I got the hizzle for shizzle

The month of August was a grueling one filled with a million requests for signatures and initialing and all kinds of documentation.  But I finally closed on that house in Cardiff today.  There are many home improvement projects to be anticipated so hopefully I'll have some time to post some photos and document them here.


The other day I met with the notary at a Starbucks to sign all the docs.  It went fine.  Just took 30 min when she said it would take at least an hour.  She turned the pages for me while I signed which made things kind of convenient.  A lot of the docs were things I already spent an entire Saturday reviewing on my own so I suppose it went quicker than she typically experiences since she didn't have to explain as much.  My favorite part was when we got to the domestic partnership page.  She read it out loud and I marked the "No" box.  And as she turned the page, she came out with what seemed to be one of her typical comments when she gets to that page with clients and said, "Yeah, I didn't think that applied to you."  Then, I noticed she did a double-take on me with her eyes above her reading glasses.  LOL.  She was being kind of a stickler though with my signatures.  She actually made me modify my signature so it had my middle initial in it.  ...which is actually very different from my normal signature since I don't pick up my pen between my first and last name.  and then, there were times when I just had to sign my name without my middle initial.  So I figured I could do my usual scribble that I used for the last 10 years or so, but no... I had to re-sign the same way I signed the signatures, but without the middle initial.  Ugh.  It was very unnatural and weird.  I don't understand the reasoning behind any of the trouble.  I mean, isn't the notary there to witness the fact that it is indeed me signing?  so the way I sign should make no difference.  And I would think that they'd want a signature that matches the history of my signatures... not something totally new.  For instance, D could've walked in with my ID and said she was me and signed everything the way the notary asked her to.  On top of that, she was listed on the closing costs at $300!  But I did learn from her that escrow over-estimates costs.  So, I nodded and went along with it.