Solicitors and Surveys

I have written a few times about my frustration with various professionals who have to be involved in house sale and purchase.  Specifically, I have had such trouble with solicitors who seem to live in a world of their own, and seem to think that since they will be paid regardless, does it matter who they annoy by taking so long?  We had trouble when

Exchange and Further Restoration Plans

At last! We have actually exchanged contracts this afternoon, with completion in two weeks.  I think I'll sleep well tonight; I realise that although I was sure it would happen, both our sale and our purchase have been taking their toll on me as things dragged on.  Solicitors... don't get me started.

Further Restoration Plans

We had intended to build a new extension containing the kitchen as the current kitchen is in the falling down extension.  However, following due consideration whilst lying awake at nights, Jane suggested putting the kitchen in the room across the back of the house itself, which we had been terming the dining room.

This change has a major affect on our plans: we had intended to do the extension and some of the house, move in and then finish the house soon after.  The moving date is fairly critical as we are in rented accommodation until April 2011, but we can extend by some time to be agreed.  The issue is that the owner will not want to extend the let to between October 2011 and Spring 2012 as the rental market tails off.  Hence we must move out by the end of August if we are not to stay in it until 2012.

To move in we obviously need a kitchen, so the critical path for moving in was doing the extension.  However (if allowed by the CO), we will now aim to do the entire house first, including the kitchen, and then we can move in, with the extension not being a critical path item.  This is very good news as our builder is not available until April anyway, and also there might be delays in the permission for the extension.

Another change is that I had intended to do a limecrete floor to what will now be the kitchen and raise its level by six inches.  Further investigation reveals that the floor is actually quite level and so, provided that the tiles clean up OK and I can reduce the height of the ground outside, we can live with the existing floor. That's one argument less to have with the CO, and a lot of money saved!

At last we can buy this house

Happiness really is exchange of contracts!  At last the buyer of our flat in London has committed herself, contracts are exchanged and completion will be on October 22nd.  We have no idea why she was prevaricating - at first we thought it was her solicitor being inefficient and uncommunicative but we realise that actually it was the vendor herself.  One would have expected to exchange a long time ago on most properties where the sale was agreed in mid-May! 

Anyway, at last we can now exchange on our purchase of this lovely house - I will certainly attack the ivy very soon, but I might even ask if we can start work on the roof as soon as we have exchanged, as the vendor is well aware of the pressing need to sort the roof before the winter.  Whilst waiting these last few weeks, I have repeatedly done several jobs in my head, assessing how to do them and what could go wrong.  It will be a joy to actually get my hands on it!

Money matters

When you are made redundant at 58, you have to consider whether you really want another similar job and also whether you are likely to get one anyway.  If the answer to both these is "no" then you are effectively retired.  It has taken me some time to get used to that idea - well, just about three days actually!  There then arise two further questions: firstly, can you survive on what you have; secondly, how will you keep yourself from getting bored?  The answer to the first of these meant that we would have to leave our posh flat overlooking the Thames in London in order to forsake mortgage and service charges, in order to buy a place without a mortgage "somewhere in the country".  The second question indicated that a refurbishment project might be just the thing for me.  So we sold our flat and moved to a rented house in the heart of England in order to look for that elusive property which I would know when I saw it.

After seeing the house, I did some budgetary sums on a Post-It note.  Overall, I reckoned that it would need around £100,000 to fix this (famous last words!) and so with our own sale agreed we needed those proceeds to pay for this purchase and the refurbishment.  The asking price was obviously OTT, so we made an offer about £50k less on the afternoon of the day we looked at the house.  This was rejected but the agent played it well and a second offer was accepted.  She called to tell us but we had gone out, but we made the deduction from the tone of her voice-mail, and went to bed rejoicing.  The next morning the website showed "Sold STC" so we were quite sure (well, I was anyway) that it was ours.  Then the agent called to say that yes, our offer had been accepted BUT someone else had gone in a few minutes ago and made a higher offer, which they would have to put to the vendor.  So our hopes seemed to be cruelly dashed, and we spent the next two hours realising just how much we had actually wanted this house, and how disappointed we were not to get it.  Back to the drawing board.

Then, another phone call.  The house is (will be) ours, as the vendor had been persuaded that our position with a house already sold (STC) meant that our offer was a better one.  Great rejoicing.

Now we just have to get our previous place exchanged and completed, rather than drifting as it has for over 16 weeks (don't get me started on solicitors!).