move house

After a thousand and one problems, it finally happened. I mived in on the 16th of June (broadband access took a while later, heh heh).

So here I am. I have a great house, a huge beautiful garden which needs work but is coming along, fantastic friendly neighbors, and my dogs love the place. I am very content.

After all the heartache preceeding the decision to move and the problems thereafter (which would fill a whole blog by themselves) it has defintely been worth it !

The survey on my house was done yesterday- the one I currently own that is. It’s a Victorian built house so the buyers decided on a full structural survey so I am told – but the surveyor was only here an hour and a half. To my knowledge full structurals take rather longer than that so perhaps they decided against it afterall. As he left he said, “No real problems so good luck in your house move.”
As far as I know we have no structural issues, no damp to speak of and no timber infestation so fingers crossed there is nothing I’m not aware of that will scare the buyers off. I find out tomorrow or friday I guess.
Meantime the survey on the one I’m buying is going to be done in a few days. I decided on a homebuyer’s report (tells you if there are any running repairs likely and whatnot) costing four hundred and fifty quid rather than a plain valuation (which tells you if the house is worth what it is being sold for) or a structural. It’s a 1970’s built house, built like a brick outhouse by the local council so in theory there should be few problems that might hold things up. We’ll see.

It’s been going fairly smooothly so far, apart from the original mortgage with my current mortgage lender suddenly being refused after their agreeing it for the previous two months(so I just told them to stick it and went through a mortgage broker to find an exclusive even better value deal) and my ex husband trying to shirk his reponsibility by not clearing out the crap in the attic that belongs to him. 95 percent of the stuff in there belongs to him, and as he left three and a half years ago I think it’s about time he cleared it out. He promised faithfully when the house went on the market at the beginning of february that he would clear it out soon, well before I moved.
But yesterday he tried to persuade me that he would hire and drive the truck for my move (with me paying of course) and take his stuff at the same time on the day. But I recall when we moved into this house seven years ago it was all his shit in the attic that took the longest time to move because he didn’t get any of it boxed or out of the attic until the day of the move, which held us up there until eleven o clock that night ! The people buying our house then were furious, and I don’t blame them.
I told him a flat no, it had to be gone before my move, as he promised in the first place, as I wasn’t going to get stressed out like that again on account of his inability to meet his responsibilities. I hinted that he could always leave it behind for the next folks to sell or dump if he really didn’t want it, but whatever happened, I wasn’t going to be moving it on my moving day. He just doesn’t want to spend money on hiring a van himself to move it all, is all, but as the saying goes, tough tits I’m afraid. I’ve got enough to worry about with the move without having to pack and move all his trainsets and boxes of old school books and memorabilia too.

Found the perfect house yesterday in Norwich. Three bedrooms, working fires in living room and dining room, ensuite in the master bedroom, huuuuuge garden for the doggies (with a workshop in it, which will be very useful once I figure out what to do in it) and off street parking for at least two cars (not that I have even one car but I do have friends with cars :) ) And in a nice area with good bus routes.
I put in an offer the minute I finished viewing it and the offer was accepted. Whahey !!!!!!!!! I’m truly made up.

have a reputation for being blood sucking ratbags. I can’t say that I disagree with that today.
The agent selling the house I offered on yesterday suddenly produced another party who were offering at the same time (bearing in mind this property had been on the market for seven weeks with no offers). They rejected my first offer saying someone had offered better. So I offered again. Rejected, other party had offered more, and was told if I offered a couple of thousand more then it would almost certainly be accepted as the other part could not go any higher. So against my better judgement I did (the house is only really worth my second offer IMO). I was then told the vendor would think about it and let me know by the end of the day (yesterday). No news by end of play and was told that the seller was uncontactable and so was the other party involved, but they would be given a chance to up on my offer at the appropriate time -which was not what they said when they told me my offer was being considered. There was no mention of the other party then as I was told they couldn’t go any higher and were goign to be out of play.

This morning I phoned again (the agent had promised to phone me first thing but didn’t) and was told the other party had upped on my offer and would I like to raise again. I said no (when what I really wanted to say was “get stuffed”). So someone obviously wants to pay more than I do for the house and then shell out for the work it needs as well, and is prepared to treat it like it’s an auction on ebay. I’m not personally. When I say that’s my top offer I mean it !
I know this is how estate agents make their money and the seller wants as much money as they can get but what I object to is being lied to – i.e. if you offer this much more it will almost certainly be accepted cos they other party can’t afford it. Then being told my offer was being considered and would be either accepted or rejected by the end of the day – not that they were waiting for the other party to come back and beat it and would keep me hanging until they did. It’s trickery.

If nobody buying houses was willing to play this game with the agents then they wouldn’t be able to get away with treating it like an ebay auction. I’m not going to offer more than twice in the future – first offer will be my banker, if I have to offer again it will be my top whack and no more will be forthcoming. I should have known better than to do it with this one.

I have four appointments to see houses tomorrow afternoon. That will be twenty I will have looked at all told by the end of the day. Sigh.

And I put in an offer on one of them this morning. Fingers crossed !!

is what it’s all about (Alfie).
One of my closest friends (the phrase is inadequate to describe this person but it’ll have to do) has spent the afternoon driving hundreds of miles to check out areas in Norwich and houses I am interested in so I don’t waste time viewing totally unsuitable ones when I go back there again on sunday. God only knows, without him I wouldn’t have gotten through to this stage of the whole house move thing. I’d have gone bananas.
In fact, the last month has been nasty – and if it hadn’t been for my closest friends I’d have been under a bus by now.
I know he, the house-looker-atter – will read this, even if he claims not to ;) So, I haven’t got the words to express my gratitude for all the times you’ve picked me up from utter despair. And there have been many throughout our varied history. I know I’ll not ever be able to return it. xxx

The viewers who came last night offered, and I accepted. Very near the asking price. They are first time buyers with their mortgage in place already so – no backwards chain. Excellent !

What a relief. Fingers crossed it all goes to plan now.

I am off to Norwich to look at houses on friday.

This evenings viewer, which was due at 5:30, was late and turned up at five to six. Me and the dogs had been walking around the park soaked to the skin in the dark and rain and cold since 5:20. The agent did call to explain they were stuck in traffic but he’d call as soon as they were done.
Which ended up being at twenty past six. They loved the place apparently and have promised to call the agent tomorrow if they have any questions or want to make an offer. He thinks they will make one.
I hope so – we froze our butts off out there for an hour !
I go to Norwich to view houses on friday so if I got an offer tomorrow that would really be timely.

Roof fixed.
Ex came over and patched the felt (he used to be a roofer). So no more water. Then we sat and watched tv and chatted which was nice but sort of painful too. We both love cars so Top Gear on UKG2 did me a service by giving us something to break the ice with. We talked about driving and new cars and I mentioned my panic attack when I was required to drive a car a total of about two feet a couple of years ago (I wrote off my car when I was 19, never drove again, and had to give my license up when I started having visual acuity issues nine years ago.) I mused on how I sometimes miss driving and had heard of totally blind people who go on track days to drive cars with an instructor, and how I wasn’t sure that I could ever do that – not because I don’t have enough vision because I do, to drive with help – but because I get the cold sweats even sitting in the driver’s seat of a car. I’ve utterly lost my bottle for it. He rather sweetly said he’d trust me to driver his car (his pride and joy, an orange Audi TT) on a track day.
He’s not the only person to have said this (the other person to have said this is one of my dearest loved ones) but I never thought he trusted me with anything let alone his car – in fact lack of trust was a real issue in our relationship – so I was oddly touched.
Anyway – this has nothing to do with house moving – but the roof is fixed anyway !

Water leaking from the bathroom ceiling. Methinks this is because there is a small hole in the roofing felt that I knew needed to be patched but I was going to get the ex husband to do it when he comes over on wednesday. It rained and blew a gale yesterday and I suspect maybe unseated a roofing tile or something.
Upshot of it is – water slowly dripping out of a light fixing in the bathroom when it rains (it’s stopped raining now but more rain forecast for tomorrow), and I have a viewing tomorrow evening at half five. Not exactly optimum, I think you’d agree.
I can’t get up into the attic to look at it because there is no light up there and I don’t even have a torch. Besides, I have been banned by friends and family (easy for them to ban me – they’re not here to help !) from going up there on account of my being registered blind and likely to put my foot through the ceiling !
Ex hus can’t get over till wednesday, best male buddy is in Norwich with his parents for his brithday. So, got a problem cos I can’t have water coming out of the ceiling for a viewing and the usual suspects who come to the rescue at times like this are unavailable on such short notice – so I had to ask my ex if he would help me.
Not feeling great about that – I have never liked asking for help (growing up with my dad as a role model, he who could do everything around the house as he is a builder by trade, has kinda made me feel crappy about not being able to do diy things) and I certainly don’t like asking for help from someone who doesn’t want me anymore. But I had no choice.
So I steeled myself and called him, explained the situation, asked if he would consider helping me out and he said he’d be round this evening after work. I thanked him sincerely.
Mixed feelings about that – I am genuinely grateful for his help in a tight spot but on the one hand I’d like to see him, and on the other hand not. The man broke my heart afterall and I’m still hurting. But needs must when the devil drives, so they say, or something !