Month: September 2012

So all been quiet for a while, then yesterday FBM phone up about wanting to come round and get details for the H/West house so that they can stick it up for sale for Bovis. Obviously this is in breach of Sole Seller contract I would assume, but they knew nothing about it. They are going to back down, with my contract supposedly lapsing on the 4th October, 28 days after I sent confirmation I wanted to stop the contract (6th Sept).

In other news, we had to fill in a load of questions about the H/West house for the solicitor, and send a number of documents away. Then I phoned them this morning to pay for the searches, and I find out 4 hrs later that Cahoot had stopped the payment, and my bloody card because it “looked suspicious”. They security guy phoned me, and asked for all my security details – well that’s a bit silly I told him. And so I had to phone back… Stupid system.

In better news, the mortgage approval should be through in the next couple of days – which is one thing less to worry about.

Also, Radek said he forget he was coming and will be here on Friday now.

Ant’s 19th today – so we have a huge Chinese – fab.

Not heard much for a while, so latest update was that Bovis has told us the houses will be available on the 30th November now, which is a surprise – if we can get a proper confirmation we could get people in before Christmas. But we’ll see. The other bits appear to be going okay – the contracts are supposed to be with the solicitor, and should be at the previous prices – but we’ll see.

The Principality are doing their valuations on this Friday, so we’ll see what they come up with – if I hear or not?

Finally those cheeky monkeys at West Wales phoned up tonight to ask if we are okay with a viewing from someone very interested on Saturday. So I brought her up to speed with the formal complaint and she said she would go and talk to some people!!!.. What a company.

Complaint was signed for on Sat 15th, so as of today they have had the proposed three days to respond – we’ll see if I get a letter today.

Today was the train trip, the trip to Blackpool to pick up the car and then onward to Sheffield for work. Left bright and early, at around 6:40, caught the train from severn tunnel then onward to Birmingham. Change trains to Preston where I spent an ideal half hour discussing politics and the state of UK education with a chap on his way to Wolves.

Swap train at Preston for the final leg to Blackpool, horrible journey with a freaky dude sat behind me talking to himself – the further North on this trip the weirder the people got. So found my self at the end of the line at Blackpool South, and a car park, and no station, and no Mr BMW with my car. A few phone calls later and I was safely in the Blackpool dealership with a drink and my book.

Shortly later “Dave” came with my car, quick show and tell on the control and one swipe of the card and I was an owner of a 530i. Lovely. Now for a 100 mile trip over to Sheffield, taking in some motorway and the Snake Pass.

House update, Bovis now want to change the “cost price” of the houses, so no change to the overall cost to change, just for what they state they want the houses to appear to cost. Just a paper exercise you might think, but no, if they put the one up from 121000, to 129000 then that means we are liable for Stamp Duty – £1300. So I was not happy, and made them aware of that.

Also found that my bank statements didn’t have my name on, so might be rejected, and we forgot to send off one of the declarations.

In other news we checked the leak and the wet wall – it appears the overflow from the toilet is not coming out of the overflow pipe, but somewhere else – we don’t know where, but it might explain the wet wall problem we have. Also my computer power fan sounded like it was shot this morning – so ordered a new one, now the fan sounds fine…

So today had to get onto the secure webmail that L&C wanted to use, which is a right faff. Then had to attempt to print out 3 months of pay slips and three months of bank statements.

Phoned solicitor to pay the £250 she said she didn’t actually want it yet.

Printed off all the gubbins from Principality to sign and send back.

Spoke to some bloke about buildings insurance – 189 quid, seems quite reasonable.

And finally tried to phone BMW about the free 7 day insurance on the car I’ll pick up on Monday and they were too busy for me…

Bovis got in touch today to say that they will sort out the estate agent for us. Hope that goes through fine and dandy, does mean one less thing to think about. Need to provide a load of other info to them also today.

Bovis just got back – instead of negotiating, the swines at West Wales Properties have told them to stick it, and they will take me to court over the fees. Nice. So I have had to ask them for their formal complaints procedure.

In other news I tried to give the solicitors £250 quid and they told me i had to call back tomorrow when the woman dealing with me was in.. Oh well.

Also Mr BMW phones to say the car is just getting to Cockermouth tonight, so he will give me an ETA as to when i can pick it up – hopefully Monday so I can collect it on the way to Sheffield.

So – lesson for today. Be very careful with the estate agent bas$%^ds.

We arranged the part ex completely separatly from West Wales Properties. Now comes to the time where (on Bovis advice) we tell West Wales Properties that we no longer need them – the swines say we have to pay four grand commission anyway. Even though they did nothing to obtain the sale. I was cross. But in the contract they have a sole selling clause which states that they get the commission if anything heppens whilst they are marketing it. Bovis were (hopefully not any more) going to sell through these agents also – so that would mean that West Wales Properties would get double the commission for effectively selling the house once!!! What a world we live in.

End of the day its my expensive mistake, and I should not have listened to the Bovis woman, and just taken the property off the market.

So remember, if its Sole Selling Rights you are signing, even you cannot then sell the property. If you want to negotiate with a part ex – take the property off the market first.

Still cross mind.

We agreed on the cheap but expensive up front fees mortgage, and started the process today. Answered the 140 questions (twice as it is in joint names) and it looks like everything will sail on through now. Took another £99 “booking fee”, one for each house as well. Money money money.

Final job for today is to respond to the solicitor. £1800 notes, passports and two utilities bills plus a couple more sign your lives away and thats them sorted….

Tired.

Have a couple of quotes now. Should we go for, fixed rate 2 year, fixed rate 5 year, discount rate, tracker rate, 2 or 4, big set up costs low interest rate, low set up costs higher interest rate. What will happen in two years, 2% interest, still .5?

Man – how are you supposed to know ;o) On top of this is the complexity around the tax advantages and disadvantages of claiming for various set up things and onward interest payments.

For me, at the moment, Woolwich 3.29% fixed for two years – then 3.39 above base. Low set up. Looks tidy!!!.

Few things to sort today.

Mortgage broker – check, one with London and Country the other with some bloke Bovis advised.

Solicitor – Bovis advised one, double the cost because we want two houses – she agreed we could negotiate!

West Wales Properties – sorry, we do not wish to place our house in your window anymore, we will not be paying you the £3.5K you would have exhorted from us for doing a teeny tiny piece of work.

Day after and massive hangover. What did we do?

Went over to the development, had a look at what we just put a deposit down on. Snuck a free barley water in, and signed our lives away for 2 plots. The house and the flat. Sorted. With the wangling we got a good price for ours and a little sweetener on the new ones – £1000 deposit and away we go.