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They say that moving house comes fairly high on the list of life’s traumas and generally one that should be avoided as much as possible. However, life’s rich tapestry has a habit of getting some folk in knots and I personally have moved on average every 3 years. This is not some sadistic habit since all moves have some underlying valid reason for the upheaval.
If you want to know about mine and the shenanigans I have just gone through, then
Latterly, I have moved house in the UK to be adjacent to my older kids’ school with the intention of saving on boarding fees. For anyone reading this article who has children in Boarding School would agree with me that said fees also feature high on the life trauma chart!
So my house is on the market and I secure an offer. This in turn allows me to locate the new place and I too have my offered secured. My finances are in place (no excuses here!) and the legal folk are ready to go. My wife starts booking in plumbers, carpet chaps, gardeners and removal men. Like a Napoleonic campaign, the grand plans of us seasoned movers’ rolls into action – and that’s where it all goes wrong.
The written offer on my house allows me to confidently purchase the house I intend to buy. The equity from the sale of my house is crucial in the deal since without it I am unable to proceed. Without warning or explanation a reduced offer arrives from our buyers who promptly leave the country. What do we do? At this point my wife is only slightly agitated, pulse rate a tad above normal and blood temperate where it should be.
In any other barter type arrangement you take a look at the offer and make your decisions accordingly. However there is an art to buying/selling houses coupled with seasonal factors in the UK especially. We knew that if we did not sell our house now then it probably would not secure a buyer again until next year. Moreover, we were not publicly advertising the property and purely relied on the Agents ability to source credible buyers with the means to buy. You may not believe, but there are folk in the UK who regularly go to viewings with Realtors just to be nosey. Similarly, when you have accepted an offer the Agent generally does not bring alternative buyers to your door unless the offer falls through; we had no one waiting in the wings. On their return, we decided to accept the reduced offer on the premiss that completion would happen within a certain period.
That period being the summer leave of course when Expats go back to the UK to see their Boarding School children and take in the sun (July was glorious). Just when you thought the deal was on the go again, our Buyers suddenly realized the overall costs particularly with regard to stamp duty (Transfer Tax as it is now) was going to hamper their budget. Further delays are the last thing you need particularly when you have managed to find a plumber who will even speak to you. Fortuitously, our Vendor did not reside in the property we were buying and was happy for us to send in workmen once we had exchanged. We were not getting any closer to exchange and my holiday was drawing to an end.
Albeit by a whisker, we thought we still had a deal. I returned to Dubai having signed any salient papers and done as much preparation for the move as possible. It was evident that this was going to get drawn out and to make matters worse we were burgled in the interim. (Thankfully the family was unharmed and the only losses could be replaced easily). The waiting game is an annoying one and it is important that communication by all parties at all times is crucial. Do not rely solely on your Agent and if they are willing, secure the contact details of everyone concerned in making your deal happen. Evidently, our Vendor was getting anxious since they too realized the selling trends and wanted to offload their property.
Out of the blue, our buyer states that she needs to sell her house within the week otherwise her buyer will pull out and the whole deal will fall apart. We thought another smoke-screen but when she clarifies that her buyer is a Royal Marine who is about to be posted to Iraq leaving a pregnant wife and small child behind, he has be around to conduct the move or alternatively will leave his family in married quarters. Thankfully our buyer proceeds and ends up having no home for a week since here Solicitor and financial guy have not realized there is a reservation on her mortgage offer. We cannot exchange until another valuation is conducted on my house. Bemused we pull strings and get a surveyor to inspect the house again drawing us towards the exchange.
In case you have forgotten, we have plumbers, gardeners, carpet chaps and removal men all patiently waiting on the green light. We have a Vendor perplexed by the time it is taking, Agents who are pulling their hair out, my Solicitor who delays his Summer leave and my wife who is an 8 on the stress-o-meter! The plan was to have a gap between exchange and completion in order to carry out essential repairs and more importantly, the start of the school term is drawing ever nearer.
I return to the UK to collect my youngest son for start of school in Dubai. We are delayed by a week which costs us further in airline tickets. Finally we exchange and we have 3 days to move out. More papers are required by legal folk in order to make the completion happen and removal men et al burst into action. As we take the last item from our house on completion day, our buyers’ removal lorry arrives and we say goodbye to our old house. It is quite a strange feeling that once you decide to sell your home, it is no longer your home and the new place has already taken that mantle even in its state of disrepair.
We competed on Friday 15th September and I jumped on a plane on the Monday to bring my son back to Dubai for school and to start earning some money to pay for our new project. With no heating, no telephone line, drains blocked, collapsing guttering and packing boxes to the ceiling, I think that finally pushed us to the conclusion that we do not want to be doing that again for a very long time and that we will stay in this house for at least the next 10 years.
Let’s see … |
