Once again it’s been a few weeks since I last wrote a blog post, but I’ve finally got an evening to myself and thought I’d try to get something, anything, out before my brain withers and dies through lack of use.
I had designs on a post about Liz Truss Facts, but I’ll save that for a day when my brain is less occupied by all the stuff swirling around inside it, and write about my week instead. Not particularly full of laughs, this one, but sometimes life is just a little bit crap.
The last week has been my most stressful for some time.
Not only has the the heat been ‘I want to speak with the manager’ levels of ridiculous, making sleep impossible, children grouchy and everything hard work, but there’s a lot of other shit going down at Fran towers which is, let’s say, sub optimal.
Friends will know that we’ve been waiting on a housing chain to complete for some time. In fact it’s been eight months or so at this point, which should have been a red flag, but you have to hold on to hope don’t you?
A few weeks back, the buyers suddenly turned around and demanded almost instant exchange and completion as they’d just realised their mortgage offer was due to expire. This involved my ex-husband having to put everything in storage and move in with his parents so as not to lose the sale, and the buyers apparently extending their mortgage offer as far as they could – telling us that it had to be TODAY or no deal.
It was a tense few weeks with a LOT of time spent emailing, phone calling and generally prodding and chasing from both of us. Near-useless solicitors, mortgage lenders, valuers, equity loan providers; it’s been a fucking nightmare. Except it wasn’t ACTUALLY a nightmare until today when everything was – on the very last day – due to exchange and complete and the conveyancing solicitors in Birmingham acting for the buyers said the cash wasn’t there.
Eh?
Well, quite. Your guess is as good as mine.
Exactly how it got that far without the buyers or their solicitors realising that there wasn’t actually the money there to pay for the house is a mystery to all of us. Apparently the fault lies with their clearly dodgy mortgage broker, but I don’t give a toss at this point. All I know is that I don’t have any money, I can’t go and buy a house, I’m stuck in rented where the bills are about to rise and cripple me (along with everyone else), and worst of all my ex-husband’s house purchase will probably fall through entirely meaning he won’t be able to take on 50/50 childcare any time soon, which is shit for all of us and especially the kids.
As well as absolutely raging – as I’m sure you can imagine – I’m just staggered that this last minute cock up is quite commonplace in England, which is seems is world-leading in having a shitty house sale rules, or lack of. You can basically string people along for months – even years in some cases – and pull out at any time without penalty. There aren’t many things I’m jealous of Americans for, but Escrow would be really fucking handy.
The buyers are apparently ‘still keen to pursue the sale’ but I’d sooner give it away than hang on for them at this point; even our rubbish solicitor has advised against it. The house is going back on the market first thing tomorrow and as the prices in our area have gone up (by 20k, according to the company to whom we have to repay an equity loan), they’ll have to find more money if they want it. Bunch of bastards.
Anyway…
Other fun things going on this week include attending my grandad’s funeral. He passed away at the grand age of 102, but as old as he was it’s still a loss and it’s still sad. He was a great man who lead a fantastic life and will be very much missed. I wasn’t sure whether to take the kids to the funeral, but they wanted to go so I said they could, and we’ll see whether that was a good decision in a few day’s time.
More generally, I’ve been attempting and failing to get any work done in a room which largely resembles a sauna, as previously mentioned. I went to my first spin class in a week this morning and sweated my way through it very poorly indeed. At least I was at the back where no one could see how shit I was and shout at me. Annoyingly but predictably, Couch to 5k has pretty much gone by the wayside as I’ve had the kids more often than not to allow my ex to empty the ready house for sale, which all seems even more worth it now.
In more exciting news, next week we are off to Wales for a short holiday, so I can almost guarantee that any nice weather will be long gone by then, in case you were wondering.
I’m hoping to be back here with better house related news – and hopefully some exciting Liz Truss facts! – very soon…
*This is a collaborative post