I am sure many readers are all too aware of how frustrating moving house can be.
Matt and I like to organize things down to the last detail and, once we have decided to do something, we like to get on with it. When we made the snap decision to sell our Yorkshire house and move, we immediately got down to cleaning, decluttering and setting everything in motion.
Our house was on the market within a week, we had viewings arranged the first weekend, and we accepted an offer on the house early the next week.
Job done!
Things kept moving along nicely. We received questions from the buyers’ solicitors, and a request for a surveyor to come and survey our property. Unfortunately the surveyor couldn’t fit us in for almost three weeks, but at least it was arranged.
Meanwhile, realizing that we might need to move quickly, we set about finding a rental property to live in while we look for our next permanent home. This proved to be less simple than we imagined. Dumfries and Galloway in Scotland, which is where we are hoping to move to, has very little rental property outside Dumfries.
We didn’t want to be in a busy town, even temporarily, so we looked further afield. After a few disappointments we found a very reasonable house to rent in north west Cumbria, not too far from the Scottish border. It looks out over the estuary of the River Wampool, which drains into the Solway Estuary. It’s a great location - constantly changing tides and abundant shorebirds. In fact we might not want to leave….
So from worrying that we might have to move at short notice with nowhere to go, we suddenly had two homes. A very novel situation for us. It is actually really nice being able to swap from one to the other whenever there is something we need to do. And although it seems like a big expense it saves on hotel or B&B costs, and means we can transfer our belongings over gradually.
Soon after we acquired the rental property, we visited our solicitor and signed our part of the contract. The surveyor duly arrived and carried out his survey and everything was fine. Our buyers do not have a house to sell, and we thought we would be exchanging contracts within days. So we got down to serious packing.
Garden structures have been dismantled and pots emptied. The house is now full of bare shelves, empty cupboards and boxes ready to go - despite the removal people telling us not to pack anything because they would take care of it all. It’s just the way we are.
And now - three weeks later …… nothing.
No post, no messages, no phone calls and no progress. We start to worry. Have the buyers changed their minds? Has something happened? Is there a problem with their mortgage? Will we be back to square one? Will we (perish the thought) have to tidy the house up again ready for viewings?
After fretting for a couple of weeks we rang the solicitor, only to find that he is on holiday for two weeks. Apparently the buyers’ solicitor is also away. Of course it is the height of the summer season, and other peoples’ lives are carrying on as normal. What is all consuming to us is just another job to them.
A quick search on the Internet revealed that the average time between accepting an offer on a house and exchanging contracts is 8-12 weeks. It is now exactly 8 weeks since we accepted the offer. So I suspect, and hope, we are worrying unnecessarily.
Many years ago I worked for a couple of years as a typist for a firm of solicitors who dealt in conveyancing and probate (I’m afraid I am old enough to remember manual typewriters!)
I remember how clients were always ringing up to find out what was happening, and why there hadn’t been any progress. We used to secretly get a little annoyed with them for being so impatient and expecting everything to happen quickly.
In those days we had to wait for all the documents, forms, queries and correspondence to come through the post. Everything had to be typed by hand, and all documents had to be signed in person.
I foolishly thought that in these days of electronic documents, communications and signatures, everything would be so much faster. It seems that although some things have changed beyond what we could possibly have imagined when I was young, other things stay just the same.
I know things will have moved on as I’m so far behind, but I feel your pain. Buying and selling property is the most stressful thing I can imagine and I’m so glad we’re done with that. I always tell people that I’ll be leaving Farndale in a box and the house and farm will be someone else’s concern. My fingers are crossed that you end up somewhere where you can say the same.
I agree with other comments that it’s only the means of communication that have changed.
My most event experience was from buying a bit of land (with no buildings on it): offer made in May, verbal acceptance in July, finally got the property in December! (The seller didn’t want to finalise until the sale of her house and other land was assured and the first buyers withdrew).
My solicitor was very thorough and old fashioned, excellent at crossing the ‘t’s and dotting the ‘i’s - just as well as the other solicitors didn’t seem very competent.