Inspections, appraisals...and a suitcase of cash

The wife and I are moving.  For the last several years we've been searching around Texas for a house on a lake.  We had thought about a beach house, but hurricanes scare us too much.  We finally found just the house on just the right spot on Lake Livingston, some three hours south of us.

Finding the house and agreeing on a price with the sellers was the easy part. 

Since then we've been buried under a sea of paperwork, which anyone who has ever bought a house can identify with.  We've had to discuss inspections, appraisals, interest rates, closing dates and a blizzard of other details.

Then, the other night I was watching Househunters International and the man was trying to buy a house in Bulgaria.  I'm sure he had his reasons, but I've never really thought of Bulgaria as a real estate hot spot.  In any case he found his house, and then was surprised to find out that the closing procedures involved the full price of the house...in cash.

Now that's an interesting concept.  Aside from what must be the nerve wracking experience of walking the streets of a foreign country with literally a suitcase of cash, the whole deal has a certain sense of sinister underhandedness that appeals to me.

I am really tempted to try that next month when we close.  Assuming the wife would go along with me, which she would not, imagine the commotion at the title company when I heaved a bag stuffed with 20 and 100 dollar bills onto the desk.

"I'll take the title, and a receipt, please."

(A slight detour here...this reminds me of the time that I had to get a passport, back in 1979.  Being a minor at the time my Dad went with me to the post office to do the deed.  We filled out paperwork, swore to this and that, assured the Man that we were not up to no good.  After everything was scrutinized and approved, and after a blur of stamps were applied it came time to pay.  Old Dad whipped out some cash, at which point the passport people informed us that cash was not accepted.

Even being 15 years old I got a kick out of Dad pointing to the spot on the $20 bill that said, "This note is legal tender for all debts public and private," and then reading it out loud to the Man.

Dad was a man of principles, but we still had to write a check for the passport.)