[Catching up on last week's activities]

Pretty much all of yesterday was spent moving. I had hoped that Crest Nicholson might not manage to get anything wrong on the day, but they even managed to make something as simple as handing the keys over unnecessarily complicated.

But first…

Credit where it’s due. First Ever Ready Removals were great. They turned up on time, had cleared the house within three hours, made it to the new house OK (with only a minor hitch because it’s not on any maps yet), and managed the whole thing in less than nine hours. And what’s more, nothing got broken in the process. I’ve got no hesitation in recommending them to anyone that needs to move.

Anyway, back to Crest Nicholson.

It took sometime in the week leading up to the move to get any information from Crest Nicholson about exactly how the property handover would take place. Crest Nicholson’s sales office isn’t on the site any more, and they wouldn’t tell me whether I would be met at the house, or whether I would have to go to the estate agents and pick up the keys from them.

I sent an e-mail about this to Crest Nicholson last Friday, who eventually got back to me that day, saying:

1. Completion has been arranged for Monday 15 August next. However, please be advised that it can happen during any part of the day. Provided your instructions are with the bank fairly early on the day, we can then arrange the handover of the property to you, ideally by a member of Crest staff. Alternatively, Connells can hand over the keys (with our authorisation)and a formal handover by a Crest member of staff to follow a couple of days later.

3. The property has been subject to a prior to “move in” clean.

4. Jeanette has forwarded a copy of your email and the subsequent items to Steve Driscoll today for his information plus left a phone message for him on his mobile a short time ago – awaiting his return call. However this will not affect completion on Monday 15 August.

A couple of things there.

First, notice that it doesn’t actually say how or where the key handover will take place. It doesn’t talk about where I should be handing over the keys to my house either.

Moving home is supposed to be one of the most stressful things you can do. You’d think that Crest Nicholson might have some interest in providing some basic information to help make the actual moving day go a little more smoothly.

But no — at the eleventh hour they can’t commit to when the keys will be available or who I should pick them up from.

Second, notice that there’s no point 2. That’s a bit odd.

Thirdly (and as I write this it’s the 23rd, well over a week after moving) and I’ve still not heard from Steve Driscoll.

Anyway, back to moving day.

Crest Nicholson eventually spoke to me on Monday, telling me to drop my keys off with one of the local estate agents who’d been selling my house (fair enough), and that they’d have a rep at the new house at 2.30 in order to hand the keys over.

Great. Moving out of my place finished by 1pm (and I’d had a call from my solicitors to say that we’d completed at 11.55am), so by the time I’d dropped my keys off and headed on to the new place it would be about 2.30, or 2.45-ish. So I arranged with my girlfriend that she’d be at the house before 2.30 to wait for the Crest Nicholson rep.

Traffic on the M1 was a little more hectic than I’d expected, and I got to the new house at about 2.40 to discover my girlfriend sitting outside, and no sign of a Crest Nicholson rep. She’d been waiting since 2.25, and there’d been no one from Crest Nicholson Nicholson turn up.

As you can imagine, this did not leave me in the best frame of mind.

So I get on the phone to Crest, and am told by them that Jackie Yarwood is supposed to be on site handing over the keys. I explain (through gritted teeth) that she’s not there, and would they please pull their finger out, find her, and get me the keys ASAP.

About 15 minutes later I get phoned back by Crest Nicholson. This time they tell me that actually Jackie’s not on site, but that if I make my way to plot 7 (which is the house they’re still trying to sell) the keys are with a Crest rep there.

No problem there — except that the plot numbers don’t bear any resemblance to the house numbers of the houses that are already occupied; all of which now have their house numbers up.

I eventually find the show home and am handed a large brown envelope containing assorted bunches of keys by an (admittedly fairly apologetic) Crest Nicholson rep (who’s definitely not Jackie), along with a warning that some of they keys may stick a bit.

That’s it.

No welcome to the house. No “Thank you for your purchase”. No “We hope you’ll be happy”.

Sadly, I’m not very surprised by that.