7th March 2012

So another tense afternoon yesterday. The Estate Agent was still waiting for the buyer to provide his solicitors details. Without them they could not post out letters to us, the buyer and the solicitors and as such the solicitors could not commence getting their paperwork together, contacting land registry mortgage companies etc.

The Agent rang me at lunchtime to advise that they were still waiting but would ring him. At around 1.30 they came back to me having spoken to him about the need to move a bit quicker and to explain our position of concern. He said he was speaking to some solicitiors during his lunchtime still getting quotes. He said he saw the sale sign had gone up and that gave him some reassurance. The Agent pointed out that us as sellers needed some reassurance as well, and he promoised to make a decision. I cannot believe how much he was expecting to save.

Anyhow lunchtime came and went. At 4.30pm the agent rung me and said they had good news and some not so good news. He had engaged an solicitor, but low and behold chosen the exact same one as we had. Legally you cannot have the same solicitor to buy and sell a property. The agent went back to him to tell him to change. In the meantime I rung them back and said if there was a problem with cost going to another agent I would pay the difference, after all it could not be much. I knew that you could have the same solicitor working for both parties as long as it was two different branches. So I was just holding for my solicitor to see if I could move to the Cheshunt branch, when the agent called back and said he had now selected another one, the original one recommneded by the Agent. Shame it took so long to get there.

Anyhow letters have now been posted to all parties and now there is nothing more we or the Agent can do. It is down to the solicitors and the buyer. The Agent advised it could take around 5 weeks to get the contracts exchanged but was confident that the solicitors being used are the best two in the area.

So now we go back to normal living hopefully, put the move to the back of our minds, there is nothing we can do to progress it anyway and wait for phone calls and letters.

We are putting our whole future in the hands of our buyer, should he pull out at the last minute before exchange we will be left with very little time to find a new buyer before Helen has to hand her notice in.

5th March 2012

So we have entered a period of calm. Dont get me wrong I still have a ton of stuff going round in my head, will the survery be Ok, will the buyer change their mind etc etc, but now we have nothing much to do apart from wait for solicitors and surveyors to do what they have to do and sign anything they need us to.

No more viewings or stressing because no one is coming for a viewing, constantly keeping the house tidy in case someone comes to look at short notice, life is peaceful again, well for a while anyway.

For the 3rd time we took passports and utility bill to be checked, this time by Agent 3 who had sold our property. Helen went in and was chatting to them and telling them about house prices where we were moving to, 3 bedroom houses comparable to 2 bedroom flats in London. She said the girl in the office jaw dropped when she heard the difference.

Was waiting for the Agents to confirm the our buyer had sorted out a solicitor. At 4.30 they rang to say they had spoken to him, he had got a quote from one solicitor but was waiting for another quote before deciding. This is frustrating as the Agent cannot put out the letters until he confirms his solicitor. Also the survey will not be until at least next week as he is not going back into the Nationwide until Saturday to discuss this with them.

This is a different type of stress now from when we were looking for a buyer. All the time that goes on now is time that, if this deal falls through, we have lost working towards our end of May deadline. There is nothing we can do, we have to wait, he is a school teacher so works long hours as well and we are going to have to be patient. Our agent assures us that they believe he is honest and wants to buy our house but the next 2 or 3 weeks could be very long indeed. I am fairly sure that once we buy up in Kings Lynn I will not be putting myself through this again.

Still at least we have Kirsty’s 8^th Birthday coming up to distract us from this. Cannot believe she is 8 this Friday. She has a school trip to London Zoo as well on the day and then on Sunday it is bowling and Pizza Hut.

Craig had his 2^nd Mathss GCSE exam today, now we wait for the results from that. Hoping that he can get a C and then retake in Summer, knowing he has a C and maybe turn it into a B.

Having done some packing already by putting away the things we really do not use that often, we are in pretty good shape, but I am resisting starting anymore until we have exchanged contracts. Dreading doing the shed, so much stuff I have kept thinking "that might be useful one day", I think we might need to order a skip.

Mum and Dad were sorting out with us things for when we stay with them, clearing draws for us to use and where we will sleep. The one daunting thing for me is that mum wants me to do all the meals. It is difficult doing 3 different meals for us let alone add another couple in. Not too bad doing the cooking but it is just the weighing out of weight watchers meals that we have, although if they are happy to have what we have then most recipes are for 4 people so should not be too bad.