Monday, November 24, 2003
To err is human...
...but to really screw up you need a lawyer. Thanks to all Briefs (I wonder what a collective of Briefs should be called?) concerned not being able to just talk to each other, the whole chain is back in danger.
Whilst in Cambridge on a work visit last Wednesday, I got a call from my Briefs saying that they were awaiting confirmation that my buyers, Paul G and Katy D, had paid the deposit on my house. So the next day I emailed Paul and mentioned this, and asked what the deposit situation was. He wrote that he'd coughed up, by Banker's Draft so there'd be no cheque clearing period, on the Wednesday. So I figured that the completion/moving date everyone's agreed on, 28th November, is fine, and went ahead and booked a removal firm and paid them up front as required, near £700. I then arranged to take this week off work to sort everything out for the move.
Then this evening I get a phone call from Tracey, saying that her and Richard's Brief had told them that he was awaiting confirmation of the deposit being paid, and that he'd tried to ring my Briefs, Lockings of Hedon, a number of times, and had been told each time that someone would call back, and of course no-one every did. Nikki, of the Halifax Estate Agents who's worked like a Trojan on my behalf, also tried to get in touch with Lockings last week and today, and was similarly fobbed off. A common thread is emerging...
Anyway, the upshot is that, if confirmation of the deposit being paid doesn't reach the Taylor's Brief tomorrow, then they say that he said that exchanging contracts before Friday wouldn't be possible, and that the move would be off. If the completion date were pushed beyond the 28th then it's increasingly likely that the whole chain would collapse, as even if I kept my patience, which is stretched very thin, my buyers may well lose theirs, and the Taylor's mortgage offer runs out in mid-December so they'd no longer have the money to buy the place they want to move to.
Yet there are no outstanding problems - the dosh is all there, all parties have agreed to move on a particular date, and there are no legal obstacles. The only problem appears to be that the Briefs are simply unable to communicate with each other, and that this incompetence could well collapse the chain and cost everyone, apart from the Briefs who'd be swift off the mark to demand fees for the work they haven't done, a packet.
I've just now emailed Lockings to give them grief and stick some ginger up their legal arse, and will try to phone them tomorrow. Things aren't looking good, though. If this sale/purchase falls through, then I'll be stuck here until way past Xmas, and I may even have to give up my job in Nottingham due to spiralling accommodation costs - either that, or pay through the nose to rent in Nottingham and continue to pay the mortgage in Hull. And that's just the financial side - living out of a suitcase is pretty fucking bad for your personal life, in terms of both mental and physical health, and I doubt I could put up with yet another 2+ months of it.
Whilst in Cambridge on a work visit last Wednesday, I got a call from my Briefs saying that they were awaiting confirmation that my buyers, Paul G and Katy D, had paid the deposit on my house. So the next day I emailed Paul and mentioned this, and asked what the deposit situation was. He wrote that he'd coughed up, by Banker's Draft so there'd be no cheque clearing period, on the Wednesday. So I figured that the completion/moving date everyone's agreed on, 28th November, is fine, and went ahead and booked a removal firm and paid them up front as required, near £700. I then arranged to take this week off work to sort everything out for the move.
Then this evening I get a phone call from Tracey, saying that her and Richard's Brief had told them that he was awaiting confirmation of the deposit being paid, and that he'd tried to ring my Briefs, Lockings of Hedon, a number of times, and had been told each time that someone would call back, and of course no-one every did. Nikki, of the Halifax Estate Agents who's worked like a Trojan on my behalf, also tried to get in touch with Lockings last week and today, and was similarly fobbed off. A common thread is emerging...
Anyway, the upshot is that, if confirmation of the deposit being paid doesn't reach the Taylor's Brief tomorrow, then they say that he said that exchanging contracts before Friday wouldn't be possible, and that the move would be off. If the completion date were pushed beyond the 28th then it's increasingly likely that the whole chain would collapse, as even if I kept my patience, which is stretched very thin, my buyers may well lose theirs, and the Taylor's mortgage offer runs out in mid-December so they'd no longer have the money to buy the place they want to move to.
Yet there are no outstanding problems - the dosh is all there, all parties have agreed to move on a particular date, and there are no legal obstacles. The only problem appears to be that the Briefs are simply unable to communicate with each other, and that this incompetence could well collapse the chain and cost everyone, apart from the Briefs who'd be swift off the mark to demand fees for the work they haven't done, a packet.
I've just now emailed Lockings to give them grief and stick some ginger up their legal arse, and will try to phone them tomorrow. Things aren't looking good, though. If this sale/purchase falls through, then I'll be stuck here until way past Xmas, and I may even have to give up my job in Nottingham due to spiralling accommodation costs - either that, or pay through the nose to rent in Nottingham and continue to pay the mortgage in Hull. And that's just the financial side - living out of a suitcase is pretty fucking bad for your personal life, in terms of both mental and physical health, and I doubt I could put up with yet another 2+ months of it.
Tuesday, November 11, 2003
Last Friday afternoon I went off to see Tracey at the Nottingham house, to bring her up to date on progress (or lack of) in the purchase, to get some practical info (how the central heating works, when the binmen come, that sort of thing), and just to say hello and have a chat with her as she's a nice person. I told her about what my Briefs had told me, that her and Richard's purchase of the house in Trowell was in its "earliest stages". She looked very surprised and told me that, on the contrary, the searches had been done and she'd received the results. Moreover she and Richard were about to sign the contract of purchase, and that the only thing holding the thing up was this guy's precious cars. So that was good news, although it did show that either my Briefs or theirs had, basically, got their info completely wrong. The moral of this being that it's best to be in direct contact with those you're buying from, and selling to, rather than rely on often unreliable third parties.
When I got back to Hull later that day there was a message from my Briefs saying that they understood that a completion date at the end of November had "been agreed" by "all parties", which rather came as news to me as I hadn't agreed to owt. Still, end November would be fine, albeit 4 weeks (and thus 4 weeks temp accommodation expense) later than completion should have been. I emailed the Briefs saying this, and urging them to come up with a feckin' date asap so that I can arrange removals, but so far have heard nowt.
I then got an email from Paul G saying that his partner, Katy, was having to move out of her mum's house in Bridlington very soon, and that they had a shedload of furniture and appliances all ready to move into my house which they could delay little longer, so could I fuck off out of the house by the 14th. According to him, I had said that I'd be willing to move out to rented and stick my gear in storage in the event that my buyers found themselves in trouble. That is, to put not too fine a point on it, absolute cobblers, and IMO the guy's trying on another of his little domination games. I did say, when I saw them for the first time, that I'd made the offer of moving out and storage to Tweedledum and The Afrikaner, but I'm pretty damn sure I didn't make that offer to Paul and Katy. Even if I had, there's no way I'm doing it: I've spent over a grand on temp accommodation already, and going into temp accommodation full-time (rather than a few days a week) plus bunging effects into storage (not cheap - I've already had a quotation and the weekly figure would be over 100 quid for all my gear) would cost a stack more, particularly with no completion date in sight.
Anyway, why should I cough up for their cock-up? They should not have bought stuff, or arranged to move it in, BEFORE a completion date was agreed. That was a crass mistake which they should have avoided, given that they're almost certainly receiving advice from both sets of parents (and, I suspect, being bankrolled by one or both). So either they cough up for storage and temp accommodation or I do. And it's a lot easier, and cheaper, for them to do so than for me. I suppose the implicit threat is that they might pull out, but I'm now at the stage where I really don't care, and might even welcome them doing so so that I could start afresh, and be able to spend the Xmas holiday up here.
I think I've gone beyond anger, fury, and irritation, and have moved into Zen mode. As the Italians would say: che sarà, sarà. Events are beyond my control. The chain could collapse from the top, if matey doesn't shift his cars, from the middle, if Tracey and Richard's mortgage offer runs out (expiry date is 19th December), or from the bottom, if PG and KD lose patience with the delay and decide to start over. If I were in my buyer's shoes, I'd be well tempted to pull out and go looking for a house that's already empty, which wouldn't be difficult in Hull. The fate of the chain is out of my hands completely, which in a way is a relief.
And if it all collapses in a heap? I'm past caring.
When I got back to Hull later that day there was a message from my Briefs saying that they understood that a completion date at the end of November had "been agreed" by "all parties", which rather came as news to me as I hadn't agreed to owt. Still, end November would be fine, albeit 4 weeks (and thus 4 weeks temp accommodation expense) later than completion should have been. I emailed the Briefs saying this, and urging them to come up with a feckin' date asap so that I can arrange removals, but so far have heard nowt.
I then got an email from Paul G saying that his partner, Katy, was having to move out of her mum's house in Bridlington very soon, and that they had a shedload of furniture and appliances all ready to move into my house which they could delay little longer, so could I fuck off out of the house by the 14th. According to him, I had said that I'd be willing to move out to rented and stick my gear in storage in the event that my buyers found themselves in trouble. That is, to put not too fine a point on it, absolute cobblers, and IMO the guy's trying on another of his little domination games. I did say, when I saw them for the first time, that I'd made the offer of moving out and storage to Tweedledum and The Afrikaner, but I'm pretty damn sure I didn't make that offer to Paul and Katy. Even if I had, there's no way I'm doing it: I've spent over a grand on temp accommodation already, and going into temp accommodation full-time (rather than a few days a week) plus bunging effects into storage (not cheap - I've already had a quotation and the weekly figure would be over 100 quid for all my gear) would cost a stack more, particularly with no completion date in sight.
Anyway, why should I cough up for their cock-up? They should not have bought stuff, or arranged to move it in, BEFORE a completion date was agreed. That was a crass mistake which they should have avoided, given that they're almost certainly receiving advice from both sets of parents (and, I suspect, being bankrolled by one or both). So either they cough up for storage and temp accommodation or I do. And it's a lot easier, and cheaper, for them to do so than for me. I suppose the implicit threat is that they might pull out, but I'm now at the stage where I really don't care, and might even welcome them doing so so that I could start afresh, and be able to spend the Xmas holiday up here.
I think I've gone beyond anger, fury, and irritation, and have moved into Zen mode. As the Italians would say: che sarà, sarà. Events are beyond my control. The chain could collapse from the top, if matey doesn't shift his cars, from the middle, if Tracey and Richard's mortgage offer runs out (expiry date is 19th December), or from the bottom, if PG and KD lose patience with the delay and decide to start over. If I were in my buyer's shoes, I'd be well tempted to pull out and go looking for a house that's already empty, which wouldn't be difficult in Hull. The fate of the chain is out of my hands completely, which in a way is a relief.
And if it all collapses in a heap? I'm past caring.
Wednesday, November 05, 2003
Just got a phone call this morning from my Briefs, confirming that there's zero chance of completion before the end of November. It appears that the Brief for Tracey and Richard, this Constantinou guy, has only just sent off for searches on the house they want in Trowell. Terrific. At this rate I'll be lucky to move before Xmas. Oh, the Brief says it'll "definitely" happen before Xmas, but that's just talk. The whole thing is in increasing danger of collapsing like a house of cards, leaving everyone, and especially myself, thousands worse off, except for the tosser in Trowell who's holding everyone up. Tracey and Richard's mortgage offer expires in the middle of December, and my buyers may well lose patience - in their position I'd be tempted to say "fuck it!", pull the offer, and go looking for a house with vacant possession. The chain is wobbling, make no mistake.
And if it all comes crashing down? What then? I'll have stacked up grands of debt and be back at square one, and still have nowhere to live in Nottingham. There's a small, but finite, probability that the Nottingham job will be put in danger as there's no way I can afford to carry on with temp accommodation, and neither could I afford to pay 500/month for a flat in Nottingham on top of the Hull mortgage. The temptation to just flog the Hull house, take the 23k profit, buy a camper van, and fuck off into the wilderness, is growing. I've had over 3 months of this house-selling/buying bollox and I'm reaching the end of my tether.
And if it all comes crashing down? What then? I'll have stacked up grands of debt and be back at square one, and still have nowhere to live in Nottingham. There's a small, but finite, probability that the Nottingham job will be put in danger as there's no way I can afford to carry on with temp accommodation, and neither could I afford to pay 500/month for a flat in Nottingham on top of the Hull mortgage. The temptation to just flog the Hull house, take the 23k profit, buy a camper van, and fuck off into the wilderness, is growing. I've had over 3 months of this house-selling/buying bollox and I'm reaching the end of my tether.
Tuesday, November 04, 2003
Just when you think things are finally going halfway decently, another blow comes around. For the past few days both my buyer's and my Briefs have been "aiming for" the 14th November as a completion date. A week after I'd been aiming for, but what the hey - it would mean that I'd be living in a house rather than in a suitcase from the weekend after next. To confirm this I've been nagging my Briefs, and they've been trying to get hold of the Brief (Constantinou) of the sellers of the house I'm buying (Tracey and Richard T, nice folk) who's been incommunicado.
So I figure I'll ring Tracey directly to find out what the score is, see if she and Richard are ok with the 14th, and arrange to go around their house to sort out practicalities, learn how the central heating works, when the binmen come, and a 1001 little things that you need to know when you move into the place. When I ring Tracey, though, she tells me that she's been told that the seller of the house she and Richard are moving into won't budge until the end of November, on account of his 4 fucking cars he needs to shift. Apparently he's some car nerd and thinks of them as his little babies (uterus envy, anyone?) and can't bear to be without them. Tracey and Richard have said he can leave them behind until he finds a home for them, but he's not having it.
Which all means that I've got 4 more bloody weeks to live in fucking B&B; accommodation, costing at least a century a week, and that's just for 3 days accommodation with me 'working at home' in Hull for the other two days of the week. If I had a stricter boss who wanted me physically at work 5 days a week then I'd be stumping up 150+ a week. Even 100/week is doing me in, as I also have to pay for meals (not having the facilities to cook for myself), and pay all this on top of the monthly bills for the Hull house: mortgage, gas, electric, Poll Tax, etc. I may be picking up 1400 net a month but it's disappearing fast.
Frankly, if I had the choice, I'd drop the whole bloody thing and start over, or just get a Nottingham pied a terre and keep the Hull house on. Trouble is, I've racked up so much debt through living out of a suitcase that I have to sell the house simply to pay off my credit card balance and overdraft - in fact, I've banked on sale proceeds to do this otherwise I'd not have taken on the debt. So unless I have it off bigtime on the Fixed Odds or the Lottery I've not choice but to keep on paying for temporary accommodation whilst some twit and his cars hold up the whole bloody chain.
Oh, isn't this house-moving thing great, eh? Just grand. Apparently it's the new rock 'n' roll, with shedloads of TV programmes on it showing mouth-watering houses being flogged for mouth-watering prices, and all of it just plain easy money. Anyone can do it, so these Property Porn programmes make out. Yeah, right. If I could move straight into a council house now and forget the whole property sale bit I'd do so.
So much for labour mobility too. If you have to go through 4 months of aggro and heavy-duty expense just to move to another job then it doesn't encourage you to 'get on your bike', as the Chingford Skinhead once famously said. Whatever happens with this job, the next job I take will be the last, and it won't be in England. My next move will be across the sea or across the border, and then I'll be staying put.
So I figure I'll ring Tracey directly to find out what the score is, see if she and Richard are ok with the 14th, and arrange to go around their house to sort out practicalities, learn how the central heating works, when the binmen come, and a 1001 little things that you need to know when you move into the place. When I ring Tracey, though, she tells me that she's been told that the seller of the house she and Richard are moving into won't budge until the end of November, on account of his 4 fucking cars he needs to shift. Apparently he's some car nerd and thinks of them as his little babies (uterus envy, anyone?) and can't bear to be without them. Tracey and Richard have said he can leave them behind until he finds a home for them, but he's not having it.
Which all means that I've got 4 more bloody weeks to live in fucking B&B; accommodation, costing at least a century a week, and that's just for 3 days accommodation with me 'working at home' in Hull for the other two days of the week. If I had a stricter boss who wanted me physically at work 5 days a week then I'd be stumping up 150+ a week. Even 100/week is doing me in, as I also have to pay for meals (not having the facilities to cook for myself), and pay all this on top of the monthly bills for the Hull house: mortgage, gas, electric, Poll Tax, etc. I may be picking up 1400 net a month but it's disappearing fast.
Frankly, if I had the choice, I'd drop the whole bloody thing and start over, or just get a Nottingham pied a terre and keep the Hull house on. Trouble is, I've racked up so much debt through living out of a suitcase that I have to sell the house simply to pay off my credit card balance and overdraft - in fact, I've banked on sale proceeds to do this otherwise I'd not have taken on the debt. So unless I have it off bigtime on the Fixed Odds or the Lottery I've not choice but to keep on paying for temporary accommodation whilst some twit and his cars hold up the whole bloody chain.
Oh, isn't this house-moving thing great, eh? Just grand. Apparently it's the new rock 'n' roll, with shedloads of TV programmes on it showing mouth-watering houses being flogged for mouth-watering prices, and all of it just plain easy money. Anyone can do it, so these Property Porn programmes make out. Yeah, right. If I could move straight into a council house now and forget the whole property sale bit I'd do so.
So much for labour mobility too. If you have to go through 4 months of aggro and heavy-duty expense just to move to another job then it doesn't encourage you to 'get on your bike', as the Chingford Skinhead once famously said. Whatever happens with this job, the next job I take will be the last, and it won't be in England. My next move will be across the sea or across the border, and then I'll be staying put.
