I remember something about a guy who had paid to put hardwood floors in his girl's place and then after the breakup he tore them up and took the wood with him.
That's a good point and I agree. I was thinking it would also depend on the conditions of the breakup. If it was due to infidelity, then yeah, I want my floor back.
I bought a house that was a foreclosure. I think they took what they felt they owned. That included a sink, all the smoke detectors, all the door knobs, all the appliances. It was strange.
In 2009 I was trying to find my mom somewhere to live. There were a lot of houses for pretty cheap since the 2008 crash had just happened. That was good, since my mom doesn't have any money. Since she doesn't have any money I went looking at a lot of foreclosures. Most of them were missing all of the appliances, all of the light bulbs, pretty much everything not bolted down (plus a few things that were), and a lot of them had holes kicked in the walls, counters destroyed, and whatever else the former owners could do to vent their anger at the banks. We ended up renting her an apartment since neither of us had the money to repair all the damage and missing features from the foreclosure houses.
Borrowing money from a bank is not the same as having cash to buy all new appliances, fix pissed on carpet, and repair walls and counters that somebody took a sledgehammer to. Do you think that all houses are purchased with cash?
...you have money to pay that mortgage, right? If yes, then these things are minor in comparison. But you're saying the minor things busted the whole purchase, instead of the major thing of a mortgage on a house.
Buy used appliances, yes they are around. DIY carpet (which you didn't say before, so I think you're doing the slow trickle of just adding more and more now), DIY holes in walls (see it was holes in walls before, now it's walls). Put a piece of plywood on the counter until you can do something better. You can do this over time too. This stuff is cheap, cheap, cheap compared to a mortgage. Chow.
When every penny counts, and you're scraping together all you have for a mortgage, plus first year weirdness with escrow payments, what you're saying is NOT minor. It's anything but.
All you're really telling this other guy is that you've never been genuinely poor. Everything you just wrote is from a place of continuing financial privilege. You seriously have NO idea what you're talking about. Ciao.
It's probably safe to assume that a foreclosure sale involved at least some level of malicious compliance, especially one due to the 2008 housing crisis.