We are about to become homeless

[AlanHo]

We are away on holiday in the Yorkshire Dales until next Saturday 4th Sept. with two friends. We have rented a holiday cottage at Spennithorne, which is about 4 miles east of Leyburn. It is a former railway station and station master’s house and is quite superb. The old house has been expertly converted, nicely furnished and has proved to be very comfortable. The Wensleydale railway runs within a few feet of the cottage and we are treated to 5 trains per day in each direction. Each day two trains in each direction are steam hauled – the others are diesel. We have had great fun photographing the trains as they passed by, our ladies have waved to the train drivers and passengers and us men have put pennies on the track to flatten them. We have become the modern equivalent of the railway children.

We are surrounded by lovely countryside, spectacular scenery and the adjacent fields are full of rabbits and virtually carpeted with dozens of partridges and pheasants. Access to the cottage from the road is up a long private track which runs through a narrow field having stone walls on each side and gates at each end. To one side of the track there are some chicken sheds which house a flock of about 50 egg laying chickens looked after by a local farmer who visits early morning to let his flock out of their fox-proof sheds to spend their days scratching around the field and to return them to safety each night. To access the cottage we must open/close the gates and drive along the track through the flock of chickens which stampede towards us as soon as they see the car coming – thinking we are the farmer come to feed them again. If you walk down the track the whole flock run behind you making you look like a sort of “Pied Piper”. The antics of the chickens is hilarious – perhaps the cartoon film “Chicken Run” was not so far-fetched after all.

To add to our pleasure the weather has been brilliant with warm sunny days – this holiday is turning out to be idyllic. However - Sod’s law has struck us with a vengeance.

Our house has been up for sale since May this year and despite numerous viewings we have not received a single offer. The problem is that we are only 200 yards from the M42 motorway which runs in a cutting parallel to our lane - but the steady hum of traffic is audible outside our house. It cannot be heard from inside the house and in any event you soon get immune to the background noise in the garden once you have lived there for a few weeks. However, this has put off prospective buyers, no matter how much they have loved the house and large gardens, and has been the main problem to getting a sale.

A few days before we came away on holiday a family viewed our house who, because they had previously lived in our vicinity, were not at all put off by the motorway. They had accepted an offer on their current house in Stratford Upon Avon from people who had to vacate their rented property by October 6th. Our viewers had agreed to buy a house not too far from us but at the last minute their vendor pulled the plug and the chain was broken. They were desperately looking for a house and ours filled the bill, however our price was above their budget and they would need to move by October 6th.

Their urgency was twofold – kids schooling - and the possible loss of a buyer for their house which had taken months to sell. They had two kids whose future schooling had been organised on the premise that their house move to Solihull would go ahead. This had been prejudiced by the problem with their house move. One child was due to start Solihull College in September and the daily commute to Stratford and back would be a problem. The younger child was registered with 3 Solihull schools but could not be given a place until they had a Solihull address. If they were not able to move quickly they would lose the purchaser of their house and the kids schooling would be a serious problem.

A couple of days ago – whilst we were here in Yorkshire - they asked for a second viewing. Our Estate Agent has the keys and organised it. At the viewing they put in a low offer - which we refused - and they immediately came back with an offer that was just about acceptable. To cut a long story short we have accepted their offer and have undertaken to vacate quickly – without having secured another house to move into. Our reasoning is that after months of frustration, this is at long last an opportunity to sell the house and our buyer is so desperate he would not wait. We have submitted an offer for a house we would like but it has been refused and the Agents are currently haggling on our behalf. It has been a traumatic couple of days – mobile phone reception here is flaky and I have to drive 10 miles to Catterick to get a broadband signal. It seems likely that we are soon to become homeless and we will have to find accommodation for an undefined period until we can either do a deal on the house we currently like or find a suitable alternative.

We must be bonkers.

Watch this space.

[artist]

Moving house is SO stressful! I sympathise. :(

You can always move into a caravan - I'll lend you ours - at a reasonable price. :P

[andsome]

We have two sheds in our garden. You can rent one at a very reasonable price.

[-pops-]

Moving house is the nearest thing to hell on earth that I can imagine.

At my age, never again!

[catgate]

I'm glad to hear you have got the difficult bit done. At least you are now almost in the driving seat.

[andsome]

Moving house is the nearest thing to hell on earth that I can imagine.

At my age, never again!

DITTO! No thanks.B)

[artist]

Nor me! They'll carry me out in my final box...........

[Gandalph]

I am pleased to read that you are at least a third of the way to wherever with the house sale Alan.

As regards moving. The last house move I made was ten years coming up next March. It is definitely my last. I'm with Artist when she says her last move will be in her final box. :(

[AlanHo]

We are now on our way back home after a lovely holiday in the Yorkshire Dales which was blessed with superb weather for the time of the year. The hectic activity involved in selling our house and the frustration of poor mobile phone reception and having to drive 10 miles to get a broadband connection for the laptop is now behind us. Despite our preoccupation with the housing situation, we didn’t let it spoil our holiday.

As mentioned earlier - the proximity of the motorway was proving to be a serious stumbling block to selling our house – hence we consider that the Estate Agent did a splendid job in getting a reasonable price for it - quite against the odds

It was strange how our buyer was found. A couple of days before we went on holiday the door bell rang and there was a family on the door step who had come to attend our “open day”. I was more than a little taken aback because we had not organised one and advised them it was possibly a house a few doors away which was selling for £1.3 million. It wasn’t. They were adamant that they had spotted almost too late the internet advert for our house which clearly showed that we had an open day from mid-day until 4.00 pm and they had rushed from Stratford Upon Avon to get to us in the nick of time. I explained that our Estate Agent had made some mistake but that we would be delighted to show them round – which we did. It transpired later that they had confused our house with another on the internet site and they had turned up at the wrong address.

They seemed to be happy with the house and told us their story about the urgent need for a Solihull address because of their kids education, that their buying chain had gone pear shaped at the last minute and their buyer could not wait – hence the urgent need to find a new residence by October 6th. They had other houses on their shopping list to look at and scurried away. We came away on holiday not thinking for a minute that anything would come of it. You know the rest – whilst away on holiday we were advised that that they made a low offer – we refused it – they increased their offer – we accepted it - and we were then able to make an offer for a house that we liked.

We knew that the owner of the house we wanted had put a deposit on a retirement apartment (the show home) which was being kept available for him by the developer for when his house sold. Some months ago he had rejected the only offer he had received for his house this year – so we submitted an identical offer because house prices in our area have fallen considerably over the past 3 months and the retirement home developer might soon lose patience. He rejected our low offer and we decided to play a waiting game. His Estate Agent is the same company as ours so they thus had double motivation to get both sales. They therefore took it upon themselves to contact the retirement home developer and negotiate a reduction in the contract price he had agreed for the apartment. It took them 4 days but they managed to secure a significant saving for him which was the trigger for him to accept a slightly increased offer we then submitted.

We are thus now in a situation where our house is sold (subject to contract and a satisfactory building inspection report) and our offer for the house we want has been accepted – again subject to contract.

We have agreed to vacate by October 6th (possibly September 22nd because we have a holiday booked from September 24th to October 3rd). The owner of the house we are buying has agreed to do his best to do likewise. However – we suspect that there may be a rocky road ahead and the dates may slip. How our buyer will get his mortgage organised and the legal stuff completed in his ultra short time-scale goodness knows. Our solicitor has had to be awakened from a deep trough of apathy to get cracking at the required pace and I have no doubt we will have to push and shove her hard to complete her work in just 2 weeks.

We may or may not have to put our stuff into storage for a short while – time will tell - and there is not much of it left before Moving Day.

We must be bonkers

More anon............

[catgate]

I am pleased to read that you are at least a third of the way to wherever with the house sale Alan.

As regards moving. The last house move I made was ten years coming up next March. It is definitely my last. I'm with Artist when she says her last move will be in her final box. :(

We moved in here 10 years ago, come November, and we thought we were here to stay.

We have had our FOR SALE sign up now for a couple of months, due to the fact that our garden has slowly appeared to increase and the hedges have gradually become much longer and our energy levels have rapidly decreased and "healthy" is becoming just a memory.

It is now a race against nature. We have had various viewers who have claimed to want to buy it, and who have gone away and put their own houses on the market, but we are still waiting, and hoping that one of them sells soon, or that we will get one soon with a primed cheque book.

[Gandalph]

I am pleased to read that you are at least a third of the way to wherever with the house sale Alan.

As regards moving. The last house move I made was ten years coming up next March. It is definitely my last. I'm with Artist when she says her last move will be in her final box. :(

We moved in here 10 years ago, come November, and we thought we were here to stay.

We have had our FOR SALE sign up now for a couple of months, due to the fact that our garden has slowly appeared to increase and the hedges have gradually become much longer and our energy levels have rapidly decreased and "healthy" is becoming just a memory.

It is now a race against nature. We have had various viewers who have claimed to want to buy it, and who have gone away and put their own houses on the market, but we are still waiting, and hoping that one of them sells soon, or that we will get one soon with a primed cheque book.

My wife and I were lucky in respect to the sale of our house, unlucky in respect that she had became Disabled and unable to manage the stairs. . We had a two-story house overlooking the Harbour at St. Abbs which also had a full view of the cliffs to the North and South, it was a find in a million. The FOR SALE sign wasn't up for long as you would expect with views like that. It sold in one and a half weeks.

I wish you and your wife every success in the sale of your house.

[bludgard]

I wish you and your wife every success in the sale of your house.

Here,here!

And a blessed,comfy new abode as well.

[Gandalph]

There's always the Salvation Army hostel Alan if things get really desperate.

[AlanHo]

There's always the Salvation Army hostel Alan if things get really desperate.

We own a static caravan on a site in the Far Forest between Bewdley and Cleobury Mortimer. It is our regular escape to the country but only when the weather is at its best.

(andsome please note that it is fixed permanently on site and far too big to tow on the roads)

We could move in there for a month or two if push came to shove - but I only enjoy it in small doses and would soon become stir crazy if deprived of home comforts for more than a few days. Not only that - mobile phone reception is impossible on the site which is buried deep in the trees and computer use is out of the question - both of which will be needed to keep in touch with housing matters.

[andsome]

As I said, we have two sheds, you could rent one each.:lol:

[Gandalph]

There's always the Salvation Army hostel Alan if things get really desperate.

We own a static caravan on a site in the Far Forest between Bewdley and Cleobury Mortimer. It is our regular escape to the country but only when the weather is at its best.

(andsome please note that it is fixed permanently on site and far too big to tow on the roads)

We could move in there for a month or two if push came to shove - but I only enjoy it in small doses and would soon become stir crazy if deprived of home comforts for more than a few days. Not only that - mobile phone reception is impossible on the site which is buried deep in the trees and computer use is out of the question - both of which will be needed to keep in touch with housing matters.

And your sanity. :D