Maybe it's just rosy-coloured hindsight that makes those other moves seem so straightforward, but in this week leading up to the move I've finally come to realise what a crappy process we have in England for house sales/purchases, and exactly how many problems can arise.
The Moving Company
They sounded so good. Their rep/salesman's patter was the best, the most reassuring, their quote was not the cheapest but seemed to be the most realistic. Their approach to damages was fair, equitable and understandable. We chose them, we called them and told them we were hoping for a move on Friday 13th (gulp!) and they said fine, call us back when it's a firm date.
So we called back on Friday 6th.
"We can't fit you in that day."
"!!!What do you mean you can't fit us in. We called. You pencilled us in. You were the best."
"There's no such thing as 'pencilling in'. We only take firm bookings."
There was a short panic. I called the second best company, and they could fit us in. But I wasn't happy. The second company never gave me a warm feeling that they would look after our stuff, or turn up on time.
Forty minutes later the first company called back to say their transport manager had "moved a few things around" and they could fit us in now. I cancelled the second company. This was stress I could do without. Little did I know what was to come.
The Drive
Or rather, the lack of one. The house details mention there being a drive leading to the garage, but legalistically they do stop short of saying the drive actually belongs to the house. Because it doesn't. It doesn't, apparently, belong to anyone. So how can we guarantee that we will always be able to get to the garage? Turns out that it takes 25 years unfettered access to establish a right of way. The previous owners have been in residence 11 years - almost halfway - so we have to get a sworn statement from them to that effect, so that we don't lose the benefit of those 11 years on our way to the 25 year mark. Problem solved.
The Conservatory
Even though the property is freehold, there is still a "Chief Rent" payable. But it's never been collected. However one of the requirements of the chief rent is that permission is sought before making any material changes to the property (like erecting a conservatory). But if you don't know who the Chief Rent owner is, how can you ask for permission? We decided we didn't want to worry about this. If at some time in the future someone turns up demanding we demolish the conservatory, we'll worry about it then.
BasTard telecomms
The capital letters are significant. We'd asked BT to move the phone line several times (each time the move date changed, as it happens). Only trouble is, the last time we tried to change the date, it didn't register with their system, so they still thought we were moving on the 10th, not the 13th. Cue call from the engineer at 10am on the 10th.
"We're coming to install your new line."
"Oh no you're not, we don't move 'til Friday."
"Right, I'll put it back in the system."
Unfortunately, "putting it back in the system" didn't involve avoiding the disconnection of the old line, and at 5.30pm on the Tuesday before moving day, we found ourselves without a phone. Thank God for (a) mobiles and (b) broadband (which for some reason didn't get cut off). And meanwhile, the packing went on...The deposit
OK so this was mostly my fault, but it finally dawned on me Wednesday morning that we would soon be called upon to pay the deposit, and the money was sitting in our Egg savings account. I'd assured our solicitor that I would do an online transfer, which I mistakenly referred to as a "BACS" transfer (for historical reasons I won't bore you with). She was horrified. "Don't use BACS - it can take up to 5 days. CHAPS is what you want." Which is fine, cos that's what the banks use, right? Wrong. After I'd completed the Egg transfer I read that little message that says, basically, "Egg uses BACS, please allow up to five days..."
Aargh!
The emergency overdraft
So the next day I'm frantically calling my bank trying to set up an emergency overdraft to cover the deposit in advance of the funds arriving from Egg.
I guess they thought they were being really responsive after I'd called at 9am and they got back to me at 1pm, but in those four hours we'd gone through agonies of wondering if the whole transaction would fail, if we'd have to unpack all those boxes again, if our buyers would finally get hacked off with the delays and go elsewhere. And meanwhile, the packing went on...Half an hour before the bank finally called back, I checked the online accounts again. The transfer from Egg had come through! Praise be! Nothing can go wrong now, surely...?
The transfer limit
Well, actually...it turns out there's a daily limit on the amount of money you can transfer out of your account with online banking. Not a limit you'd normally have to worry about (it's £10,000) but when your bill is over £11,000 it can be a bit of a stopper. Only a minute's panic this time though (we were getting used to living on the edge!), as we put our heads together and came up with a workaround. There's no limit on transfers between accounts, so I paid the ten grand and then transferred the balance to our joint account, whereupon Nikki could pay the remainder herself, since the limit is per person, not per account.
Completion
Normally, solicitors like to complete about a week before moving. We completed at 4.30pm the day before moving. And, incidentally, ten hours before Nikki's folks were due at the airport to fly back to Toronto. Jeez.
No comments:
Post a Comment