Still, Still buying…

Well, we entered a bit of a time void after the not-very-useful visit to our solicitor. The seller got restive and nothing happened. To be fair, it was not just our solicitor who was working to their own timescale, the seller’s solictors seemed just as tardy. The full timeline…

1. 06/01/2014 – Our solicitor agreed to act for us
2. 10/01/2014 – Barclays proposed a mortgage offer
3. 13/01/2014 – We signed up to the Barclays proposal
4. 24/01/2014 – Barclays said offer would be made ‘in the next week’
5. 31/01/2014 – Agreed the offer to be put to the seller
6. 03/02/2014 – Seller has agreed in principle to the offer price, provided we complete by end-February
7. 12/02/2014 – Formal offer for purchase submitted to seller
8. 14/02/2014 – Discovered Barclays still have a charge on our current property from our previous mortgage, this must be removed before the re-mortgage can be agreed
9. 16/02/2014 – Formal mortgage offer from Barclays
10. 19/02/2014 – Barclays say 5-6 days to remove charge on our current property
11. 20/02/2014 – My solicitor thinks end-February is not on to complete sale
12. 26/02/2014 – Charge removed on my current property
13. 10/03/2014 – Barclays handed over the money
14. 11/03/2014 – First mortgage payment went out of my bank account
15. 18/03/2014 – Qualified acceptance of our purchase offer
16. 29/04/2014 – Visited our solicitor to see what was happening
17. 03/06/2014 – I was contacted by the seller to complain about the lack of progress, saying it could be grounds for them withdrawing the offer
18. 11/06/2014 – Follow up call from the seller saying nothing has happened
19. 18/07/2016 – My solicitor aims to submit the final offer by 25th July
20. 07/08/2014 – Final offer submitted to seller
21. 08/08/2014 – Transferred part of the purchase price to my solicitor
22. 11/08/2014 – Transferred remaining money
23. 29/08/2014 – Phoned by my solicitor saying purchase had been completed

So, we had paid our mortgage for 6 months before we actually owned the property. A dismal period in our lives that left us somewhat jaded, particularly with the seller threatening to withdraw from the sale. This was probably a bluff, given we were the only interested purchasers, but we could not be certain. I have pondered since on how we would sort out the mortgage, with no property to attach it to.

There was no one killer factor contributing to our overall feeling of disappointment, but it did challenge my view that the Scottish system of sealed bids was intrinsically better than the English system. On the plus side, at least we now own our ruinous steading!