Closing Escrow on an Emotional Note

The day of our closing would be one of the happiest moments in our first year in Southern California. That’s what my wife and I had thought.

Newcomers from New England, we were buying our first house here and were relieved we could even afford one. Even though the surrounding Pasadena neighborhood wasn’t the greatest, the house and the street and the town were. And we liked the cultural diversity of the region.

But at the escrow company, a troubling incident occurred. And I suspect that this type of emotionally bruising exchange must happen every day in insurance offices, on car lots and in departments stores throughout this West Coast melting pot.

A friend, who is Chinese-American, once lost a bid on a house that he and his wife wanted to buy in Altadena. The seller, an Anglo, rejected the bid, my friend felt, because he and his wife are Asian.

What happened to us may have had little to do with culture or ethnicity. It may have been just a series of unfortunate misunderstandings between our real estate agent and our escrow officer. But my wife and I felt like innocent bystanders, caught in an emotional cross fire.

Tensions, Questions

Even before the closing day, tensions and questions about ethnicity had crept in. We are Anglos. Months earlier, our Anglo mortgage broker said he felt the escrow company might be difficult to deal with, partly because of language problems with employees whose native language is Chinese. Our real estate agent, whose roots are Italian, shared that concern.

But we had no reason to object or to worry. The seller, a woman of Chinese ancestry, had been allowed to choose the escrow company and, in this case, was friends with the escrow officer, also of Chinese descent.

I liked the idea of this multicultural interaction. Yet I do know that immigration has wrought radical changes in the San Gabriel Valley and that this has produced certain tensions that can cloud many transactions.

On that January morning, we entered the escrow office behind our real estate agent, who introduced us. We extended our hands. The escrow officer shifted her gaze and moved her hands to the stack of papers on the desk before her.

Anyone who has ever had their extended hand refused knows the embarrassment that followed for my wife and me.

I had no reason to think cultural differences had anything to do with the lack of a handshake. People shake hands in Taiwan, Hong Kong and China, and in the San Gabriel Valley, too.

Yet my emotions fed on the usual suspicions that build in any real estate transaction.

I wondered: Was the lack of a handshake a misunderstanding? Was it an oversight? Were we at fault? Or was she simply rude? Regardless, the tone of the meeting had been set.

Next, the escrow officer said the seller would not be there. The seller would sign the documents later. “When?” our agent asked. The escrow officer did not know exactly.

“You’re her friend, aren’t you?” our agent said.

For whatever reason, the escrow officer gave no answer.

We had to leave our apartment in six days, I told her, when a new tenant was to show up.

I held an envelope with a down-payment check that represented our combined life savings, not counting IRAs and the like. The down payment also included a generous gift from the parents of my wife, Milbre. And for half a day, we had 24 cents left in our joint checking account until my paycheck was deposited.

We were troubled at buying a house from a seller we had never met and who now was nowhere to be found.

Our agent suggested to the escrow officer that she call the seller’s agent. When she did, we learned that the seller had said she would be out of town but hadn’t mentioned missing the closing.

After the conversation ended, our agent said under her breath: “Inscrutable Orientals.”

The escrow officer looked up from her paper work but said nothing.

I figured the remark would worsen the situation. But I did not know what I could say.

As I scanned the closing documents, I discovered that my name was incorrect. My first initial had been transposed to be a middle one. If I mentioned it, it would escalate the tension. If I didn’t, it might escalate our problems later.

Couldn’t it create problems if my name were improperly recorded on the deed, I asked.

“Could you correct his name?” my wife said, knowing that for weeks we had alerted everyone to this error on preliminary documents.

“Why does it matter if the initial is in one place or another?” replied the escrow officer, now visibly irritated.

List of Grievances

Our agent then ticked off a list of grievances. Poor grammar and poor spelling on closing documents. Unreturned phone calls. “It’s simply not professional, that’s all.”

The escrow officer rose. “I don’t have to stand for your prejudice. I’m not getting paid enough to put up with that. You’re insulting me. I’m educated.” Then she shouted: “Get out!”

Stunned, my wife and I said nothing. I stared at the escrow officer’s degree in business administration from a California university.

The moment was an uncomfortable one. It seemed as if whatever was happening wasn’t our fight. But we wanted the house.

The escrow officer only escorted us out of her office, however, not the building. And we headed for the lobby in silence as she arranged for the documents to be corrected.

In the lobby, we waited in a state of emotional paralysis. Nonetheless, we managed to ask our real estate agent why she used the phrase “inscrutable Orientals.”

“Did I say that?’ ” she said in embarrassment. She would go back, she said, and reconcile.

The phone was ringing off the hook at the receptionists’ station. Sometimes calls were answered in Chinese. I leafed through the nearest reading materials: a Vietnamese-language newspaper and a Chinese-language paper, both published locally in languages I don’t read.

“It’s the only time I’ve been sent to a principal’s office as an adult,” my wife would say later, searching for some humor in that long wait in the lobby.

Another Officer

Our agent returned. She and the escrow officer had tried to smooth things out. The escrow officer had confided that the seller was in Taiwan on business and should return to sign within a few days.

Finally, another escrow officer came out to deal with us. A woman with red hair and fair skin, she looked like she had stepped off the boat from Ireland that morning.

We signed our names on the corrected documents and handed over the down payment. Then we staggered into the bright sunlight of mid-morning. Now we could sigh with relief and laugh an uncomfortable laugh. And, we could hope, that soon we would make that smokey-blue, stucco house in Pasadena ours.

One week later, it was.

For months now, I have wrestled with what the experience meant and what role, if any, did cultural differences play? Am I perpetuating stereotypes by recounting the story?

I went to lunch with a man I know, a therapist who is a second-generation Asian-American. His job is to help people of many cultures learn how to cope better with one another and with their internal tensions about ethnicity. He assured me that what happened to my wife and me happens often here. In part, he said, it did relate to misapprehensions based on cultural fears, coming from many points of view.

But, he said, my wife and I helped to break the cycle of fear when we asked our agent why she made the remark she did. And the agent helped to break the cycle when she returned and made peace with the escrow officer. And the escrow officer broke the cycle by disclosing the whereabouts of the seller and by helping the deal go through.

My wife and I have now concluded that, from the whole process, we have developed a deeper sensitivity for the melting pot that is our new home.