Hurray…we are making progress again. Having walked around the house again with our snagging report in our hands we checked off everything that has been done and everything that has not…..

I am pleased to say that the majority of the 200 items listed have been rectified – with only minor issues remaining. For example, one of the toilets is not flushing properly, and the latch on the garden gate is bent. Esprit Homes have promised to put these issues right between exchange and completion. I believe them – because so far they have delivered when promised on these types of defects.

We are scheduled to exchange this Friday, with completion on the following Thursday, 8th September. We had hoped to complete before the start of the new school year, but in the end couldn’t do this simply because of the bank holiday. Solicitors apparantly, take every Mon and Tues whenever a bank holiday monday occurs. We wait with baited breath….in the mean time have bought a big king size bed for our new spare bedroom, a bargain on ebay. It is currently taking up all the limited space in our current dining room.

Well hello again…we are just freshly returned from our holiday in windswept, rainy Norfolk. Don’t you just love the English summers.
But hey…who cares, we’re moving house soon and any day now will be luxuriating in our fabulous modern new build……or will we?…..

Our solicitor was on holiday the week before we left for ours, so nothing much happened that week. Then we were off for two weeks and left everything in the hands of the locum solicitor with instructions to negotiate dates for completing the necessary snagging work pre exchange. I had a gravelly rumbling sensation in the pit of my stomach before we left, and had put it down to eating too many fresh figs (which I love) – but no, on my return I find it was actually my insightful intuition telling me that all was not well.

On our return we found the locum solicitor had made an excellent job of alienating the builders for no reason whatsoever.

His letter to us explained…’the property you thought you were buying has not been built…’ Huuhhh? How come we have walked around it on various occasions?

His letter to the builders solicitors included such inflamatory remarks as ‘…you are either mistaken or making an unreasonable request’ (concerning a perfectly reasonable query about our identitiy checks due to money laundering regulations).

Basically, he has succeeded in annoying everyone and made no progress whatsoever, in agreeing any action to be taken to remedy the defects that were identified by our snagging report.

Our ‘real’ solicitor is now back in control, and appears to be making more progress thankfully. We now have an appointment for tomorrow afternoon to sign our paperwork prior to exchange. We then aim to go round the property again with our snagging list in our hands to see what progress, if any, they have made.

Well after having long periods with nothing much happening, things are now starting to move very quickly. Once we had requested our snagging report from New Build Inspections (NBI), by using the easy to fill in application form online, we were delighted to receive a most expert and extremely prompt service from this company. They arranged everything in supersonic time, were incredibly helpful and did exactly what they promised…..

….getting the report to us within hours by email. Have a look at their website at www.newbuildinspections.com for their full serivce and prices. Our report has highlighted over 200 issues, which range from absolutely vital to mildly desirable and everything inbetween. I dread to think how many of these we would have missed had it not been for their expert knowledge. Worth every penny. The report is now being e-mailed to the builders for their response, and I have sent a copy to our solicitors for their advice. NBI suggested we negotiate with the builders to agree on completion dates for the work to be done before exchange of contracts. We will be working on this with our solicitor from now on.