the fully signed copy.

During my last conversation with the owner, he made it clear that he did not want me to have the key to the house until he had a check for 15,000. So my plan to have a lockbox on the house to get estimates done is put on hold until after closing. He did say that he would meet the inspector to let him in for the house inspection, so he is working with me. I guess I can understand his hesitation. A guy he's never met, claims to be offshore and wants a key to his home that he's trying to buy? I can see why he has some trust issues. 

I hope to get the contract back tonight. I'd like to get electricity setup to be turned on, but I'm waiting for a contract before I make any major appointments. First electricity, then I can schedule the home inspection.