Twinklie returns to the property ladder

twinklie · 26 October 2018 at 10:06AM

Hi everyone! :wave:

It's been a LONG time since I last had a diary. A bit of back story for anyone that doesn't remember me. We had a little 2 up 2 down house we were paying off, then we ended up moving about a bit and living in rented whilst the house was (or wasn't for a long time) done up.

We subsequently had two children and have since sold the house and are STILL in rented.

However, we are hopefully today exchanging on our forever home. It's a bit scary because it's a big mortgage and we now have the two kids (and both have new careers) but hey, I'm sure you all understand that.

I'm not going to go into too much financial stuff at this point (we still need to actually exchange). It's been a long journey to get here. We first found this house September 2017, it's the first and pretty much only house we've both agreed on. But we still had to sell our house. We had 4 or 5 buyers pull out of our house sale (I forget how many now). And subsequently had to pull out of buying our house due to no buyer for our house.

However, we sold in September 2018 and we are literally waiting to hear from the mortgage provider a date for drawing down funds. Once we have that we can arrange the completion date and hopefully exchange today.

We have the insurance in place, life assurance is ready to go and we are ready to rock and roll. The first 12 months the focus is going to be on paying down (hopefully off) debts and building up some savings and then the focus will turn to paying off the mortgage.

We are sort of OPing on the mortgage what we planned anyway because it's a 19 year mortgage term rather than a 25 year term.

So please join me on my journey and any advice is greatly appreciated.

Kittenkirst · 26 October 2018 at 4:27PM

Hey Twinklie, everything crossed for you that it went through today.
Such an exciting but stressful time, looking forward to cheering on your updates

twinklie · 26 October 2018 at 6:09PM

Things didn’t quite go according to plan. Last minute change to contents and fitting form raised a few queries which needed answering (they were answered in our favour fortunately). By the time it was sorted the vendors solicitor had left the office (early) for the weekend.

But the upshot is everything is set to go for first thing on Monday...hopefully.

zcrat41 · 26 October 2018 at 6:16PM

Good luck for Monday!

beanielou · 26 October 2018 at 8:14PM

Hope all goes well.

OhtobeMortgageFree · 27 October 2018 at 9:12AM

Buying and selling is so stressful. Solicitors always want to know information that it seems neither the buyer or seller cares about one bit!
Fingers crossed for Monday!

twinklie · 27 October 2018 at 1:13PM

Well I’ve done something productive. I’ve opened a savings account for the DH and set up a “virtual penny jar” for him to round up any spends he makes on his card. He won’t notice it going and will make some savings (he’s rubbish with setting money aside).

Next to set one up for me, but I think I’ll put my money somewhere else, just feels a little less like all our eggs are in one virtual basket that way (if that makes sense).

twinklie · 30 October 2018 at 2:19PM

So we exchanged yesterday!! :j

The plan is to complete tomorrow and move on Thursday. Fortunately we are in a rental at the moment and are keeping that for the next month (didn't want to give notice until we exchanged). So it's not a super rush to move everything across. We just figured it would be easier whilst the kids are at school/nursery (especially given DS1 is autistic and doesn't like change).

So in preparation for this we have done...nothing. The house is a complete tip and there's not a fat lot I can do about it. :rotfl: Nothing is boxed up...in fact we don't even have boxes. Ah well.

DH got some good news in the form of a PPI claim coming good so should cover the messy overlap costs of moving house without us having to dip into our actual money. Easy come, easy go and all that.

I'm itching to get everything sorted with the finances but I guess that's a priority for another day when I know we are actually in there. Ah well.

In other news DS2 has been cleared of all allergies now and so no more admissions to hospital for testing. Phew. One less lot of appointments to attend (we've been attending lots between the two over the last 2/3 years).

CathT · 30 October 2018 at 7:22PM

Welcome back to the boards. Your original diary was one of the first I read!

twinklie · 31 October 2018 at 8:33PM

Aww thanks.

So we have completed and got the keys! :T Hubby is moving us tomorrow whilst I’m at work. :beer: Result.

twinklie · 2 November 2018 at 10:38AM

We are in...ish! Had a lovely letter from the previous owners welcoming us to the house which was nice. When hubby was taking the bin out he bumped into our next door neighbour. Turns out we already know them because their son was in the same swimming class as DS1 for a while. Their kids are the same age as ours! Winner!!

Had a letter from the mortgage provider welcoming us to the ridiculous mortgage as well. Our payments will be coming out on the 30th of the month which isn’t ideal. But then when we looked at it we are going to just do a standing order out of our accounts to the joint so it’s not really an issue after all. Will set up all the bills to come out of the joint I think. Then just do food shops etc from our own accounts.

We’ve also decided to wait until Black Friday for additional bits and pieces we need to try and get a few bargains.

Twinklie returns to the property ladder

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