brewer12345
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- Mar 6, 2003
- Messages
- 18,085
...and the state of New Jersey and the town we lived in can suck it (put your cheeks into it, baby!).
At the end of June we split from the PRNJ (People's Republic of New Jersey) and bought a house in CO. I started my new job and have been having a pretty good time, except for the anvil I have been dragging around in the form of a house under contract, but not sold. We were marching down the aisle to the closing table when Irene hit and knocked out the power for a while. This being the swamp that is NJ, the sump pump failed when the power went back on and the resulting flood torched the water heater and the furnace. $10k later, the work was done, and now all I had to do was convince the goat-rapers who masquerade as various flavors of inspectors to actually show up and sign off on the work (and re-issue the C of O, which is required every time you sell a house in NJ). I had 5 (count them) 5 different goshdarn inspectors that had to show up: C of O, fire, plumbing, electrical and structural. All of these *&$*%$^$! had to certify that a house that has been occupied for 60 years and continuously rennovated was safe (read: gargantuan shake-down). Oh, and I had to coordinate this not only from a distance but also while I was on the road for work.
Closing was today at 3PM EST. Thank Dog.
Everything you have read about small town NJ corruption and inefficiency is true. And then some.
The final kick in the fork is that NJ has an "exit tax." If you sell a house and escape, you are required to send the estimated cap gains tax n the sale to the state at closing. If you don't have a profit (like me), you have to send 2% of the gross purchase price just because. This is in addition to hefty transfer taxes. You can, of course, immediately file to get the money back (it is in the mail), but who knows how long that will take. Many people apparently just put an in-state forwarding address and dodge the witholding, but I 1) was uncomfortable perjuring myself and 2) would be exposing 3 additional months of income to NJ state income taxes.
This process has been, in a word, excruciating. If I ever meet a building inspector for the town we lived in, it will take a concrete act of will to avoid taking him out back and kicking 9 kinds of sh!t out of him.
At the end of June we split from the PRNJ (People's Republic of New Jersey) and bought a house in CO. I started my new job and have been having a pretty good time, except for the anvil I have been dragging around in the form of a house under contract, but not sold. We were marching down the aisle to the closing table when Irene hit and knocked out the power for a while. This being the swamp that is NJ, the sump pump failed when the power went back on and the resulting flood torched the water heater and the furnace. $10k later, the work was done, and now all I had to do was convince the goat-rapers who masquerade as various flavors of inspectors to actually show up and sign off on the work (and re-issue the C of O, which is required every time you sell a house in NJ). I had 5 (count them) 5 different goshdarn inspectors that had to show up: C of O, fire, plumbing, electrical and structural. All of these *&$*%$^$! had to certify that a house that has been occupied for 60 years and continuously rennovated was safe (read: gargantuan shake-down). Oh, and I had to coordinate this not only from a distance but also while I was on the road for work.
Closing was today at 3PM EST. Thank Dog.
Everything you have read about small town NJ corruption and inefficiency is true. And then some.
The final kick in the fork is that NJ has an "exit tax." If you sell a house and escape, you are required to send the estimated cap gains tax n the sale to the state at closing. If you don't have a profit (like me), you have to send 2% of the gross purchase price just because. This is in addition to hefty transfer taxes. You can, of course, immediately file to get the money back (it is in the mail), but who knows how long that will take. Many people apparently just put an in-state forwarding address and dodge the witholding, but I 1) was uncomfortable perjuring myself and 2) would be exposing 3 additional months of income to NJ state income taxes.
This process has been, in a word, excruciating. If I ever meet a building inspector for the town we lived in, it will take a concrete act of will to avoid taking him out back and kicking 9 kinds of sh!t out of him.
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