23rd August 2011

23rd August 2011
The ongoing saga of selling a house.
I’m sure my itching rash that has me scratching like an old mangy dog is stress related, lately I have scratched myself to pieces and you could say we have a degree of stress in our life.
Settlement on the house sale was supposed to take place last Monday 22nd, but from last Friday when everything was in place, we had finished relocating to Lota, I had finished cleaning the house and tidying up lawns and gardens etc, let’s face it I like to leave a place how I would like to find it if I was buying. Nancy had just arrived home from her voluntary job at Braille House (Library for the blind) and was showing a friend our house in its empty state, and previous communication with our solicitor indicated everything was hunky dory for settlement Monday. Then the phone calls started, our real estate agent called and said there was a delay with the purchaser’s bank documents and they possibly needed an extension of time past Monday, it was 2:45pm Friday and just to rub salt in the wound the agent requested that we grant the buyer early access to move in as they had to vacate their own house on the Monday. I won’t repeat what I said to him but it meant I wasn’t very happy with the idea or the situation particularly as we had ensured everything had been followed up correctly on our side. I also made it clear I wouldn’t make any decisions until I had spoken with our solicitor. So a mad dash to the solicitor who hadn’t heard anything and to make matters worse, couldn’t get any response from their solicitors to confirm the report, so while they continued to draft off urgent and pointed faxes to the buyers solicitors, we hurried off to the bank to see where we stood with our financial commitments. In the mean time we informed the agents that no decision would be made until we knew what the buyers bank and solicitor was doing, in an effort to try and force some action from their side.
To cut a long story short, up to late Saturday afternoon we received another four or five pleading calls from our agent and his boss the owner of Ray White’s branch at Upper Mt. Gravatt, suggesting all sorts of proposals but all wanting early access. To me this badgering is just another form of bullying, not at all acceptable and certainly quite stressful. I finished on Saturday by reiterating that I wouldn’t agree to anything without the sanction of our solicitor. Bloody hell!! What part of NO don’t they understand?? No money No access.
First thing Monday morning I received a call from our solicitor, the real estate manager had phoned him to plead the case for his clients and subsequently he had also received contact finally from the buyer’s solicitor requesting an extension of settlement time to Wednesday, but also requesting early possession of the house!!! Unbelievable and needless to say I gave an emphatic “Not on your life” response (or words to that effect). Finally after considerable discussion with our guy I agreed to allow access to the garage for storage purposes only, to be totally supervised by the agent, then the house locked and no further access until after settlement, plus a string of legal conditions to be signed off.
You know what? Not one call from anyone to thank us for our consideration or help, we are the big Ogres. Scratch, scratch, scratch.

Greg Beaumont owner operator of Ray White Upper Mt Gravatt. I wont be recommending them to anyone.

We had our landline phone hooked up today Nancy’s in her glory.

24thAugust
Nancy’s birthday, god she’s getting old.
Wind blowing fairly hard but at least it has stopped the rain squalls.
Lunch time I suggested we wander along to a restaurant at Manly village where she could indulge in crab lasagne but surprisingly all she wanted to do was go for a walk. It was the least I could do, we did that and ended up at the ice cream parlour making corporate decisions. A pleasant surprise while at the village, we discovered the popular little art gallery that had previously been closing, was now in new ownership and has some very nice art on display.
Another pleasant surprise, on arriving back at the cottage a message on our phone informed us the house settlement had been finalised, this had been a good day although Nancy was obviously a bit sad (you can tell, she gets cranky when she is upset or sad).

Must stop waffling – still scratching.


To be honest we are both now looking forward to the new house being started, it shouldn’t be too long now.

Cheers Nigel and Nancy