Adventures of a Non-Binary Author – A marrying thought

Offer accepted. Check. Appointment to see Mortgage Advisor. Check. Contact solicitor. Check. Memorandum of Sale. Takes the estate agent a few times to send the right document, but Check.And that’s just the first twenty-four hours. By Friday we’ve started filling in our setup form with the solicitors. Yes we’ve been with them before, but this is a new case. We’re also living at a new address. We get as far as we can without seeing our Mortgage Advisor.

We see him on the Saturday. Since we last sat down with him, my partner and I have had some discussions and made a few decisions. Before we found the New Cottage we’d discussed various deposit options. If the property was at our top end we would put all available funds from the sale towards it. This would be on the idea the place would need very little work. Maybe a new coat of paint, but nothing substantial. If the property was towards the lower end, we could justify a smaller deposit, for any work needed. The work would still need to be reasonable. We couldn’t afford a complete fixer-upper. But there was wiggle room there none the less.

The New Cottage was only a little over our top price for taking a little out of the deposit. It’s also in a like new condition. Freshly painted throughout. New carpets throughout. New bathroom. New kitchen. Sure we’ll need to sort some white goods – something we already have vouchers towards. But the property, as is, doesn’t need any immediate attention. Maybe there are things we want to do to it, to turn it into our perfect living space. But nothing that would need to be done in the first six months.

And yet, we still want the option to take a little money from the deposit. Why? Because we want to get married. A small wedding, with just immediate family. Neither of us like being the center of attention. With the option of having a larger celebration at a later date. Or smaller celebrations with different parts of the family here and there. If we could afford to take a little out of the deposit, we could start thinking about setting a date. No matter how savvy a saver you are, saving large sums of money still takes time. And we’ve already worked out costs for our small wedding. If we threw all of our saving power at it, it would still take about a year. But we wouldn’t be throwing our full saving power at it. Not when there are other things we want or need to put money towards. Having the savings already there would just make things easier. It wouldn’t mean getting married right away either. We could still take our time. Boost our savings a little more. Decide on the best season and venue that suits our needs. But it would turn getting married from a future plan, into an actual one.

We just need to be sure we an afford to take the money out of the deposit. And that’s where our Mortgage Advisor comes in. He’s the one with the power to tell us if this is a pipe dream or an actual possibility. So we explain our decision to him. He puts the new figure in. It’s a win! We can afford to take the amount we would like out of the deposit.

But we’re still a long way off completion at this point. Our mortgage application will go in on Wednesday. Then they’ll be the anxious wait to hear back. So I guess it’s a good thing we have plenty to keep us occupied on the solicitor’s side of things…

To be continued…