Adventures of a Non-Binary Author – The Story So Far…
In September of last year, we accepted an offer on my flat and had our offer accepted on a maisonette.
After months of back and forth, the sellers of the maisonette had failed to give adequate responses to several outstanding enquiries. This included an updated Fire Safety, and establishing why the Building Safety Act for High Risk Buildings didn’t apply. In February these two outstanding enquiries left us in a position where the maisonette was realistically unmortgageable without resolution. Our sellers also couldn’t afford to keep the property empty much longer and laid down an ultimatum. 1 week to resolve the issues or they’d have to pull out and put the property back on the rental market. Their solicitor made a good effort at the start of the week, to establish why the BSA didn’t apply in this case. Their argument was rejected by the 2022 update to the BSA. They made one last attempt, which came through too late on their part. This was also rejected, and by Monday the shape of our future drastically changed.
We didn’t want to lose the sale on my flat, so we rallied and managed to find an unusual setup that would accept us. We were upfront from the start about our plans. And there were no issues with Zelly the Gerbil. We moved and the sale went through without a hitch.
That weekend the property search was back on. After a few weeks of disappointing pickings, we eventually found a house that we both loved. We also found it’s cookie cutter sibling, with a bigger garden. We put in offers for both. The one with the larger garden had a lot more offers on it, and we lost out. The one we saw first, which had a new kitchen and bathroom, had a stubborn owner. We stuck to our guns though, and didn’t budge on our final offer price. Eventually the owner caved and we had our offer accepted.
The solicitor process raced through.The whole thing was a lot quicker and smoother than last time. Before we knew it, we were talking completion dates. The one hold up, our tenancy. We’d agreed a plan for leaving in July, but this would put us earlier than that. We tried to get a date for the end of June. That way we could have a couple of crossover weeks. This was initially agreed to, then the seller changed their mind. We had to bring the date forward or they would pull out. The prospect of having to pay two months of rent and mortgage wasn’t exactly welcomed. But with our savings we could afford to do it. So we agreed to move the date forward.
Before we knew it, contracts had been exchanged. Completion date had been locked in. Now we just had to figure out the rest and wait to pick up our keys.
Sorting the insurance was the first hiccup. We’d hoped to move the start of July, because of our tenancy terms. But in order for the insurance to be valid we needed to move within 30 days. So we looked at dates at the end of June, and agreed a date in July for returning the keys. The idea being, on the day we move, we move. Then on a later date we go back and clean. Not necessarily on the same day we returned the keys.
We are currently just a few days past completion date. We have our keys. We’ve stood in our new home, cleaned it, tackled the garden. (Or at least my partner did an amazing job tackling the garden). We are counting down the days till we move. Sorting as much as we can in the interim. But we have our house. We are out of limbo and looking towards the future…
To be continued…
