Last week we spoke to our solicitor, H, on the phone about the progression of things and the upshot of the conversation was that he would like us to come in and sign the contract for the house we are buying.
Tomorrow? No not tomorrow, and as we were about to begin the four day Platinum Jubilee, it would have to be Tuesday 7th and could we please come at 11am.
He said this very clearly and Keith and I both heard it and committed it to memory and, in my case, to my diary.
I mention this because at 10.55, there we were standing in front of the receptionist in the front office. The only problem was, said receptionist had a puzzled look on her face and was telling us that, not only was there no record in the office diary of our appointment but there was also no H. Ten minutes later, his conveyancing assistant appeared, having failed to get any answer from H and having no idea where he could be. However, she said she would look at our file and talk us through the contract, so that at least would be done.
My main worry was getting a moving date agreed so that we could ensure that our removal firm was free. They had already taken some of Keith's stuff into temporary storage, so we were pretty well committed to them.
"Unfortunately," D began, :Your vendor is saying that mid June (which I thought had been more or less agreed) is far too early. He's looking more at the end of July or early August."
I explained that this was a bit of a volte face, as he had been quite happy to accommodate us before. He was going to rent for a while and put his furniture into storage.
"Well," said D, "maybe you could speak to his estate agent and find out what is going on. I'm not allowed to do that, you see."
With that, she began showing the contract to us before she realised that I was ringing the estate agent straight away. She sat back with a not very impressed look on her face.
There followed a series of phone calls from me to the estate agent and our removal firm. By now, our solicitor, H had mysteriously appeared and poured himself into his chair muttering something about insomnia and oversleeping.
D disappeared and H continued to take us through the documents, punctuated at intervals by the phone calls. At one point, I was in mid-call when I looked up to see Keith creeping round H's desk, examining it inch by inch.
"That was a bit surreal," I remarked after the phone call. It turned out that Keith thought the desk was one that he had made when he had his desk-making factory.
"You've had quite a varied career path, haven't you?" H commented.
The upshot of the phone calls was that it seems as if the end of June is looking possible and even likely.
Fingers and toes crossed ...
2 comments:
What did you say in those phone calls Jenny? Did you threaten the vendor and his estate agent with mortal injury? Whatever threats you made - it seems they were effective.
Not quite, YP, but close. Might have mentioned sending in the heavy mob. ;)
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