Tag: conveyancing delays

Conveying Stress

by mkingdon, posted in house move, Walt Disney World

I am undertaking some rest and recuperation this weekend. For the past few weeks, every weekend has been a whirl of packing and sorting stuff out, but I have decided, no, have been forced, to not do that this week, as to be frank, I’m bloody knackered.

No doubt that is a build-up of month’s of angst and stress but last week especially was a busy one. My own job was particularly hectic, but I was also trying my hand at some DIY conveyancing.

Here is a representation of last week, with me being portrayed by somebody with hair and a normal BMI.

As our solicitor, and as I discovered, our seller’s too, seemed disinclined to have a go at the stuff they are qualified in and paid well for, things were taken into my own hands. I can’t recount the full set of events, but it started with a strongly worded email to all concerned parties on Monday (nobody answers their phone or calls back) and it ended with myself and the seller, via their estate agent, directly discussing what was outstanding and the best way forward.

In a nutshell, there are about six outstanding queries on our purchase, mostly relating to the quirky and often changed nature of the house and all its conversions and extensions over the years. The solicitors involved were playing a never-ending game of email tennis, which when I finally wrestled a copy of the email chain from my solicitor, seemed to contain lots of referring each other to other emails dated blah, blah, blah and not a great deal of effort to actually get any of the issues addressed.

So I took it upon myself to reach out to the seller and ask him to try to get his solicitor to do something….anything…..much as I was trying to do with mine. Via their estate agent, an email exchange happened, and rightly or wrongly I shared with him the outstanding issues and asked if he could help get this sale done so he can pocket all of our money.

To his credit, he quickly agreed to cover any outstanding bits of paperwork that could not be provided with an indemnity policy, much as we have done to our buyer for works done to our house that we have no paperwork for and gave his solicitor a kick up the arse. Last I heard late on Thursday was that he had approved the draft policy provided to him and told them to get on with it. I am led to believe that this is now with our solicitor but of course, any form of proactive update from them is clearly not in the package I am paying for, and I shall have to wait until my third email chaser next week to get a half-formed update. There was no point in trying to get any such update on Friday as she has long since made it clear that Fridays are a day when she has more important stuff to do.

So I do not know if this covers all outstanding queries but it will sort the majority. The coming few days may see my solicitor do something other than ignoring my calls and emails.

I think the stress and frustration of all that hit me on Saturday morning when my body untensed after such a busy week, both in the job for which I get paid and the one I am doing despite paying someone else to do, so I woke feeling like rubbish. I declared the weekend a write off and that I wouldn’t be doing anything of any note.

Indeed, the day’s only achievements were eating three-quarters of a pack of Rich Tea and having two poos. A red-letter day indeed. The evening, as nearly all of them are now, was spent binge-watching something. Our current set of things on the go are –

Servant (on Apple TV)

The entire Marvel film back catalogue on Disney + (to be fair we only started that journey last week by watching Captain America, so I don’t know how committed we are to that).

Wandavision

Celebrity Game Face

The latter is our newest form of vegetation and is a new discovery tucked away on the channel E. We seldom watch this channel as it normally features too many Kardashians or reality shows about WWE wrestlers that we don’t know. However, we stumbled upon Kevin Hart’s Celebrity Game Face. It’s silly, pointless and at times hilarious and just what you need when you’ve been trying to move house for six months and still don’t have a clue when it might happen. Give it a go if you want to turn your brain off and have a chuckle.

Of course, Rebecca and Tom’s move did not happen last week as they were promised. Their seller had the nerve to find himself in hospital, which rendered him unable to sign things and so their date has been put back to next Friday. It’s almost as if moving house is an absolute horror show that you should never, ever do.

Someone commented last week that I didn’t even mention our holiday. It’s a sign of how full my mind is of houses, solicitor inertia and other such bollocks and I know the entire UK Disney community uses this blog as some sort of bell-wether or canary in the coal mine for their entire planning strategy, so here’s my current take.

My current forecast of the chances of us being in WDW in June is slim to none. I can’t back that up with any firm stats or evidence and as such I have been invited to take up a position in cabinet, but it’s just a feeling. Now, I know that my overall mood right now is one of stress and frustration, so I may not be in the best place to make that judgement, but it just feels too soon….again.

Being so tired and emotional I also feel that even if borders are open, the thought of wearing masks, especially for Freddie, also appears to be dragging me down a bit. Not that we will ever be back to the normal we thought we had pre-Covid, but I think it will be Summer 2022 before things like social distancing and masks have a chance of being removed by the risk-averse Disney parks.

As I said, I’m tired and emotional. For that reason, I am properly missing our holidays right now. The juxtaposition of seeing my trio of vloggers in the WDW parks whilst we have to stay in our houses wrapped in cling film isn’t helping.

Who knows. By the spring, international travel may be allowed with a vaccine or a negative test and we may be able to make the best of the experience despite the masks and at least get some sun, good food and a change of scenery in mid-June. If we can’t, then I guess the next obvious set of dates would be our usual very late August time of year, but I have to say, sacking it all off and waiting for 2022 is also a very real consideration. There are only so many times you can book one holiday.

So there you go. A post where you can almost see my tiredness and stress hanging off every word. Luckily, everything that is contributing to that will continue at a pace for a while so buckle yourselves in for the next few weeks. How frequently I will update you on the poo count is, at this stage, unknown.

Till the next time……

Louise Bought Me Expensive Hose

by mkingdon, posted in house move

Hey, guess what? We STILL don’t know when we are moving house. Incredible isn’t it? With how quickly everything else has gone with the process so far it was nailed on that we’d be all sorted this week. Right?

Instead, it took all week, yes five working days, for a set of questions to go from our solicitors to the seller’s, get answered and get sent back. That doesn’t include our solicitor actually checking that they are happy with the answers. Oh no, that has been scheduled for next week, and if they do need further clarification, no doubt that will be another week down the swanny.

To say we are sick of the whole shit show is an understatement. We are trapped in this limbo of being half packed, but unable to do a massive list of tasks that can’t be done until we know when we will actually move.

In better news, after all sorts of shenanigans, stress and swearing, Rebecca and Tom are now scheduled to complete on their purchase on Tuesday. That is a relief and one worry off all our minds. At least they will be sorted and can crack on with the work and decorating it needs before they can move in.

Whoever finds a way to simplify, modernise and speed up the conveyancing process in the UK deserves to be a billionaire. It is literally unbelievable how unfit for purpose the whole thing is. As an example, despite the fact that legally, everything could still fall apart and we may not end up buying the house, we have had to take out buildings insurance on it, as the mortgage company insist on seeing that before they will release the money. So, if the worst happens, we will be the proud owner of an insurance policy on a house we don’t own, for a year.

I think much of my own stress is based on two things –

  1. I am building up the day of the actual move into a horror show that will probably never materialise. For some reason, I think the amount of stuff we have and how big and awkward a lot of our furniture is will be an insurmountable problem for removal folks who do this every day.
  2. I look around at the house and cannot imagine a time when it is totally packed up. The sheer scale of the job terrifies me and we can’t go full steam ahead until we have a date as we need a lot of the stuff for day to day living.

No matter the scale of carnage at the new place, when we are in with all our stuff and we wave off the removal van, I will breathe the largest sigh of relief known to man.

To give you some appreciation of the scale of disruption in the house right now, this is just one corner of our dining room.

To add insult to injury, last week also saw Louise’s car in for a service. It was only marginally cheaper than the house purchase. It has to return for a 2 day stay at the garage next week to complete all the work required. To save time, they have a kidney harvesting facility on-site now, so it’s a one-stop-shop.

Having had a bit of a week, yesterday I undertook some hard labour and carried a lot of boxes down from Emily’s bedroom. She is up in the loft so that was two flights of stairs per box. I then emptied the spare room, Rebecca’s old room, of 90% of the boxes in there too. This is why the dining room looks like it does. By mid-afternoon, after also clearing out and either binning or packing up some of the kitchen, I got a little tired and emotional. I think if any of you had tackled your “under the sink” cupboard, you too may have found that to be the straw that broke your back.

Louise went out to buy a new hosepipe. No, really, it makes perfect sense. It’s January, and we move in a few weeks so this was clearly at the top of our shopping list for understandable reasons.

Wanting to leave our house in the best state for the new occupants Louise decided she needed to jet wash the back yard. Personally, I thought the dark green shade of the flags went well with the overall aesthetic of the back of the house, but no, jet washing was to happen.

Of course, at the back end of the summer, our hose pipe had broken. So Louise came home with a new one yesterday. She asked if I would set it up and connect it to the jet wash. Sure thing. This will just take a couple of minutes, then I can have a sit-down and relax for a bit.

I’ve seen simpler instructions for rocket flight. It was ridiculous and my tired, patience deficient brain just would not onboard the 72 step process to get some water through a pipe. Louise had seemingly bought the most expensive hose in the place, which is not a phrase I can get onboard with unless it is for a special birthday treat.

Things were not helped by Louise suggesting she asked our neighbour or my Dad to do it as they were “better at this sort of thing”. Words were exchanged, at volume. Louise wandered off to get my Dad and in that time, I did manage to figure out at least the first few steps. My Dad arrived and fairly quickly water flowed into the jet wash and I retired indoors to evaluate my life choices.

Had you told me, back in the summer, when this whole house move thing started that my breaking point would be figuring out why a hosepipe had a spring that needed fitting somewhere in it, I may not have believed you. Further breaking points lie ahead I am sure. When I was younger, whatever ailment afflicted me, my Mum would say it was because I was tired. I have self-diagnosed the same thing for me at this time.

So another day lies ahead filled with takings thing out of places and putting them into boxes. Meanwhile, our solicitor might, if the mood takes her, at some time next week, brush the cobwebs off our file and casually glance at what the next steps may be so that we are in for Christmas.

The next time I move house, it will be me in the box being carried out of the house!

Till the next time…….