A problem

S was on her way to Canberra to join me for the auction of the Macgregor property on Saturday. Then I got a surprise telephone call from her. She explained that she had barely got on the road to come here, when her phone rings. Our real estate agent was on the phone to her. He had a call from Melody, the person who wanted to buy our house. There was a problem.

The deposit our buyer had committed to pay today won’t be paid. This buyer was the person our real estate agent described a dream buyer. I presume he’d used that description of her because she had told him she had the money in the bank from the sale of a property in England. If that was what she said, it was a lie. Whatever it was she said had misled him. What she should have said was that she was in the process of selling a property in England, and would have funds shortly. It turned out she had made a mistake in the settlement date. The consequence of this was that the funds transfer was not going to take place on the date she had expected.

We had $1000 in part deposit, a signature on a contract, but as far as we were concerned she was a punter who could walk away from the deal if the mood struck her. Payment of her deposit was the basis by which we would be able to bid at the auction. This new situation presented a dilemma: do we have a buyer for our house or not? Do we have a deposit or not? We may have a buyer; we certainly don’t have a worthwhile deposit.

So, does S continue to drive to Canberra or not. Will it be a worthwhile trip? A few days earlier it seemed as though the sale of our property was a done deal. After this news we are uncertain as to whether a sale has taken place, might take place, or will not take place.

It seems that the settlement day of her house in England was not the day she thought, but turned out to be late in the following week. There appeared to be some sort of trouble in not allowing the tenants that were renting her UK house sufficient time to quit. Consequently, the settlement date was put back. It seems that her solicitor may have provided poor advice.

According to our real estate agent, our buyer was very apologetic and embarrassed over the issue. Not too embarrassed as to organise a personal loan to cover our deposit, not sufficiently apologetic to fund her UK tenants a week’s accommodation somewhere else. When I bought the house in Warrandyte, it was purchased prior to selling our existing property, but that’s another story I’ve told before, I took out a personal loan to cover the deposit. When you buy a property, you don’t buy it without financial backing, you don’t buy in the hope that you might come into some money, and you don’t lie about these things. This put us in a terribly nasty situation.

I suspect she may well complete the sale, but until the full deposit has been paid, we can’t buy anything with confidence. All she has put up is $1000, and if she wanted could back out of the deal. And because of this we may miss out on the house in Macgregor. Our real estate agent suggested we speak to the Canberra agent, explaining the situation, and depending upon the interest in the property we may be able to get it conditionally on the sale of our property.

Both us felt winded, betrayed, and angry. Anyway, it will be super to have S here.