The suspense is killing me
Oh for goodness sake! It's only a few days down the line and the whole 'who's buying the house today?' game is wearing me out... Last time I wrote Michael and I had argued, analysed, agreed and made a decision to sell the house to the couple who were pissing us off least. Now, however, they're all mucking around and we're selling the house - touch wood - to the very couple who came off worst in my last post!
The saga goes something like this: couple A muck around and are dropped in favour of couple B, who reappear after a couple of weeks' absence with a good offer. Couple A counter-offer with an extra £5,000, but for that money we'd rather not have the hassle and stick with couple B. This is where we last left things, and on Tuesday afternoon I duly travelled to Nailsea to give all the documents AND copies of our passports AND our names signed in blood to our (very nice) conveyancing solicitor. I came home, I had a large drink, I sat in the garden feeling very pleased with the fact that we'd SOLD THE HOUSE.
But lo! yesterday couple A re-appeared, tails between legs, apologising madly to our agents for being rude and daft and offering an extra £12,000 above the price we'd accepted from couple B! What's a girl supposed to do? I agonised, we consulted our 'Which? Guide to Buying and Selling a Flat' (and yes, I'm aware we no longer live in a flat) - I looked up gazumping in the index and hardly dared to hope that we might legally be able, even at this late stage, to pull out of one deal and accept another. But guess what, we can, and for £12,000 we'd be fools not to. £12,000 translates to about $28,000 in Australia - enough to live on for 9 - 12 months, depending on how extravagant we might be, and given that this house is our major asset and we have to realise as much money on it as we can, we'd be mad to throw away most of a year's living expenses. So I phoned Dad, phoned our solicitor and then rang the estate agents to tell them the news, on the basis that luckily we pay THEM to do the dirty work of breaking it to couple B...
We went to bed last night feeling like heels, but also feeling that we have a primary responsibility for the welfare of our family, which depends in part at least on available cash. So we just gotta do what we gotta do, I guess.
Of course this morning, couple B came back with an increased offer but they can't match couple A and haven't really come close to it. And although I feel awful about disappointing them, Michael pointed out that having told them the bad news yesterday we've already soured the relationship with them so it's not as if they'd be very happy with us even if we did accept their revised offer - the chances are that they would have been very picky with the survey etc, etc. At least with couple A we can say 'no mucking about'. Even if the survey does throw up issues (and I can only think it's going to be issues about the condition of the timber on the rear windows, and the fact that there's no damp course in the downstairs bedroom) then we know he's got more than enough money to pay for remedial work and we won't be accepting a reduction in the offer price.
So anyway, there you are - we have hopefully sold the house - just to different people. And as it's our sixth wedding anniversary today I shall be kicking back at Moreish this evening, together with Dad, Michael, Patrick and Ella, and having a well-earned drink!
The saga goes something like this: couple A muck around and are dropped in favour of couple B, who reappear after a couple of weeks' absence with a good offer. Couple A counter-offer with an extra £5,000, but for that money we'd rather not have the hassle and stick with couple B. This is where we last left things, and on Tuesday afternoon I duly travelled to Nailsea to give all the documents AND copies of our passports AND our names signed in blood to our (very nice) conveyancing solicitor. I came home, I had a large drink, I sat in the garden feeling very pleased with the fact that we'd SOLD THE HOUSE.
But lo! yesterday couple A re-appeared, tails between legs, apologising madly to our agents for being rude and daft and offering an extra £12,000 above the price we'd accepted from couple B! What's a girl supposed to do? I agonised, we consulted our 'Which? Guide to Buying and Selling a Flat' (and yes, I'm aware we no longer live in a flat) - I looked up gazumping in the index and hardly dared to hope that we might legally be able, even at this late stage, to pull out of one deal and accept another. But guess what, we can, and for £12,000 we'd be fools not to. £12,000 translates to about $28,000 in Australia - enough to live on for 9 - 12 months, depending on how extravagant we might be, and given that this house is our major asset and we have to realise as much money on it as we can, we'd be mad to throw away most of a year's living expenses. So I phoned Dad, phoned our solicitor and then rang the estate agents to tell them the news, on the basis that luckily we pay THEM to do the dirty work of breaking it to couple B...
We went to bed last night feeling like heels, but also feeling that we have a primary responsibility for the welfare of our family, which depends in part at least on available cash. So we just gotta do what we gotta do, I guess.
Of course this morning, couple B came back with an increased offer but they can't match couple A and haven't really come close to it. And although I feel awful about disappointing them, Michael pointed out that having told them the bad news yesterday we've already soured the relationship with them so it's not as if they'd be very happy with us even if we did accept their revised offer - the chances are that they would have been very picky with the survey etc, etc. At least with couple A we can say 'no mucking about'. Even if the survey does throw up issues (and I can only think it's going to be issues about the condition of the timber on the rear windows, and the fact that there's no damp course in the downstairs bedroom) then we know he's got more than enough money to pay for remedial work and we won't be accepting a reduction in the offer price.
So anyway, there you are - we have hopefully sold the house - just to different people. And as it's our sixth wedding anniversary today I shall be kicking back at Moreish this evening, together with Dad, Michael, Patrick and Ella, and having a well-earned drink!
posted by Sara Bowen at 2:43 pm
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