A fuzzy deal

Something always happens. Just about every day in this epic some new issue crops up, and here was another event filled day. You could say it makes the day interesting. On the other hand it’s stress I would rather do without.

First up, B rang to see if I could push ahead with the contract exchange. Not that such things are up to me, but it seemed a reasonable request. It would be a gesture of good will. After all, our vendors had exchanged on their new house, and they may be feeling vulnerable living in limbo. I gather they bought their new property at auction, and of course there’s no backing away from an auction sale.

So, I rang Vickie, my Canberra conveyancer, to ask what the delay was on the exchange. We had a short conversation about the merits of organising this settlement before settlement in Melbourne was locked in and finance confirmed. But it’ll be a sure thing. Surely it will? She promised to do the exchange today.

I rang David, my contact at Virgin Home Loans. Actually, I’d been phoning him every hour and hanging up when the answering machine clicked in; I wanted to speak to him, not a machine. Anyway, I got him eventually, and passed on the concerns of B. He said all the valuer really focuses on with private houses is to see if the building seems structurally sound and they look for evidence of pest damage, but they don’t crawl around under the floor or in the attic. He will phone me and a letter will go out, possibly tomorrow or Monday, when the loan application has been approved. I also mentioned the surprise email I got from Virgin.

An email arrived from Virgin with the following message: “In your hunt for a home loan you stopped by Virgin Money to see what you could borrow, but as yet we haven’t heard back from you…” What? David put that down to administrative error of no consequence. It was a discouraging experience in the procedures used by Virgin.

Apparently all the documents I had faxed to Virgin were okay. David said there had only been one outstanding issue, but it had been resolved. He said they were interested to know whether we actually owned our Melbourne property, and then they came to a determination which resolved the matter. Curiously, they didn’t get in touch with me to provide any evidence of ownership, in their determination. Apart from me telling them, that is. But that’s hardly evidence. They must have their own source of information. Interesting.

I organised insurance cover, protecting the building only, using GIO again. The last thing you’d want to happen would be to buy a property, have it burn down, and not be insured. I’ll insure the contents when we get actual contents into it.

Late in the day Vicki rang saying she was, “… trying to do the exchange.” Now, that was an interesting expression, I thought. Trying. Without appearing to appear rude, I asked, “What does that mean?” The owners of the Flynn house, through their solicitor, a mate of the owner, she added, want to change settlement to the 16th June, rather than the 19th, to match the settlement of their new house. It also transpired that contracts had not yet been exchanged, as B had said. Can you trust real estate agents? I told Vickie we couldn’t do this, as it would leave little time for moving. Besides that, the new settlement date was just about to be set, and we don’t want to change it again. How much of an idiot are we expected to be while pandering to other people’s whims?

This news had put me on edge. It was frustrating. I was wondering how to deal with it, and was on the verge of calling Vickie back, and putting a few ideas to her. I was wondering if a compromise could be made that might benefit me, like having the vendors pick up the bill for having our removalist pack our things, or have them pay for our truck rental, but she got to the phone first with a solution.

She will write our settlement as the 16th as requested, but do nothing until the 19th. I don’t understand that. That arrangement sounded somewhat illegal, and I said as much to her. No, it’s fine, apparently. She went on to explain that there is a 7-day lapse period that banks allow, to cover situations where funds or cheques are sent to the wrong place. (What? That sounded strangely familiar!) She also said there isn’t a penalty clause in the contract, saying this as though it were a significant point. I was missing something in the conversation. I wasn’t quite sure if that was a good or a bad thing, but in this particular circumstance it seemed to please her. Because of the 7-day fuzzy period, no one will be confronted for funds that are not forthcoming. We won’t be asked to get a bridging loan. No one will. So I asked, “Why don’t you write 16-19th in the contract?” No, apparently you can’t do that; it has to be a specific date.

So, to confirm this conversation, I repeated: you write the 16th which means nothing, and we sit on our hands until the 19th when the money comes through, and then we do the deal. “That’s right,” she replied. I was surprised and perplexed.

It was all happening a bit faster than I could cope, but it was kind of exciting too. I asked about the 3-day delay in funds transfer we were being forced to go through and whether the 7-day fuzziness could have taken care of it. I asked her if we should have just not troubled ourselves, just adopting a casual attitude. “Perhaps,” she replied.

On a more mundane note, it seems as though Abo, the cat, is giving us some trouble. Abo is a lovely Abyssinian, and from time to time comes wandering over to our property in Warrandyte, in much the way cats do. Our block is a block or two distant from Pat’s place. Abo belongs to Pat, one of our neighbours. The cat normally lives in a cage in Pat’s house. No wonder it keeps escaping and visiting us. Why would a cat want to live in a cage when it can saunter over to our place, steal some of our cats’ food, and have a nap on our bed? Pat was gruff, rude, and off-hand when she approached S about the cat’s whereabouts. I think she thought S was attempting to steal her cat. And this is another good reason to be shot of Melbourne, with such horrible neighbours.

S was to do a stint of teaching on the next day. Class was scheduled to start at 8.00am which means a 5.30am rise if she is to get there on time. It’s the traffic chaos in Melbourne, you see. I drove her to this place once. That was enough. At one section on the Springvale Road during peak hour, we didn’t get out of first gear for about 20 minutes, and much of that time we were stationary, waiting for the car in front to move. And this too is yet another good reason to leave Melbourne.