, but as usual things have not been running too smoothly…… On Thursday late afternoon we happily wended our way to our solicitors office to take in the cheque for the deposit and tweak the last few bits of paper. Low and behold, it became apparent to us that the boundary line on one side of the house had not been amended (in our favour) as had previously been agreed. We had spoken about this at length to our solicitors and assured that it would be attended to, but obviously it had not. Everybody rushed around trying to sort it out, we needed an amended plan to be sent from the builders, which they hurridly faxed through the next morning.

Friday morning turned into early afternoon and we still had not had the call from our solicitors. We rang them, they informed us we would not be able to complete on the Friday because of the delay with the paper work but that they would exchange on Monday instead. On Monday we rang expectantly to be told that we could not exchange

on Monday because one of the searches had come back as unaccepteble because the plan did not have a scale figure. (Huh? We were previously told that all the searches were ok)

Oh yes, but this is a last minute search we were told, that couldn’t be done until just before exchange. So now the builders are scurrying around again getting yet another bit of paperwork in order. The re-amended plan has to be sent to Gloucester to the Land Registry (LR) before it can be agreed. Tuesday morning arrived, still no LR satisfaction. We are told we can’t exchange now until Weds lunch time at the earliest. Eeek! Because we already live in a big house our removal firm is taking two days to move us – they are arriving Weds morning at 8.30am to pack up, and we still havn’t exchanged. What if it all goes pear shaped and we can’t move at all – all our belongings will be stuck in a removal van somewhere at a huge cost to ourselves for storage. We decide to take the risk, and go ahead with the packing.

After another sleepless night, Weds morning is here – most of our belongings are now in the vans, and it is not until 2pm that we get a call from our solicitors to say that finally, we have exchanged contracts and can complete tomorrow, Thursday, and so move into our new house as planned. Phew! Never mind going grey, I’m going bald due to tearing my hair out at the roots every three minutes due to some other new fiasco. At the moment I don’t think I will ever, ever want to move house again for the whole of the rest of my life. (But actually I know that by the time I am holding a glass of wine in my hand sitting in my new conservatory tomorrow night I will have changed my mind on that one). So here we go, it really is moving day tomorrow, and now there is no going back.

I will be offline now until 26th September, as our broadband connection cannot be installed till then, so in the mean time, wish us luck – I’ll let you know how the day goes in due course.

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.

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.

….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.