Monday update

Asked for an update this am from our agents and still no news on the first time buyers at the bottom of the chain mortgage. All the agent did was reword last weeks answer! So I thanked him for his prompt reply and likened the sale of our house to a Brian Rix farce and explained he wouldnt know what one was but his boss would - I absolutely give up - is it normal to wait four weeks for a mortgage application to be granted?? Anyway enough of this horrible subject.

Today I received a lovely 'thing' off ebay and wanted to share this lady's skills with you bloggers out there. It is a reversible 'box' bag made from lovely fabrics. The photos on ebay dont do it justice. It was £9.99 plus p&p ann I think a good buy. Her ebay tag is 'annie_linen' worth a look.

Nothing more to report off to look at Laura Ashley 1990 - yummy

Friday update...................

Alan had a call from the guy whose house we are buying - his wife had opened the letter asking about the pointing on the chimneys and two other queries and they were panicking - thinking that we wanted to pull out of the purchase - Why ?? we were only asking questions about work on the property we are buying! which is quite normal. Alan assured them that it was the opposite and we wanted to get in asap but there were hold ups with our buyers etc etc. The guy has already signed his contract and is talking about the 10th December!! Where are the communications in all of this?? What are we paying for?? We are not prepared to tell him how many hold ups there are to date - he will be appalled as he obviously thinks hes on the home straight. I said to Alan we are paying these agents and solicitors a fortune - its up to them to communicate with each other and keep all of their clients informed of progress etc. We havent even had copy of the form saying what he is leaving in the property yet and he has signed his contract - now thats not on is it!!

I have been to an away day with work today - I hate them - such a lot of money when so many people have lost some of their salary - its insulting. I come back cross at the expense as they are always held at expensive venues with speakers - who were probably getting more for a couple of hours than I get for a month. Its insensitive - especially having these speakers when you work for local government where you cant be innovative and telling you to go and get the sort of life you want etc etc when you just cant do things like that when you have bills to pay etc

I am going to go and sink myself into a nice home mag with a cup of tea - I dont really enjoy alcohol, even wine which gives me indigestion but sometimes I think I should have some to get my shoulders down.

Whoops nearly forgot to tell you about my LA catalogues - I went onto ebay, put a starting bid of £19.99 hoping to put people off buying them and then reduced the sale to 3 days and then added that I had them advertised elsewhere and reserved the right to with draw if I sold them. I didnt know that sentence was against ebay rules and when I got home that night ebay had removed them !! How lucky is that - so come here back to mummy.........I made the mistake with my portmeirion I am not making it again !

More misery today from the solicitors..............

For all you people snuggled and happy in your homes - DO NOT ATTEMPT TO MOVE!!

Guess what it turns out that our house has a 'potential' Chancel Repair Liability on it. They want us to pay for an indemnity for the purchasers for £170.88 which is more than I expected. I have also discovered that the above law only came in for 10 years and expires in 2013 so why do we have to cover our buyers for 25 years? We are also told that the property we are buying has the same thing and they have to buy one for us. I have asked how much theirs will be and how they arrive at the figures. Update - my friend moved onto the smae road last year and this wasnt raised then,

Our buyers solicitors want the dimensions of the sun room so that they and the buyers can make their own assessment as to whether or not planning permission would have been required. The solicitors feel that building regs should have been obtained and therefore are asking for another indemnity policy for lack of building regs at our cost (no figure stated)

I have spent two hours on the internet and composed a long letter - I cannot see how we can get away with the Chancel thing but I am not happy about the building regs issue. Apparently the new regs only came in in 1991 and the sun room was built in 1966!! The worst thing is why wasnt it spotted when we bought it in 1995 and our seller was still alive to give evidence of when he built it etc. I am so angry - I couldnt even eat (yes ladies not even chocolate!) its now 11.30pm I am off to bed to not sleep!

NB The only good thing today happened when two of the re-enactors we met in Whitby came to collect Alans Dads army uniforms which we offered them for their group to wear. I had the girls email from when I sent her my WRAF beret. What lovely people, we instantly liked them and we had a lovely chat - I think we might be convinced to go to one of the do's and wander around in the clothes. Now how about that for true vintage!!

Anyway I guess we wont hear anything from the solicitors till next week, even though my answer will be in the letterbox in the morning by 8am

Night night - tonight we feel like staying where we are..........................

This is an update at lunchtime on Thursday - Alan went to the Planning Dept and they said they have no right to query the planning or building regs after 10 years and he laughed when Alan said he was referring to a 'sun room' built in 1966. So I have emailed the solicitor as an update to the letter they got this am and told her what we have been told. I ended my email by saying I was not making a facetious statement but seriously felt it might be better if removed the walls, windows and roof and simply left them with a patio area where the sun room once stood. If they still want an indemnity after all this I am inclined quite honestly to say 'stuff it' we will stay where we are................. I know they want our house badly so maybe they will think lang and hard at that point.

A miserable update on the move.........

I got in touch with the estate agent this afternoon after giving up on the solicitor ringing me. Not good news - it is now 3 weeks since we had the new first time buyer at the bottom of the chain. They have still not got the results of the mortgage valuation and mortgage application back - Why ? we are told continually that the market is at a standstill?? What are they doing at the building society? Their solicitor had advised them not to pay for the searches until they get a letter from the building society. So things do not bode well for a December move if their searches havent even started yet.

Then I went to Tesco to do my shopping (didnt get there over the weekend!) and our buyer was there working - I showed her the email so she is up to date and then she said they had had a letter from their solicitor saying that their buyer has only just paid the search money so their searches havent been started either!

So tonight we have decided to stop packing put some pics back on the wall and batten down the hatches for a few weeks. I can at least grieve for my Laura Ashley catalogues - in fact I think may have to have a look through them - if there are no bids I am going to keep them forever.............and ever..............

Alas! I am bereft.............

I have had traumatic weekend packing and parting with stuff. My 23 Laura Ashley catalogues from 1990 to 2007 are on ebay! The pile of packed boxes were just getting ridiculous - we are after all downsizing - so - I very bravely opened all the banana boxes I have packed with books - eight in all - and went through them all asking myself what would I really read again - trying to be honest with myself. I am just a hoarder - I confess - and getting rid doesnt come easy. However I managed to lessen the boxes by 3. Some have gone to my friend and the rest were put on Freecycle yesterday - a guy emailed straight away and said he was very interested. I had said there were housey books, non fiction, paperbacks, almost new hard backs etc - it was a fantastic chance. He wanted me to deliver and I said I would within the town area - he didnt reply until very late saying he wouldnt bother! So Alan took them to a little used off the High Street charity shop - Yorkshire Cancer Research - run by some nice ladies - they can have them - some are good enough to be given as presents. I got rid of lots of stuff on Freecycle over the weekend and some will go this evening. I am however not over the LA catalogues - perhaps noone will want them and I put 'pick up only' as they will cost a fortune to post so that lessens the amount of takers. Heres hoping for a bidding war!!

We had a survey done on the house last week and it needs some repointing on the chimneys and ridge tiles and the damp course needs to show two courses of bricks not one. I have sent a letter to the solicitors stating what was found and a few questions that the surveyor feels should be answered. I rang the sols this am to say we had dropped the letter in and could we have an appointment to see her. She seemed very taken aback that we wanted to and asked why. I said well to see where we are at , when the date might be, etc etc. She said she would read our letter and then get back to us. That was 4 hours ago!! We havent a clue what is happening with the move no-one seems to know anything. So I guess we will just carry on packing and packing........and packing.............

I had a lovely rendezvous with Mrs Nesbitt - for a cup of tea - what a lovely lady - we had a natter over a very expenisve cuppa! but the surroundings were lovely and a bit later on in the same venuwe I met 13 ladies I used to work with in the School Dental Service - its about 18 years since I saw most of them - it was so lovely and we are doing it again in a few months. The only problem was they were nearly all retired and having a wonderful time - which made me envious,

Right must go - this was just a quickie - I shall post some photos of my boxes next time - riveting eh!!

Still here - still packing - the sequel !!

Up early today to take my son to do overtime - done ironing, done online banking - reward is cup of tea and a blog at 7.40am - then packing........................................

We had a letter from the solicitor on Thursday with queries from our buyers solicitors- that took me all Thursday evening to sort out. When we moved in there was a conservatory on the side of the house over the kitchen door (described by us in the agents details as a garden as it is not grand like some conservatories are now) This was of brick construction with mouldy, green windows on top and an old plastic roof. The 'egg lady' who used to come told me that her Mum had lived opposite us from the bungalows being built in 1963 and the addition was made a few months after the bungalow was completed. We didnt need planning in 1996 when we changed the wood for upvc and added a new roof. The sol's are now querying why a 'garden room' is in the agents details when it is not on the deeds. The thing is it didnt need planning in 1963 so the deeds wouldn't have been changed and why didn't our sol's query this in 1995 when we bought the house?? Anyway the neighbours who bought the egg lady's mums house have said they will verify it has been there since they moved in 29 years ago! We also have the agents picture when we bought in 1995 and it shows it clearly on there.

We then discover that we will have to take an indemnity policy out for our buyers in case the vicar ever decides to come and claim money from them as noted in the deeds. This is I believe £58 and covers them for 25 years. When we moved to our previous house in 1990 there were no probs then when we left it in 95 to come here all of a sudden it was discovered that the previous owner didnt have planning for his garage and wayleave. So we had to pay for retrospective planning for it. Now why wasnt that spotted when we bought? There is no consistency in this is there.

When we filled in the form about the property it also asks if there has been any disputes about the boundaries - so as we had a solicitors letter from the neighbour who lives behind us but who's drive is at the side of ours we knew we had to mention it. As it had a land registry stamp on it we thought well they will see that there was an enquiry to the registry we had better be honest. Mrs C died about 3 years ago and the property was sold and no one ever came and queried the boundaries.

These are all things that hold up the process - I asked a lady down the road who moved in recently and their seller had to pay the indemnity policy of £58 to ward off the vicar!! She also had to pay £75 for another policy because the council had no record of planning for her conservatory even though it wouldnt have needed it in case they decided at a later that the may query its existence!

So, we are no further on at the moment ! Alan is up now - so we had better get started

Still here - still packing...............................

Hi just a quick update - no news on the move at all - have to ring the agents dealing with the one we are buying in the morning they left a message saying they have an update. We are having a survey done ourselves for peace of mind. Packed lots on Sunday - didnt get rid of much. Joined Freecycle and have takers tonight for the exercise bike and the Ikea 5 ft bed frame. Thanks Mrs Nesbitt for having the link on your blog - I didnt realise we had a local group - I am sure there will be lots more going on the site before we leave. I have two lovely new blogging ladies on my sidebar for you to visit.

What did everyone think of the remake of a Room With a View then??