Our new house in the New Forest, Hampshire

[Kathy & Laurie]

I started a detailed topic about our intended house move called Bitter sweet last few days, but because this involved a serious road accident I have wanted to steer clear of being reminded of it and have decided to start a fresh topic to continue our progress.  I have put the link to the original topic if you wish to catch up fully.

Anyway, it's now looking like we're very close to a completion date which has been provisionally suggested by us to our solicitor as Wednesday 8 December 2010.  Our buyers' solicitor has to confirm this with her but it doesn't look like there will be a problem.  We've pencilled the date in with our removal company as he's starting to get booked up, as December is a busy time for them.

We're actually pretty much packed already, with some everyday items to be amongst the last to be destined for our packing boxes.

Kathy has earmarked some plants to come with us.  One of them is a neat and compact Chrysanthemum shrub which she dug up from her mum's house, the name of which escapes me for now.  Another one is a form of small (at the moment anyway) Yew tree, about twelve inches tall but cost us £17 last year.  Too expensive to leave behind.  A Bay tree in a pot is also coming with us.  This one is about three feet tall and is well-established.

We're currently without a car now as the loan car has been collected from us, as we've been awarded a partial compensation.  Once the GAP part of the insurance claim is sorted out we can look to buy another vehicle.

Therefore, our intention is to travel down to Hampshire by train the day before the completion day.  The removal company loads up their van the day before anyway so they have an early start on the long journey down there.  So once they've done that we'll lock up the house, leave the keys with the estate agent and head off to the railway station.
We'll have an overnight stay in a hotel and meet up with the removal guys the next day at our new house.

We don't really mind doing it this way as we didn't fancy the idea of that long car journey again.

I'll keep you all up-to-date with future developments in this topic, and eventually post some exciting stuff about our new garden, accompanied by photos of course 

It's been a long and stressful time for us to get to this stage of the proceedings, so can't wait to get settled in and get some well-deserved relaxation time.  At least we'll be settled in for Christmas.

Laurie.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

Laurie and Kathy

Thanks for updating us on your move to a new county and house.

Coming down by rail sounds a wonderfull idea, and much more relaxing at another stressfull time for you both.
Hopefully once you get moved in, you can start a new, peacefull time in the country.

Best wishes to you both

Malcolm

[ideasguy]

Great news Kathy and Laurie

The train journey and the overnight stop over is a great idea.

Very best wishes for a successful completion and I hope the new house and the region you have chosen will be a realisation of your dreams.

When you have settled, I look forward to wishing you a very special Happy Christmas this year

[Palustris]

Excellent news.

[roiphil]

fantastic, dont forget last thing to pack is the kettle, first thing to unpack is the kettle  , hope it all goes well and looking forward to some piccys of your new garden throughout the process of transforming it
Phil

[Kathy & Laurie]

Thanks for all the nice comments guys.

Phil....... that kettle of ours will most certainly be taking priority in the packing - in fact it's coming with us in our 'carry-on' flight bags on the train 

Can't wait for all this to end and get settled in. 

Laurie.

[roiphil]

Phil....... that kettle of ours will most certainly be taking priority in the packing - in fact it's coming with us in our 'carry-on' flight bags on the train 


Laurie.

 

[newplantguy]

Excellent news about the move and looks like you are getting your car sorted.
Paul.

[Trevor Ellis]

Hi Kathy and Laurie,

have only just now seen/read the account of your recent 'happenings' and am so glad that all seems to have taken a turn for the better. Most things have been said about both the horrendous experience you had and of the happier house/county move. I echo everyones thoughts and best wishes to you both.

Good fortune and happiness to you in your new home.

Regards,

Trevor

[Kathy & Laurie]

Thank you Trevor, your comments are much appreciated.

Laurie.

[Kathy & Laurie]

As I write we're still on a knife-edge as to whether we're moving out tomorrow as anticipated 

Our buyer hasn't been in to the solicitor to sign the contract yet and pay her deposit, so until that's confirmed we're stuck in this state of limbo.

We've been onto our solicitor this morning and they're trying desperately to get hold of our buyers' solicitors by phone but they're not answering their phones.  They've had to email them instead.

The estate agent in Hampshire who's handling the sale of the house we're buying has spoken to us by phone this morning, and she said that her client is planning to move out tomorrow as well.  They're now both panicking because our buyers' solicitors have been so slow throughout this whole process, that they're thinking our buyer is going to pull out at the last minute and leave us all high and dry.

Our estate agents actually spoke to our buyers' son on Friday and got the impression from him that the completion date of 8 December is not a problem.  But until we get the signature on their contract nothing is set in stone.

Because of this, we still can't commit to 8 December with our removal company to empty our house tomorrow.  We've provisionally booked them for that date and they rang us this morning to ask for confirmation.  So all we could do was tell them we'd confirm the date a.s.a.p. after we've heard from our solicitors.

Although our house is almost fully packed we've had to put the rest on hold for now until we hear something definite.

This is a nightmare!!!!!!!!!   

Kathy and Laurie pulling their hair out in frustration 

Laurie.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

A nightmare Laurie indeed.........its ridiculous, there should be a law or something, that the money should be exchanged a fortnight or whatever before completion date. How can you, or the removals and services work to a shedule.

The weather has been a worry for you, you certainly didn't need this.

Please keep us in touch here, for as long as you can Laurie.

Thinking of you both.

Malcolm

[Kathy & Laurie]

Thanks Malcolm.  It's turning into a real farce.

The latest news is that our buyer can't get into her solicitors office to sign her contract until 4pm tomorrow!   Why? - don't ask!  I wish we knew.  It's been nothing but delay after delay from their end, and we're fed up with it all.
Another annoyance is that our buyer is in rented accommodation 5 minutes away from our house.  She could move in at her leisure whilst we have to travel to the other end of the country.  We'd expected her to be a bit more considerate and push for earlier contract signing.

Once she's signed, the exchange of contracts and electronic transfer of funds for us all won't be completed until Wednesday morning.

We've spoken to our removal company again this afternoon and they're going to try and re-arrange things to accommodate us.  They'll probably be able to empty our house on Wednesday lunchtime but we don't know when they'll be able to deliver all our stuff to the new house.  They were originally supposed to be travelling down there on Wednesday which was the second day they had already allocated us.
They're going to ring us back later today when they've tried to re-arrange things.  It may be a case of them getting here on Wednesday and putting our stuff temporarily into storage until they can schedule another day for us to do the long journey.  This means we could have to stay a few nights in hotels down there until we can meet up with them.
 
Unbelieveable!    

Laurie.

[Lyn and Malcolm]

I have been starimg at your last post for several minutes Laurie, trying to think of somethimg to say. And also thinking of the feelings you both must have, over this whole episode, and when it will end.

Malcolm

[Kathy & Laurie]

Speechless just about sums it all up Malcolm. 

You couldn't imagine anyone having as much bad luck that we've had from start to (almost) finish.

The thing that's keeping us sane is that they are definitely signing on Tuesday and by Wednesday we'll be starting our journey south.

Kathy says she'll welcome a couple of nights in a hotel as she needs a mini holiday after all this.

Laurie.