Ding! Ding! All change, please... (now replaced with new diary on MFW)

rtandon27

Fingers crossed the wayward solicitor has been located and that everything has been sorted!!!

EssexHebridean

Right then - time for a normally structured post for the day I think!

MSE Stuff:
- Car insurance money now transferred from the car pot to the CC to clear that off. 
- Small spend by MrEH in T's this morning - I can't recall what for although I do know we had agreed on whatever it was. 
- Banking checked and all OK.
- I will need to go round via the petrol station to feed my car this evening, I was hoping to sneak through to the weekend but I definitely can't, and especially as I have to use mine not MrEH's on Thursday. 
- Food still on plan - had a very tasty pork satay stir fry with noodles and heaps of veggies last night! This evening is the traditional Tuesday couscous. 
- Following a note of concern being raised by one of the adverts about the extended London ULEZ zone the other day (a reference to only cars of a particular age and newer being OK for it) I have re-checked my car's status and been reassured that nothing is changing, and that I'll still be find to drive it in and out.

Moving stuff:
- Looking increasingly like we will now have to wait until Friday to exchange, however the viewpoint of all parties relevant (including our buyer herself!) is that we all simply proceed as planned towards the 1st as removal date, on the basis that there IS no other practical date!  
- More stuff boxed up last night. We're aiming to get the heavier stuff done early this week, plus areas like the balcony which may involve a fair bit of spider-relocation - while MrEH is about to assist. Lighter/smaller stuff I can do easily enough at the weekend when he is not about.
- This evening's plan is to put in some time on sorting out the balcony before MrEH heads off to rugby training, and I will then have a nice evening catching up on some TV etc. 
- Got the financial statements from Mr Boss yesterday so I have run through all the figures to be sure of where we stand - and we're pretty much where I thought we were. Waiting on a confirmed figure from the Estate Agents and also our freeholders confirming what they require to clear our service charge account to the date of the move, which may be nothing at all. As predicted Mr Boss is charging us nothing at all for his costs which is lovely of him - we will be finding him a nice bottle of whisky as a thank you! 

I need to think through food for the weekend with MrEH away. 
Meal plan says sausage pasta for tomorrow - but I may switch that to sausage, mash & beans I think as I have tatties in for use and would also like to get another pack of sausages used out of the freezer.
I can then factor in the additional 2 "spare" sausages for use at some stage, possibly for my lunch on Saturday. 
I may plan in a chinese takeaway for my tea on Friday - if I do it will be a straightforward special fried rice and a side of a pancake roll which is a favourite of mine and not too pricey either. 
I'll be looking at soup for lunch one day over the weekend - I may opt for that on Friday.
I will also want to make a loaf of bread at some stage over the later part of the week too so I have breakfasts for the weekend. the alternative there is I go with porridge for breakfast on Friday and then buy one of Lil's nice sourdough loaves again when I go shopping.
I'll almost certainly shop on Friday as that works well with other plans.
I could also ideally do with walking or cycling into town to pay some money in at some stage on either Friday or Saturday - we've got coin to pay in which will then need to be transferred to our holiday savings - and that needs the Sant-And-Er branch as I can't pay cash in over the counter to my N@t10nwide account. 

That's about where we are at the moment - the worst of it with the moving stuff is that until exchange I can't entirely feel that I can really trust it's going to happen. I would be lying if I didn't admit that I feel angry that a time that should be really positive and full of excited anticipation about our new home has been marred by one person's complete failure to behave decently, and professionally. It's not fair on us, or our sellers who also have lots to be planning as well. Even stupid stuff like the post redirection - there will  now be a crossover in time where we risk losing post as it will go to the old address. 

Ahh well - it's SO far out of our control, there is really nothing we can do bar whinge about it! 

milann

What a shambles…it’ll all come together for you. 

greenbee

Sorry to hear about your buyer's solicitor EH. Definitely the type to give the profession a bad reputation. My vendors had a similar one on the last house - slowest solicitor on the planet, and struggled to use email. My buyers were useless this time, but their solicitor was relatively OK. My solicitor has been on the ball throughout and had a colleague copied on everything so he knew what was going on when she was out. Every financial transfer was checked and acknowledged as soon as I confirmed it had been sent (bear in mind I had the balance from the house sale to shift over to them, so it was complicated!) - and they paid me interest on the time they'd had the money in their client account once everything else was sorted. 

Good luck with getting a new exchange date sorted - I'm glad that at least everyone is agreed that there is no reason to change the completion date as a result. 

Cheery_Daff

Is now the time to create a small Spreadsheet of Blame, just so you can put the offending person on it?? 😂 certainly helped me! 😂😂

All fingers and toes crossed for Friday though. My sister managed a same day exchange and completion in covid times with 3 kids, 2 dogs, 3 cats & a snake - I'll never know how she kept her cool, I found it SO stressful without any of those things!  although thinking about it she did have a small stroke not long after 😱😱 Sorry, that's probably not going to make you feel any better 🙄😂 Hope you can get through unscathed. Deep breaths! 

greenbee

Love the idea of a Spreadsheet of Blame @Cheery_Daff - I can see so many uses for it... 

starnac

I love the Spreadsheet of Blame idea Cheery. I may have to steal that!!  

Our last house, our solicitor only worked 2 days a week on a return to work scheme after having a baby, which was fine as she had in place a handover to other colleagues when she was unavailable. Which I felt was very professional of both her and the firm. It meant that even when she wasn't in the office, things could still progress. What we didn't realise at the time was, that the colleague she tag teamed with on our case was also the sellers solicitor (which I thought was a no-no). It was that issue that caused us problems and the reason behind the complaint we put in afterwards. Her working part time was actually handled very professionally. 

I don't blame you for being furious. I would be too. If he had mentioned he would be away that would have been different. But to just go AWOL is very unprofessional. 

EssexHebridean

haha oh I could definitely go with a spreadsheet of blame around about now!!

I think going for a simultaneous exchange & complete would just about finish us off right now - I really don't envy your sister that one at all! 

An email has been sent to our estate agent letting him know that all parties are working to the 1st and asking that the buyer puts all pressure on to her solicitor to ensure that he is very aware that exchange HAS to happen on Friday now! 

Trying to think through what the knock-ons from this are going to be. 
- Postal redirect will probably miss at least a few days - and we will very likely end up losing that post entirely, or at least we have to assume that we will. 
- Standard changes of address will also now miss out on catching all the end of month stuff, not though there are huge amounts of those these days thank goodness.
- We'll be at least a week and probably more like 10 days without broadband at the new house now - thank goodness for the 20gb of data I now get my mobile contract as at least when I'm in that will give us the ability to hotspot off of that.
- If exchange does happen on Friday I'm going to lose most of that day in arranging all the various online things that need changing I'd guess. 

I can see I might need a new list in my house-move book this evening! 

Jellytotts

The purchase we were making earlier this year was all going well, just one bit of paperwork that we were waiting on from the council (a permitted development certificate) and we were all ready to exchange, we kept chasing and chasing and finally were told the council paperwork had come though and we could exchange, we asked to see the paperwork first and we're glad we did as the permitted development was denied and full retrospective planning was required.  We were getting calls to authorise exchange as we got the paperwork through and had to step back whilst we looked into what our options were.  We ended up pulling out but their EA and solicitor was still bugging us to go through with it.  

Luckily we had a 2nd choice property that was still available and offer was accepted 2 days later and our buyer was very understanding that we were starting the process again but such a palaver.  We spoke to the EAs about misrepresentation as they assured us all the planning docs were in place when we made the offer and they did pay part of our fees but we were still out of pocket.   Full planning permission has since been denied so we were right to walk away.

It made getting to exchange on our next purchase very emotionally draining and stressful but we did and we've been in 4 weeks now and love it, very glad we didn't get the first house now.

Ive done four purchases now and will not do another, the stress isn't worth it (plus I really, really love my new house)

Cheery_Daff

Ooh, I didn't consider a spreadsheet of blame for things other than house moving 😂😂 All sorts of possibilities! 😂😂

I just can't get my head round simultaneous exchange/complete at all. I mean, I know why they happen, but my sister had to leave her old house and arrive at the new one with all her stuff in the van with no absolute guarantee she was going to be able to move in 😱😱 It all worked out, of course, but goodness, can you imagine the palaver if it didn't?! 

Sounds like you are organised and control 😊