Moving on

Did I tell you we were/are moving house? Well what a saga that’s turning out to be I can tell you, I’m sat here the day before we were/are exchanging contracts and it appears the house we were/are buying isn’t registered with the land registry and well, it gets rather complicated but having taken legal advice independently from our existing Solicitor (I’ll tell you why later), and having been told to NOT proceed without an indemnity policy in place (that could take, who knows how long) it looks like we’ll be homeless. The last time I looked at homelessness as an option I wasn’t going to consider, was when I (nearly) went bankrupt in the crash of the 80’s/90’s (24hrs away from default and repossession, but that’s another story,) I swore I would never go there again and what the heck we’re here, and you wanna know why? Well let me tell you. It’s now some 7 weeks since we first made an offer on the house in Newton le Willows, remember we instructed the solicitor on the Monday when we were in France, actually sat on a cobbled street in the beautiful village of Gerberoy, France, sun warming our faces and looking forward to the start of our holiday and a new direction in life, free from the stresses and strains of………………………… We got a call last week saying there was a problem with the lease, this information should have been discovered within the first week of instructing solicitors, the reason it wasn’t apparently was because the file had only just landed on the desk of this particular solicitor, where it had been prior is anyone’s guess, me I think they thought, “cash sale, easy case, do it in a week or so, no worries”. In some of the little talks I do/used to do, I talk about putting things off and the reasons why sometimes you may be tempted, but how you never should, and more importantly how to avoid ever doing so, (that will cost you, maybe set up lecture and open invite). It is a fault of not only solicitors but many in business, contracts and deadlines are lost and missed all because of procrastination and deflection and the often wrong belief that, “that is an easy one I’ll do it later” and you know, more often than not it is put back because you feel you have more important things to do. OK, so have we established that the solicitor has/did drop the ball (or picked it up too late)? Think so, they of course are blaming the sellers Solicitor for failing to respond to questions asked, I should imagine they were more than surprised when they were asked these questions so late in the day, we were. So what do we do, we have started emptying our cupboards and dismantling beds and units we are taking, our new house is slightly smaller (at the moment) than where we are, so some stuff has to go to France (there’s a thought we could live there for a few weeks least I could, meJulie would have to stay in the UK for work, no she wouldn’t let you, stop it Mick). I’ve already made one trip to France with a van load and am at this moment looking at the contents of cupboards on the floor that need packing away in heavy duty boxes ready for transport. See we are the last link in the chain and everyone below us is in place to exchange contracts tomorrow, if we pull out the chain breaks, and well, I guess we’d have to go back on the market and start over, a better option than homeless? (Wonder if we can sue anyone, proving incompetence is difficult especially within the legal profession where you need a solicitor to assist, closed shop and all). So I suppose we need to start looking at storage firms and B and B’s, see that’s all going to cost, I know we have a choice but do we? Yes sure it will all work out, it did in the 90’s, but that still doesn’t help the anxiety at this present time, to quote a friend “someone needs the shit kicking out of them” And here starts the saga of Mickmanchester and his Julie’s new home. Oh on amore positive note, I’ve just checked the lottery and we have six numbers, unfortunately 3 on one line and 3 on another, but that’s £20 we didn’t have yesterday. Since writing I did a search of the land registry, and you’ll never guess what I discovered? Go on have a guess, I’ll put the kettle on while you think about it . . . . . . . . . . . . well what I found and downloaded was a copy of the title for this property, oh yes I kid you not, it’s only the freehold but it shows something registered so half the battle. Of course I phoned the solicitor and after allowing her to attempt to wash her hand of any sale should we proceed, I shared the information, after a silence that was longer than it just took me to make this cup of coffee I am now enjoying she spluttered something about the buyers solicitors should have provided her with that info and could I forward a copy to her and but and but and but but but but………………………... Not the ass kickin’ I was thinking of, but close A story you’d like to follow? Believe me when I say it will be a roller coaster and yes we will be seeking recompense thru whatever channels we can. Further, email received from solicitor, she still wants assurances re lease title details, ok I’ll go with that, (I had anticipated this and had further enquired with the land registry, I await their response) but she is also saying she is not happy we do not want window certificates and gas boiler service records, and oh we shouldn’t have considered exchanging on old house till she was good and ready to exchange on new, well boy oh boy if we had waited till then we’ll be retiring and still living here. Think I’ll get this posted before anything else develops LOL. Moving on