Family Matters

[Sue]

Update on the brood.... The kids in Oz seem to have made their adjustments. Susan and I are still in limbo as the interminable process of probate moves at a snail's pace. Reminds me of Jarndice v. Jarndice in Dickens' Bleak House. We must be getting closer but no indication of a time scale. The sooner the better, it is wearing but we are managing. Life will then get back to somewhere near normal. (One thing is certain, the lawyers are on a good thing!)
Ten minutes later.... News just in that plans to raise the Inheritance Tax in May have been dropped due to the election. I have a feeling that this was a big factor in the delay in probate. I hope I am right!

It took 5 years to get my dad sorted, 18 months after the house was sold

[Stanley]

I don't think we will be that long Sue but I am not holding my breath.....

[Tizer]

We continue looking for a house that suits our needs....the last one we viewed was in a terrible state. It always amazes me to find how others can live in such conditions even though they could be easily and cheaply improved.

[Stanley]

There might be a clue there Tiz. With your combined brains and imagination you and Janet are capable of turning a sow's ear into a silk purse.

[Marilyn]

It always amazes me how filthy people are...want top dollar for their homes but haven't cleaned the windows for five years, or the oven for ten years!
Simple things like wiping over doors and tiles, pulling out weeds and fixing anything obviously damaged or broken. Clean sinks and clean drains...and the simple act of getting some fresh air through the house help.

[Sue]

The French in general aren't great cleaners or decorators. Estate agents like selling houses owned by the English because they are clean.

[Marilyn]

hubby and I have rented hotel rooms whilst on holidays and have actually been praised when checking out as "the tidiest folk they have ever had". We treat hotel rooms as we treat our own home.
The horror stories the hoteliers tell...there are some filthy people out there!

[chinatyke]

The French in general aren't great cleaners or decorators. Estate agents like selling houses owned by the English because they are clean.

Same applies to the Chinese when they lease property, nothing gets repaired, they ignore dust above eye level and the kitchen ends up covered in sticky oil residue. We rented an apartment for 9 months and when we left the landlord gave me 500rmb exit bonus "for looking after his place". Now we are landlords ourselves and we have an English tenant who keeps the apartment spotless, does any necessary repairs and decoration, and pays 3 months in advance instead of 1 month. Perhaps I'm too fussy but I'd sooner keep the apartment empty than lease it to a bad tenant.

[Tizer]

hubby and I have rented hotel rooms whilst on holidays and have actually been praised when checking out as "the tidiest folk they have ever had". We treat hotel rooms as we treat our own home.

We are going to a regular favourite holiday cottage in Cornwall this weekend. The owners are a solid, traditional Cornish couple and we get on with them well. The lady looks after it properly and it's always clean but she swears it's even cleaner when we leave. Like you Maz, we treat it like we would our home.

[Stanley]

Too early to break out the bubbly but the signs are that the log jam in Oz has broken and the UK probate can go ahead now as soon as HMRC decide on what they want to claw back from the estate.... To quote the Bard: 'tis a consummation Devoutly to be wished'. It has been a struggle but we are perhaps entering the end game......

[Tizer]

We are well past that stage and HMRC have been doing their arithmetic but we're still waiting. The worst thing is that they'll never commit themselves to a deadline, they can take as much time as they wish.

[Stanley]

From your mouth to God's ear..... They couldn't run a booze up in a brewery, not enough staff!

[Stanley]

I was thinking about house moving..... Lots to be said for selling your own house first, putting belongings into storage and renting a flat in the area you are moving to while you house hunt. You get a better deal on the new house because you have the cash in the bank and no chain and this will usually pay for the storage and the flat. Less stress as well trying to mesh the two sales.

[Stanley]

Good news from Oz yesterday. It looks as though the log jam in probate is breaking. About time too and it will relieve a lot of stress. The UK probate will be slower but at least things are moving. Thank God!

[Tizer]

This is my first post since going on a week's holiday on Saturday, 20th May. Probate on my father-in-law's estate has been sorted but we are still waiting to get the money; we were promised it would be by the end of May. A phone call to Lloyd's bank who are handling it all got the response that Nationwide, who hold the money, were supposed to have paid out some time ago. As usual, they're all finding excuses and hanging on to the money for as long as they can. The latest is that a senior bod is on holiday and they can't sort it until he returns. As Victor Meldrew would say, I just can't believe it!

Meanwhile, we accepted an offer on our house while we were in a holiday cottage in Cornwall. It all had to be done by text message. We'd seen a house we wanted just before leaving but too late get a viewing appointment. It went under offer almost immediately. Big sigh, oh well at least we'd got the offer on our house. Then we got a text message later - the offer had fallen through - and we had an appointment to view at 3.30pm on the Saturday of our return. It was a mad dash back 160 miles from Penzance, including somewhere we had to visit along the way and arrived in time. We wanted to offer but then ran into problems over a covenant which apparently would prevent us from changing an important aspect of the property. We got that sorted OK but then the agent rejected our offer because he claimed we were not `proceedable'. More to-ing and fro-ing by email and phone and eventually he said it was a mistake and our offer was accepted! Talk about a roller coaster ride!

This `proceedable' word is much on the lips of estate agents these days and is supposed to cut down on the number of offers that are accepted then rejected. If you offer to buy then you are considered proceedable only if you have already accepted an offer on your own property (or can prove you have sufficient cash funds). Otherwise your offer is rejected.

All in all it's been a hectic couple of weeks and all on top of the election, international cyber attacks, the BA fiasco, Manchester bombing, Brexit, Trump etc. Now I'm going to make a good cup of tea and eat cake with Mrs Tiz!

[PanBiker]

Enjoy the tea and cake Tiz, they reckon that moving house can be as stressful as a bereavement or divorce. When we moved to our present house we had sold ours and had our offer on here accepted but we were in a chain, completion was to take a couple of weeks so we moved into a small rented property. We didn't bother unpacking much but rammed it all into the front room and any other spare space in the house and lived out of a suitcase in the back room. Our Jack was a baby and the older two in nursery and primary school. The two weeks turned into 3 months of absolute misery, to cap it all three weeks in we all inherited a dose of sickness and diarrhoea. Not moved since.

[Big Kev]

When we moved to Barlick from Kent I vowed never to move house again. The day before completion the buyers were arrested for money laundering and we'd already given up our jobs. No buyers, no jobs and the seller in Barlick wanting to put the property back on the market. All sorted after another 16 weeks but a stressful and expensive time...

[Stanley]

Welcome back Tiz..... I hope you and Janet had a good holiday before the offer. Once again I realise how lucky I have been. I have no horror story about moving.
Ian is right, house moves rank with bereavement and divorce in terms of dangerous Life Events so be careful and my wish now is for a smooth move and no more surprises.
When I did sell my house in King Street I insisted on taking the money form the building society to the bank myself in a carrier bag. It was only 100 yards and they thought I was crackers but I'd never seen that much lolly in one lump! Strangely satisfying......

[Marilyn]

In my entire life, I have never lived anywhere for more than 7 years, so I can pack and move house without breaking a sweat.
The secret is not to accumulate junk.
I am currently working my annual round of drawers and cupboards having a sort out. I found stuff for the op shop, recycling and rubbish as usual.
Having stuff I don't need really irks me as I get older, and I just love empty cupboards and drawers...getting rid of junk is LIBERATING!
I have an entire dinner set packed up for the charity shop...and heaven knows how I ended up with FIVE gravy boats in the first place! I have stripped an entire bookcase of quilting magazines without even shedding a tear ( sad to say I have had them so long that some of the quilters showcasing their quilts are now actually deceased...shock...horror...reality check).

[Cathy]

Lovely to see you back Tize . All the best to you and Mrs Tize and here's to plain sailing from here-on in. Remember to breathe

[Moh]

Like Maz I cannot stand clutter, it does not bother hubby but it winds me up. I would not look at houses until I had a firm offer on ours, we lost a lovely house because we had not sold ours.

[Tizer]

Thanks for all your kind thoughts and comments. We're not fazed by the horror stories, we've been through a lot of house transactions and know how stressful it can be. A neighbouring couple here ended up getting divorced due to the stress of a house move. It gets more complicated every year as the solicitors are forced to do more checks and ask more penetrating questions. The Property Information Form gets longer and longer. They make you chase up all sorts of guarantees, certificates etc and the questions are almost reaching the point of "Is there anything you haven't told us about?". The Fixtures and Fittings Form also gets longer as they add in barbecues etc - we found ourselves often having to answer with `None'. That reminds me of friends who bought a large house that had been owned by a senior British Airways executive; when they moved in they found he'd taken everything possible including all the light bulbs (and that was in the days of cheap incandescent bulbs!).

Maz, being a bit obsessive like us about tidiness and cleanliness of the house you'll be pleased to know that it helped sell our house quickly and at the full price.

[Marilyn]

I don't know why your system of house buying/selling needs to be so darn difficult. We don't need solicitors to buy houses here.
You put an offer in...then it's accepted. You sign contracts (via the agent) on which both parties have a two business day cooling off period, at the termination of which the purchaser coughs up the deposit. The settlement date is in the contract ( generally between 4-8 weeks into the future based on mutual agreement). The seller cannot accept another offer after that 2 day cooling of period. The house is SOLD. Job done. Any fixtures or fittings not included in the sale are listed on the contract and signed by both parties, so if you can't live without your chandelier, it will be listed. Generally, carpets/curtains/lights/towel rails/blinds/awnings/stoves/ovens/fixed heaters/screen doors etc are expected to remain unless listed.

[Stanley]

Everyone is different Maz, the 'junk' is my memories, everything either has a use or is a reminder of something and that's how I like it. Funnily enough, the most clean cut move I have ever seen was when Margaret and Mick moved to Perth. Pickfords arrived and put the contents into a container and they never saw it again until it arrived in Oz.

[Tizer]

The reason why our system of house buying/selling needs to be so darn difficult, Maz, is because it involves solicitors. The reason it involves solicitors is that they have used the Cunning Wheeze of continually spinning their web over centuries so that they've made themselves essential to the process of buying and selling property in the UK. For example, I think I'm correct in saying that a seller here is under no obligation to fill in the Property Information Form but if they don't then the buyer assumes they must be hiding bad things about the property and is likely to back out. It's claimed by some people that you can still do your own conveyancing in Britain but in practise it's difficult and dangerous - after all, you will still have to deal with the other person's solicitor and he/she won't put themselves out to help you. Likewise, there are many local authority searches required and difficult even for solicitors to get them to move faster than snail's pace. It's an arcane system, all smoke and mirrors and designed to frighten off any would-be intruders.