The Last Bit is the Bumpiest
4 January 1993
Having commissioned one survey that seems inadequate, I agree to a homebuyer's survey when my bank's valuation surveyor rings and offers to do it while he is doing the bank's survey. I have one condition, and he agrees to it: the survey will be done in my presence.
6 January
The survey is scheduled for tomorrow but when I ring the estate agent, she tells me that it was completed about an hour ago. So much for the surveyor’s consent to my being present.
13 January
Our target completion date now is the end of February (earlier if possible). The estate agent periodically phones me to ask about my progress in obtaining a mortgage – and I periodically ring my bank to ask about their progress in obtaining their insurance brochure for me.
21 January
My solicitor rings to confirm the revised purchase price and asks, almost in passing, when he will receive mortgage confirmation. Easy enough; I phone the bank and ask the mortgage man to send it. He can't do that. Why not? He says I must first select my life and buildings insurance.
22-26 January
The insurance brochure appears, perhaps hastened by some of the unprintable things I said to the bank's mortgage man yesterday. The brochure is thick and wordy and complicated, and I am annoyed, impatient, and unreceptive.
Bank-arranged insurance is attractive in that the mortgage arrangement fee will be refunded, but will this saving be offset by other aspects of the bank's insurance? I phone an insurance broker, giving him the basic financial data and level of coverage offered by the bank. He is confident that he can give me a better deal. I am sufficiently trusting of him, and sufficiently annoyed with my bank, to place the insurance with him.
Friday 29 January
I ring my solicitor; he is with a client. I leave a message; by close of business, he has not called back.
Monday 1 February
Still no return call for my solicitor, so I fax him inquiring about the local search and announcing my readiness to exchange.
Tuesday 2 February
I phone my solicitor again and learn that he away, having taken a two-week holiday. The receptionist doesn't pass me on to anyone else in the office, nor does she indicate that there is anyone else to whom I might be passed. For all I know, I have to wait for him to return.
Solicitors are entitled to take holidays, but clients are also entitled to have their phone calls returned, and they are especially entitled to be notified should the solicitor be away at a sensitive time. After my disappointments with various building society managers, bankers and surveyors, I'd wondered if, or more likely when, I was going to feel betrayed by my solicitor. And today is indeed the day that I mutter "Et tu, Brute." [My solicitor’s last day at work before his holiday was the Friday when I phoned him. He knew that he would be out of contact for the next two weeks. I was concluding my mortgage arrangements and on the verge of exchanging contracts. Even if I had not phoned him on that day, he should have made interim arrangements, and informed me of them. Recently (summer 2007) a national property journalist bought a flat and complained of the same problem – her solicitor going on holiday with no advance notice to her, at a critical time during the conveyance.]
4 February
Major developments. My solicitor’s clerk will handle my file, and he has just received the search documents. He sends them to me along with other legal documents (pre-contract inquiries, transfer of part, a draft contract) needing attention.
5 February
The draft contract prepared by the seller's solicitor states that it incorporates the Standard Conditions of Sale. Standard they may be, but I want to know what they are. My solicitor's clerk can't locate a copy for me. I ask him to let me know of a store or library where I can obtain it. He will make inquiries.
6-7 February
Over the weekend, I discuss my conveyancing dilemma (absent solicitor, apparently no substitute solicitor to take his place, a clerk who does not inspire confidence) with a solicitor friend, and she tells me that there simply must be another solicitor in the office, or an associate of some kind, to handle my file during my solicitor’s absence. Based on her advice and information, I decide that if my firm does not provide my solicitor’s partner or some other bona fide solicitor, I will immediately instruct a new solicitor. [As with Nope Building Society, I would have insisted on my fee being refunded—and done everything in my power toward that end.]
When I raise this issue with my solicitor’s firm, another solicitor in the practice suddenly appears.
8-10 February
My new solicitor faxes a copy of the Standard Conditions of Sale to me [yes, they had a copy in the office all the time]: three dense pages of teeny print consisting of herewiths, forthwiths and otherwiths. And this isn't even a complete set.
She is not happy with parts of the draft contract, such as the seller being entitled to spend my 10% deposit as she - the vendor - likes. We want the money applied only to a related house purchase. The other side agree to our changes. They even reduce the deposit to 5%. All is agreed. An exchange of contracts is, it seems, imminent. We await their amended contract.
11 February
Still no contract. The estate agent tells me that the seller is waiting for her mortgage to be confirmed, although the seller has maintained all along that she could vacate at short notice and would move in with a relative if necessary. We send their solicitor a letter asking if this is still the seller’s position.
12 February
I wait to be summoned to exchange contracts. The phone call never comes.
Instead I discover that the seller's mortgage lender has requested a specialist survey on the home she hopes to buy. The estate agent is confident that all will end well. But follow-up surveys generally mean that subsidence or dry rot or some other serious condition is suspected - the kind of condition for which mortgages are denied altogether. I start to wonder, if my seller fails to get a mortgage, will she then withdraw the property from the market.
15 February
The estate agent tells me that the follow-up survey was fine, and the seller will exchange contracts later today or tomorrow. The specialist survey was to inspect cracked walls.
16 February
Exchange will be today or tomorrow, the estate agent predicts. Today is yesterday's tomorrow, and when it becomes clear that we will not exchange today, my solicitor sends a letter to the other side notifying them that, as of close of business tomorrow, my offer automatically, irrevocably drops by £100 per day, seven days a week, until exchange of contracts. If this sale is going to collapse, the sooner the better.
17 February
My ultimatum brings the seller’s solicitor instantly to the surface. He faxes my solicitor a letter confirming, yes, that the seller is awaiting a mortgage, and why is the buyer in such a hurry anyway? They ignore the question about the seller moving in with a relative. The clock on my £100 a day ultimatum is still ticking.
18 February
The other side is expediting their mortgage. Real movement is occurring. I press my insurance broker to pressure my prospective insurers to cut through the bureaucracy.
Monday 22 February
We agree to exchange today, with completion on Friday, four days away.
24 February
I phone my solicitor, only to be told that she has taken the day off. Is she ill? No. She’s taken a day’s holiday. This time, at least, the receptionist passes me on to the clerk, who asks me what still needs to be done. That's what I was hoping he would tell me, I reply.
Later the clerk faxes the cash statement to me indicating the amount of money I have to transfer into the solicitor's client account. I notice a blatant error that my solicitor has made: I am credited with a mortgage larger than the one I applied for. It is fortunate that I caught it, because it would have had me under-paying by £1,000.
I make several phone calls (bank, insurance broker) verifying that the right pieces will go to the right place at the right time.
25 February
I repeat most of yesterday's phone calls. Unless another major betrayal awaits me, the electronic transfer of tens of thousands of pounds is poised to occur.
26 February, Completion Day
For once I make no phone calls. If anything is wrong someone will contact me. No one does, and as noon approaches, I ring the estate agent to make an appointment to pick up the keys. My tone is casual, as if I did this every day. Sure, she says, come in after lunch.
So many things have gone wrong that as I turn the key, I half expect the lock not to respond. In fact, the door opens. None of the light switches works - all of the light bulbs have been removed - but it is daylight and besides, I'd been hip to the take-the-bulbs trick and brought along a batch. And cream cleaner. Bleach. Sponges. Screws and nails, hammers and drills. ChequeredPast is finally mine.
Adapted from What Mortgage, August 1993.