Write, Wrote, Written

Things have been a little slow around here because we’re currently in the middle of a massive cross-country move.  We’re leaving Southern California and moving to North Carolina.  This has been a long time in coming.  While we don’t regret moving to California ten years ago, we realized a few years ago that California can’t give us the life that we want.  So we started taking steps to leave.  Last week, one of the last pieces of the puzzle finally fell into place when we sold our house.  Immediately, we were confronted with a reminder of why we’re leaving.

But first, a short (I promise.) lesson in property law.  Way back in Ye Olde England, the rule used to be strict caveat emptor when it came to buying real estate.  The seller didn’t have to tell the buyer anything about the property.  It was the buyer’s job to find out if anything was wrong.  The English imported that rule to the colonies, and up until the turn of the twentieth century, it was pretty much the rule in every state.  Today, most states require the seller to disclose major problems, but California goes farther.

We had to disclose that we lived in a condo.

Really?  I’d love to see the lawsuit that resulted in this particular disclosure being included.  “Plaintiff began to realize something was amiss when he noticed doors to which he did not have keys.  He became even more suspicious when he saw other people using these doors to enter and exit the building.  These observances led Plaintiff to believe that there were large areas of the building to which he did not have access, but others did, and that in fact, he was not living in a single-family dwelling, but a condominium.”  I’m sure it’s the same guy who’s responsible for the “Warning: may contain nuts” label on packages of peanuts and the “Warning: may cause drowsiness” label on sleeping pills.