Current Status of My House Purchase/Move
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Updated 18th October 2002
The Story So Far... An offer was placed on a house at the beginning
of April, and as of the 20th of October, no final date had been set. So,
having looked at about 50 other properties in between, a different house
was seen on the 21st, the offer put in on the 22nd, accepted on the 23rd.
The mortgage company and solicitors were informed on the 24th. The valuation
survey was booked on the 28th, and the results came back on the 4th of
November. The mortgage company agreed to the mortgage immediately (since
all the paperwork and references had already been done for the previous
property). The Thames Water survey is underway, the solicitors will put
in the land registry search as soon as the property details arrive from
the vendors' solicitor, but the search results should come back by return
of post so the current plan/hope is that all the paperwork will be finished
by the week of the 17th. If so, we can exchange and complete that week,
so I could be moving into my new house four weeks after first seeing it!
(Please cross your fingers, eyes, Ts and whatever else you do to ensure
good luck! Thanks!)
10/11/97 The solicitor received most of the property details
today, plus the mortgage confirmation letter. The land registry search
has been sent off and should be back by Thursday (13th) with any luck.
For various reasons (which are long, involved, and I don't understand them
properly!) this means we should be able to exchange at the beginning of
next week, but then the mortgage company needs a number of days before
they can release the funds (say, 10-14 days) and somewhere around this
time the vendors have to fill out a form saying what they are leaving in
the property and what they are taking. The mortgage/life company should
be giving confirmation on the endowment this week so everything is going
ahead, but slightly slower than I hoped.
11/11/97 Mortgage offer letter arrived today, I've signed it,
the MIRAS form and the Direct Debit instructions and sent them back to
the mortgage company. I also talked to the woman at the local branch and
she confirms that they will be able to draw a cheque for the solicitor
in line with our projected time scales (exchange on the 17th completion
on the 28th) so that is all looking fine. I've run through the figures
again and it is all very frightening! More details about that after I've
moved into the new house and recovered.
13/11/97 Endowment/Life Assurance Quote arrived today. Some
minor wibbles, but basically all approved and ready to go. Still waiting
to hear about Land Registry search...
17/11/97 Friday I talked to the Mortgage company's Independent
Endowment advisor (or whatever it says on his business card) and he's looking
into alternative endowments to see if they make sense financially and time
wise. I also left a message for my solicitor to ask her to let me know
what was happening with the local authority search etc. No reply. I also
had a phone message from the vendor saying something like "thanks for the
letter, everything is going fine, our solicitor says we should be able
to complete sometime this week (w/c 17/11/97)" so it is still sounding
ok...
18/11/97 Solicitor says we've got all the search paperwork we
need, and that we're now waiting for the "Fixtures & Fittings" and
"PreContract Enquiries" forms to be returned from the vendors via their
solicitor, then we can move on to exchange.
19/11/97 Fixtures & Fittings and other forms arrived today.
Solictor is busy today so we'll have a meeting tomorrow morning and then
if there is nothing amiss, we'll sort out dates for the Exchange and the
Completion (the sooner the better!)
20/11/97 Met with Solicitor this morning, reviewed land registry
searches, fixtures & fittings forms etc. (which the vendors hadn't
signed so they go back for signature this afternoon). Several phone calls
back and forth with the vendors (individually since one was at work and
the other at home) and they've agreed to complete next Friday (28th) and
to go into their solicitor this afternoon (16:30) and sign all the outstanding
forms. This means that the "Exchange" will happen tomorrow (if nothing
goes wrong!) and then we just wait for the money to become available and
next Friday I get the keys! Also talked to nice personal banker at Barclays
and arranged an extension to my current loan to cover last minute expenses
(e.g. I'd forgotten the land registry registration fee was separate
from the search fees!)
21/11/97 EXCHANGED! Today, at about 14:30, I received confirmation
that the exchange had taken place and that we're going for completion on
the 28th. I've checked with the mortgage company and they gulped but said
yes, they could hit that date. So it is now time to write the COA cards,
inform the utility companies etc. Now where did I put that Timeline
and Moving
Kit list? <grin!>
24/11/97 Contacted Electricity, Gas, Phone/Cable and Water companies
this morning and arranged for all the services to be put into my name on
Friday. Emailed people who are holding stuff for me to confirm that I'll
be picking stuff up on Friday and Saturday. Booked van for Friday and Saturday.
Went to storage company to confirm moving out date and availability of
fork lift driver to help move stuff from my unit to van. Started putting
Moving
Kit together, will start packing my personal belongings this evening.
The nice people at Horne Storage Company, in North Carolina, sent me through
the United Van Lines guides to PrePlanned Moving and Doing Your Own Packing.
I'll be adding a link back to their web site as soon as I can find it again!
Highly recommended for customer service!!
25/11/97 Paid cheque for solicitor's fees, land registry fees
etc. (all outstanding fees), and signed transfer of title document today
at 12:55pm. It is now just a matter of the Woolwich transferring the money
around, the vendors signing the transfer document and the estate agent
being given the go-ahead to release the keys. So the current schedule appears
to be that the next major event is that I'll be receiving the keys sometime
between 11 and 12 on Friday morning!
27/11/97 Visited the vendors last night and found out how to
use the appliances, the main things they were leaving behind, what day
the dustman arrives etc. Spent time sorting and packing my stuff at the
place I'm staying because tonight I'm going to be going around and collecting
things from other places ready for the first part of moving in tomorrow.
Assembling the Moving In Kit, it was suggested that a pair of gardening
gloves or similar would help protect the hands while moving boxes, I'll
have to go get some!
28/11/97 13:05 (1:05pm) just talked to the people at the estate
agents (where I will go to collect the keys), everything is complete, authorisation
to hand over the keys has been given, and the vendors will be dropping
the keys in about 13:45 so I can collect them at 14:00 and start moving
in (yay!) Next update will depend on when I get a chance to get back to
this page (Monday at the latest) then I'll be writing up what actually
happened during the move in... wish me luck!
1/12/97 Collected keys about 14:20 on Friday, went to my new
house and started figuring out which key unlocked which door etc. Read
meters and contacted utilities to give them the initial meter readings.
Cable TV/Phone installers came around and put in new cable box, FM connector
and left a spare phone socket (with wiring) for when I want to install
another phone extension. Emptied stuff from car into house, and phoned
a few people. Then picked up moving van (nearly one hour late for various
reasons, which stuck me in the rush hour traffic...) and drove back to
where I had been staying to collect my stuff. Was joined there by a couple
of friends you helped load in things like shelving and garden furniture
I'd stored there, and (about 1.5 hours behind schedule) we finally drove
back to the new house and unpacked. By the time that was complete (and
we'd picked up a couch and chair from someone else) it was too late to
do the final pickup that night, so we decided to put it off until the next
day. Saturday we were joined by my brothers and another friend and we went
to the storage unit and collected everything. This went smoothly! (About
the only thing that worked exactly to plan!!) And we drove everything back
and unpacked it. Burger King takeaway for lunch, then over to the garage
where the rest of my stuff was stored. Disaster! The roof had leaked and
a number of things had either been destroyed or damaged, and the rotting
paper etc. had become attractive to the smaller multi-legged creatures
that I just don't like much at all... <yuk!> Luckily certain parts of
the garage had survived well, including where I'd been storing my bed,
and some of my guitars (which was a great relief!) but I lost a number
of fanzines and bits of convention paperwork, and some sets of hi-fi magazines/web
development magazines etc. My answerphone was also ruined and I still haven't
checked out the phone handsets that were with it...
One of the comment I've put under packing is to colour-code the important
boxes that need to be unpacked first (e.g. cereal bowls, toiletries, work
stuff etc.) which I didn't do and is causing a problem at the moment!!
See, if only I'd listened to myself <grin!>
5/12/97 Well, unpacking is under way ... it seems to take as
long to unpack as it does to pack. Correction, much longer (I know people
that still have stuff packed up from moving more than 10 years ago!) I
found the plates, cups and bowls today so no more eating off paper plates!
TV, cable, phones and PC now set up; hifi still boxed! One of the problems
is that unpacking is a bit like one of those puzzles with the 15 tiles
and an empty space you can slide one of the other tiles into. Every room
is full of boxes, packing material etc. so there is nowhere to unpack into...
I'm using the garage as a temporary storage area for some stuff, and the
conservatory/utility room for other bits, still I'm buried at the moment
<grin!> I thought I'd been clever by putting all the hifi leads etc.
into one bag, but I seem to have mislaid some because I can't find the
leads that connect the video to the TV or to the sound system. Still haven't
investigated the attic... <fx: twilight zone music>
7/1/98 Well Christmas and New Year came and went, the storms
battered England, and the house is still standing! Also still outstanding
is the unpacking. I've decided that since I haven't yet bought things like
chests of drawers or dressing tables, that there is nowhere aside from
the wardrobe to unpack clothes into, so things like T-Shirts and socks
are being stored in luggage at the moment (or in plastic carrier bags hung
on wire hangers in the wardrobe) I also haven't put up my shelves yet since
I wanted to redecorate first, but the people that sold me their shelves
have decided to come around on Saturday and help me put them up so I don't
have to make that decision anymore <grin!> This means I'll be able to
unpack many of my books, which will mean that there will be room in the
conservatory to put the spare couch, which means I'll have more room to
move things around (yay!) On the other hand, I'll have to take the shelves
down again when I'm ready to rewire the rooms and then redecorate, but
at least I'll know what I'm doing by then (ok, perhaps not!) I still don't
have things like a sieve, a bread knife, a freezer or washing machine connected
up, a mattress on the spare bed (but that's not such a problem), a desk
(but I've got two computer tables so I'm struggling on ok) and a whole
pile of other things (a hammer, a drill, in fact any tool that's not required
for simple hi-fi style electronics) and I still haven't had a look in the
attic, though I keep finding "chain saw and hockey mask" set receipts dropping
down through the cracks...:-)
17/2/98 I'm combining two updates into this one. During January
some friends (Hi Jacky & Oliver) who had sold me their shelves (since
they were leaving the country) came around to explain how to put them together
(and to lend a hand). They looked at the paint colour on the walls and
we <grin!> decided that repainting the living/dining rooms came first.
We bought some tester paints (mini paint pots) and tried a few colours
in an inconspicuous corner... a couple of weeks later I got together a
group of friends (thanks Patrick, Oliver, Jacky, Eddie and Clare!) to paint
the two rooms in Jasmine White. Several hours and two coats later, the
rooms looked a *lot* better, and I was significantly poorer having spent
my money on paint, brushes, drop cloths, rollers, paint kettles, masking
tape, edging tools and a whole bunch of other stuff (including paint!)
and then having to feed and water the workers! Last weekend (Sunday the
15th) many of the same team (plus James) came around and helped assemble
the shelves and get the first twenty odd boxes of books up on them. And
between one thing and another I'm now the proud owner of a second-hand
drill and some bits...
Also since the last update I've been buying little things for around
the house, like a filing cabinet with lots of little drawers (15 drawers
each about 4cm high), a pair of shelves to put hifi on, a bread knife,
a sieve, a thermos, some food storage boxes, door mats, candles and a new
duvet. And acquiring/setting up other stuff like the washing machine, the
freezer, a mattress to put on the bed frame, putting plugs on a couple
of table lamps, setting up a dining table. The next couple of weeks are
going to be completing the sensible unpacking (some stuff will get left
in boxes, it is something that always happens and I might as well acknowledge
it now! Things like old floppy disks and old software manuals. I don't
need them on the shelves, and perhaps I should just throw them away, but
for the moment they are still potentially useful so I'm holding on to them.)
and planning the next round of redecoration (the second bedroom/office/library
needs to be painted some other colour than bright yellow! Then I can move
all the computer stuff etc. into there and set up the smallest bedroom
as a spare room, which will then give me someplace to sleep when I get
around to redecorating the main bedroom!) I'll also start entering in all
my books etc. into the book database (so moving one of the computers down
to the bookshelves may be the easiest way of doing this... which will mean
setting up a database on it, but I can setup dBaseIII+ on it (I still have
the disks, licence and manuals) to do the data entry then copy the BOOKS.DBF
file over to the other machine to import into MS-Access. Oh joy... <grin!>
24/4/98 A quiet couple of months on the house front. I purchased
a lawnmower and have finally cut the front lawn (but the rear is still
to be done, but it has been raining so often in the last few weeks that
I've not had a chance so far.) Gave up on the painting of the second bedroom
and have fitted the shelves to the walls instead. I've moved several hundred
books and videotapes onto the shelves and started updating the booklist.
I've also assembled the second computer desk so I can get the computer
setup in the second bedroom making it the office, and leaving the third
bedroom to be the music room (and spare bedroom). I've got a couple of
parties coming up in the next couple of weeks so I'm going to have to spend
some time over the next few days getting the place tidy and clearing the
conservatory. I'm also going to put together a list of things that people
might want to donate as house-warming presents <grin!> I'll put a link
here "House
Warming Presents" to that page... <big grin!>
20/5/98 Lawn was cut and watered, parties were held and generally
felt to be a success. Two of my best friends (Jacky & Oliver) moved
to Canada (sad news) but left behind some bits and pieces to help fill
holes in my "wants" list (good news!) so I've updated the house warming
presents list appropriately. There was a worry that I thought I had a burst
water pipe, but it turned out to be a leaking connector on the washing
machine that had let water run down the back. Still waiting to see if that
is going to cause any permanent damage. I've unpacked most of the boxes
now aside from boxes of paperwork and all the shelves are up and fixed
to the walls as necessary. I never did repaint the second bedroom, but
with the shelves up, and some old curtains in the window, it's not quite
as noticeable... Third bedroom is basically empty at the moment, but there's
lots of stuff to go in there so I'll move it in soon. Next small plans
include keeping the garden neat and tidy, sorting out the cupboard in the
kitchen and moving the filing cabinet from the garage to the office. I
need to repaper the main bedroom, but that will have to wait for a little
while...
9/3/99 Well it's been a few months since the last update and
looking around the house I realise that I've let a lot of other things
in my life take precedence for a while, but that it is now time for the
spring clean and the next stage of decoration... what has changed since
the last update? Well, I've got an inflatable alien chair in the conservatory,
the lawnmower and strimmer I was loaned have been reclaimed (drat, but
thanks Neil for the loan!), I've acquired a folding table and a chest of
drawers which are cluttering the hall, as well as another pair of speakers
(which I haven't connected up yet!) A spare single bed has been moved into
the smallest bedroom, along with a chair, a little TV (I've got a wall
bracket for it to put up sometime) and the old unit that was in there for
storage... my Mum has given me another single bed which will be going up
into the computer room at such point as I've got time to clear a space
for it ... and all the musical instruments have been moved into the computer
room also. Steve gave me an old set of chest of drawers for the bedroom
(different from the ones in the hallway that Clare gave me for helping
her move) the garden needs mowing again. Late last summer my friend Patrick
came around and attacked the hedges, rose bushes etc. in the front garden
and removed the ivy growing up the front of the house (which I had liked,
but since he was doing the gardening out of the goodness of his heart I
couldn't really complain!). Priorities for this spring are getting the
spare bed set up in the computer room for guests, and getting the computer
room sorted out. Finish unboxing the books I've brought over so far and
get the shelves sorted out, get the garden tidy and give the house a general
spring clean... then start thinking about the next bit of decorating! Through
some remarkable deals I also managed to upgrade my 486 to a Pentium 60,
but it means I have now a 486 for general use downstairs (e.g. the book
collection database) and the Pentium 60 for webbrowsing, email and graphics.
Everytime I get the money together to buy a better computer, I either buy
another musical instrument, or take a holiday, or pay a bill...
22/3/01: Two years later and what has changed? Well,
I've got a part time lodger so my smallest bedroom is now out of use for
anything else, the chests of drawers made their way up into the main bedroom
as has a new bedside table (since the old one mostly fell apart, however
it is still in use on one side of the bed with a bit of spare wood put
on top to provide a surface!) The dining room has filled with junk and
most of the musical instruments since the computer room has filled with
boxes of books, old computer software, stacks of old floppies and other
assorted junk. I bought a dishwasher and it is the best £110 pounds
I've spent since it washes dishes! (seems obvious, but still it's very
welcome!!) The gardens (front and back) are in desperate need of a good
gardener, so I'll have to see if I can find one. The computer situation
has moved on a little (I've a Celeron 400 for making music, and a "new"
(to me) Pentium 90 waiting to be hooked up, but I'm still using the Pentium
60 as my main home email machine. This will have to change shortly since
I intend to get a cable modem for home and that requires a minimum Pentium
166, so the choice is upgrading one of the current machines or looking
around for a cheap Pentium 200+ to act as the cable firewall and external
file server (or getting a much better machine to do music on and moving
the celeron over to firewall duty). I've also ordered a network switch
for home to hook up the various computers and that should be arriving next
week, at which point I then have to clear some space and hook everything
together and spend a couple of evenings getting it all working. I spent
an hour this week tidying up all the cabling behind the hifi/TV using cable
ties, it's still pretty horrendous but a lot neater than it was before.
I need to start thinking about hooking up all my music stuff to the PC
for recording/mixing, so that's another project for the summer...
The house needs a good tidy up and sorting out, but it's spring and
so it's the right time to think about these things. The garage needs to
be turned into more of a workshop/storage area and the junk in the conservatory
needs to be moved out so that the conservatory can be used as a room again
(same for the dining room really!)
I've been watching far too many home decoration and garden design programmes
on TV recently and have some wonderful ideas of things to do in various
parts of the house (and I've started buying little things, like strings
of fairy lights, with the intent that they will be used somewhere! And
closet organisers (things that hang from the rail that you can put shoes,
jumpers etc. into) to help get all that stuff sorted out, and once the
garage is done over to storage then I can move a lot of stuff that I want
to keep but don't need instant access to out to the garage. I was lucky
and picked up some of the old office furniture from my company when they
decided to get rid of all the old pine desks and cupboards and replace
them with this strange bluey-grey stuff instead, so I've some cupboards
and a desk in the garage ready to be setup and used once the weather gets
better ... and by then hopefully the gardener will have the garden sorted
out so I can go sit out there on nice summer afternoons and enjoy the wonderful
English weather <grin!>
Longer term plans: well, the kitchen is too small, the shower needs
to be upgraded to push out more hot water, a bigger bath would be nice
as well, the conservatory is too cold in the winter, too hot in the summer
and lets next door's ivy creep in under the roof line ... so I'm thinking
about an extension to the back of the house to extend/redesign the conservatory,
increase the size of the kitchen and put in a downstairs w.c. If the extension
can be two storeys then I'll extend the bathroom upstairs to put in a bigger
bath (the current one is quite short, shorter than normal). Alternatively,
I may look into extending the loft and putting an office/spare bedroom/w.c.
in up there. The downstairs extension might actually involve having to
demolish part of the garage so it is something that I'll have to give some
thought to (and it wouldn't happen before 2002 at the earliest unless I
suddenly win the lottery!) The other alternative is just looking
around for somewhere larger and trading up, but that depends on what happens
to property prices since this isn't a particularly cheap area to start
with (except the bit I'm in!)
29/5/01 Two months later, and what's changed? Well,
I've now got a new coffee table (new to me anyway!) which matches the furniture
for the conservatory (thanks Janet & Mike!), and I've constructed a
temporary second coffee table out of two Fender 1x12" speaker cabinets
and two bits of wood that I was given by Geoff ... I've also acquired a
shelving unit (thanks Bryan!) which will be going up in the back bedroom
... tidying up has included taking apart the old double bed base (electric
screwdrivers are wonderful!) and bagging and boxing everything in sight
... yesterday I spent a couple of hours with a hedge trimmer attacking
the front hedge, the ivy growing on the front of the house and a lot of
the more vigourous vegetation in the back garden. I'm hoping to pick up
a strimmer this evening to continue the garden massacre. I have a friend
visiting from the US so it gave me the incentive to do a major tidy up
around the house (ran out of time so I didn't complete it) but it means
that the house is the tidiest it's been in 18 months <grin!>. The cable
modem was installed last week and is working fine on the Celeron 333 I
picked up cheap from someone on my ISP (still trying to get it working
properly though...)
Plans for the next few weeks are to continue the spring cleaning and
throw a lot of junk out, and then sell other bits either at a boot sale
(sort of like a flea market I believe) or via the free ads papers and the
internet. To get the garden up to a standard where I can invite friends
around and go sit in the garden or in the cleaned out conservatory. Later
in the summer will be the time to get the garage door fixed so I can use
that as proper storage space.
18/10/02 Latest News: Well,
a lot has happened in the last year and a half, but at the same time precious
little has changed. I rearranged the living room so the TV is now in front
of the front window and the couch that was there is now halfway into the
dining room. A pull down screen above the TV can be used for the video
projector (which is on a stand behind the couch in the dining room. A new
dining room table sits in pieces waiting until there is room to set it
up where the projector stand is now.
The front and back gardens were severely hacked down again after several
weekends of help from friends and are now in a state to get someone to
look after them.
The back bedroom now has a lovely sofabed. I've upgraded my PC twice
but am back down at the old one again as other machines have died on me
recently.
A "new" coffee table was bought (large glass sheet on two wooden "V"
shaped supports (the "V"s are lieing down with the open ends to each end
of the table, a bit like this
[> <]
The house is still disorganised, but it's getting a little better every
week. Money is tight at the moment and any spare cash is going towards
trips across to the US to see a certain young lady (or paying for her to
come over here) so not a lot is going to happen to the house for a while,
not anything that costs substantial amounts of money.
One thing that is being considered is putting flooring into the loft
so I can move more boxes and things up there out of the way. Depending
on how often I need access up there I may consider the purchase of a loft
ladder (at the moment it's a precarious step ladder at the top of the stairs).
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