Getting used to life in Putney...

We have sold our flat!

Part of me wanted to blog the whole, painful process; but the irrational [superstitious] part didn't want to "jinx" our sale by talking about it...

Well, you can probably work out which part won!

[And for the most part, it wasn't painful - trying to go with the flow is what I'm working on, so I just got more practise at that! The bits that were nerve-wracking were to do with the dratted HIP and our poor purchasers' solicitors: for reasons of prudence (cowardice?) I'm not going to "name & shame" - so don't want to get sued for having my own opinions (albeit shared by several other people!) - but if anyone out there is thinking of selling & wants to know at least one HIP provider to avoid, get in touch. Similarly, if anyone is thinking of buying/selling/having any legal work done, I can recommend a really good solicitor and one to avoid like the plague!]

We'd instructed Kinleigh Folkard & Harward (KFH) on the 1st of June, and eventually the HIP Provider got around to sending me the Property Information Questionnaire (PIQ) on the 4th - not impressed with their lack of speed: I paid them on Monday, and told them I was going to France at midday Thursday, so if they could get it to me quickly I could fill it out and return before I went to France.

We finally got out the door after 1.30pm on Thursday and despite several chases, the PIQ had only just arrived - with my name wrong, and my title!

Quick call to KFH (by then I thought chasing them would be more productive than talking to someone who didn't seem capable of listening/thinking - Hi L*****!) - pointing out that when I spelled my name and title from the credit card, and then spelled my name for the email address (yup, same name, same spelling!), and the fact that the money had been taken and I'd received the PIQ email showed that it wasn't through lack of trying on my part, and they could get my name right when it suited them!

I don't know when the correct PIQ finally came through, but by then we were in the process of meetings to formally finish the work on the French house, so finding the Livebox (to connect to the internet) was a much lower priority than signing handover paperwork & bringing down from upstairs: beds, refrigerator, table, chairs, bedding, crockery, etc., etc.

When we found a moment I filled in the PIQ & sent it back, and a few days later our property was in a position to be marketed, and appeared on KFH's website on the 9th of June...

I was trying to be calm...

And pretty much succeeding!

But the phone calls I was getting from other estate agents trying to get us to market the flat with them, and saying they could get a price £15-20,000 higher than our asking price (and would reduce their fee if we would agree to joint agency), together with the offers we were receiving (starting at £25,000 below asking price) were making me question our decision!!

Jitters?

Oh, yes!

David & I rationalised that we would wait till the summer was over (and our tie-in to KFH had ended), and not just grab the first (remotely sensible) offer we received, and even if the flat didn't sell, well there was no urgency - let's just enjoy a break from property-related 'busyness' [we'd been fully occupied with trips to France & meetings/"house doctoring" our flat for longer than was fun!]...

And then David was on the tarmac at Dover, waiting to board a ferry to come to France for his fortnight's holiday, when he received a call from KFH: the flat had gone to sealed bids, and the highest bid was...

Totally acceptable!!

For once, David didn't get into trouble for not checking with me before saying "yes" to something!

So, June 25th, and we accepted the offer and kicked off the legal process.

Apart from the searches (and at one point the 'progress' report from our HIP Provider showed that these had been requested on the 12th August [7 weeks after we accepted the offer] - we were hoping this was just hopeless inputting rather than failure to ask for the searches - they'd had a large chunk of my money for 2½ months!), everything on our side seemed to be progressing nicely...

If a bit of a headache for our solicitor!

I was also selling the freehold to our upstairs neighbour; having finally come to the point where I could leave the flat behind [various complicated issues relating to my dad meant I'd stayed longer than I ever planned - 20 years rather than 18-24 months!], it seemed sensible to break totally with the building, so handing over the responsibility for insuring, maintaining/repairing made sense, and gave our neighbour control over what works were done and how/by whom.

Oh, and we were extending the lease before selling the freehold (which had to be sold before exchange of contracts, for legal reasons) - hence the hair pulling for H****!

Also, the Land Registry plan was out of date (didn't show the extension & changes to the layout, or include the cellar) - another little matter to be sorted...

Thanks, H!

Finally the HIP was completed, and was everything we'd been led to believe from reading the property press: the search didn't show the Building Regulations approval for the extension, nor the Thames Water tunnelling work that was imminent immediately below the house, but did show that we were in a "Radon Affected Area" [not my quotes]: "Yes, the property is in an area where 1-3% of homes are estimated to be at or above the Action Level".

The Action Level according to the "informative paragraph" [my quotes] stated: "Radon concentrations above the Action Level should be reduced below it..."

Help, scary!!

For two reasons: I'd never heard that London was Radon affected (being on good solid London clay, rather than nice radon-emitting granite), and OMG was I living somewhere that was damaging my health?

Thankfully, a quick trip to the Health Protection Agency website (and then UKradon), where I input our postcode and paid my £3.45 put my mind at rest.

"Is this property in a radon Affected Area? - NO"

"The estimated probability of the property being above the Action Level for radon is: - 0-1%"

So everything was progressing satisfactorily, right?

Ahem, er, no!

We were just waiting for the plan to be re-drawn, and approval from the purchasers' solicitor that all the changes H had made to the lease extension/sale papers were satisfactory and she would register with the Land Registry as soon as the plan was completed.

We kept receiving 'phone calls from KFH reminding us that the purchasers needed to complete on the 18th September, or it would have to wait till 15th October (which neither side wanted!), so we kept speaking with H...

At some point we pointed out to KFH that it was S*********, our purchasers' solicitors who were holding up the process by refusing to respond to letters/email.

Unbeknownst to us, W & A lost faith with their solicitors (and having heard H speak of them, we can understand why!), and moved to another firm.

At this point it all started moving forward again - changes to paperwork agreed, plan prepared & registered, our mortgage prepared to be moved to the Putney flat [I dread to think how stressful it would be if one was trying to buy somewhere as well as sell! We had kept David's flat on as a buy-lo-let "pension plan" when he moved in with me, so we were moving back there]...

Only one teeny glitch: we turned up in Fulham to sign our set of papers (they were to be dated & time stamped on the 18th) on the afternoon of the 16th...

One of the secretaries/receptionists was running out of the door - nothing odd about that, maybe she was collecting a child or going to the dentist?

Except what was happening was she was running to give a cheque to Lambeth in the hope that they would do a "real" search in 24 hours, so that we could complete on the 18th!

The HIP had provided a "personal" search, which is why it took so long - apparently Lambeth don't like them (because they are cheaper) and won't prioritise dealing with them, hence the nearly-three-month delay!

Given how much we paid for the HIP, that's not impressive economising! We could have got another HIP for less than half what we paid, but thought it safer to go with a highly-recommended firm, who to save themselves nearly £70 have earned a whole bunch of negative recommendations!

And did the difference matter?

YES!

Apparently, HSBC are the only mortgage provider who insists on having a "real" search, and won't accept insurance against the search being wrong as an alternative (as do most other providers who also "insist" on a "real" search, but are happy to take the risk if they're insured against it)...

So, no search, no mortgage...!

[You can probably work out the next bit: no mortgage, no sale!]

Anyway, we did complete on the 18th (Lambeth must have had one of their rare 'attacks' of efficiency!), and had pushed the key under the door after locking up on the 17th, so had no need to go back to our flat after that (we'd been having farewell drinks with our upstairs neighbour, and she asked whether it would feel odd driving off down the street for the last time - yes!).

I'm going to gloss over how much cleaning was required before we could move into the flat in Putney, because that's receding into distant memory and I'd like it to stay that way!

But we moved, cleaned our old home in Brixton (so little cleaning needed compared to one that had just been "cleaned"! And W & A said how clean it was ["thank you for leaving it so clean"], so I hadn't skimped there) and eventually got BT to accept that when, on the 4th of September you ask to move your telephone on the 18th September, and "can you do the broadband at the same time?" what you actually mean it that you want them to make your broadband go to the new property (with the new 'phone number), AND you would like the Broadband Talk to go as well!!

Some time after I came to France (25th Sept), it all started working; but it wasn't when David got back to London on the 28th!

Once we're out of the latest tie-in period we're looking for a new provider!

[Couldn't face the additional hassle, which is why we stuck with BT - ironic or what?!]

So, what I mean when I say "getting used to life in Putney" is that I wandered round like a lost soul for a week then decamped to France!

Odd to not be trying to escape Brixton to the Channel Tunnel, but I'm sure I'll get used to trying to escape Putney to the Channel Tunnel!

The weirdest thing is that currently, whenever I think of my old home [20 years is the longest I've ever lived anywhere], I keep "seeing" the bay window in the dining room looking out towards my tree...

I'm not sure why that is, the only thing I can think is that after my dad died, I kept looking at the tree and it reminded me that life went on...

Which is what it's doing now!

Love & gratitude to all our friends, family & acquaintances who have wished us well in our property endeavours, and obviously to our purchasers:

Thank You So Much!