Nasty tenant

I had an interesting experience with my first tenant. This was towards the time when she wanted to move out. I believe she was having trouble in her personal life. She didn’t like her job and was possibly feeling homesick, as her parents lived some distance away. She just wanted to get away from the coast. I gather she quit her job, and had given a few weeks notice to her employer, but her visit to the real estate agent may have posed problems. Breaking a lease before the expiry date carries certain penalties, some of which are distinctively nasty.

We received a letter from the real estate agent who was managing the property rental.  The letter was to remind us of the policy when a lease is broken.  There were a number of things listed, but the penalty that caught my attention related to an existing tenant having to continue to pay rent until a replacement tenant was found.

Our tenant may have been about to get into a tricky situation. When her income dried up after quitting her job she’d be in a dire situation if she had to continue paying rent for a place she was no longer interested in having. Such a situation could last months. Well, at least until another tenant had been found. It wasn’t a well thought out plan. It could have meant she’d be paying rent for the place and not living there.

She should have notified the agent she wanted to quit the lease early and bided her time until someone was ready to move in, and then quit her job. Not the other way around. She should have worked the dates better.

As a compassionate gesture, we offered the use of our unit should it become necessary. We suggested to both our tenant and the real estate office that if someone suitable should be found who wished to move into the property, but if the move-out move-in dates for our old and new tenants didn’t match particularly well then our place could be utilized for a short duration. That of course, meant that we wouldn’t be able to stay there for however long was necessary.

She took up our offer. We asked for some rent for the period; less than half her usual amount. $80 per week seemed fair, and the offer was willingly accepted. A better deal than a motel could offer. Our real estate agent advised against this plan, but we thought it was the right thing to do.

As it happened our real estate agent found a suitable replacement tenant quite quickly. It seems that the rental market is such that nothing is left vacant for very long. However, the timing did not quite match perfectly and our old tenant was pleased we had made our half of the house available to her for a few days. On the last day of the weekend that we’d been staying there our tenant brought in her mattress and bedding. She said she loved her bed, and despite our offer to move into our place and use everything, including our bed, she preferred to use her own mattress. The bed frame was to be moved as part of her shift along with the rest of her stuff. Each to their own, I guess.

Anyway, the real estate agent in finalising the lease had made an appointment to inspect the property. This was the usual end of lease check prior to concluding the tenancy, to confirm the place was in good repair, and was nothing out of the ordinary. The agent considered the property to be in reasonable condition, however, she was concerned about the kitchen bench top. Though the inspection missed the badly repaired window fly screen, and missed the fact that one of the vertical blinds no longer operated on a lounge window. The agent noticed some cuts in the kitchen bench top and took photographs of the damage emailing them to us for comment. The agent didn’t know whether the damage was present before the tenant moved in noting that the marks didn’t seem like normal wear and tear.

This was an old property. There is wear everywhere, and the laminex bench top was slightly scuffed when we bought it. This is normal wear and its condition was noticed prior to purchasing the property, but it was reasonably okay.

After we’d been renting the place for a few months we noticed some changes in the bench top surface. With the occasional visit to address problems you can’t help but look around. We had noticed the bench was looking the worse for wear. The bench top was becoming pitted. Knife marks were showing which indicated the surface was being used as a cutting surface. We had a spare nylon cutting board in our place. When our work was finished we left the cutting board on the bench. This should have been a sufficient hint, but it seems to have gone unheeded.

Some months had passed since the cutting board had been left. And now the real estate agent was inspecting the property and had sent photographs of the damage. The photograph provided by the agent showed that the knife marks had continued to worsen. The cutting board wasn’t being used.

The bench top before the property was purchased

I had hundreds of photographs of the house that I took when the property was on the market. It’s amazing what you forget following an inspection, and a few photos provide a great memory jog. It also allows you to study aspects of the property in detail, which isn’t normally possible in a normal open house. Fortunately, I had taken several photographs of the kitchen which by good luck quite a few happened to include the bench top. You could plainly see some general scuff marks on the surface, but there were no deep knife marks.

The same section of bench top showing the knife damage

The agent notified the tenant of the situation and that quotations for repair would be sought. We left it to the agent to determine what a reasonable cost split between us and the tenant might be.

A new bench top surface was quoted by a provider at $1400. That seemed a ridiculous amount. The existing kitchen bench and cupboards looked like they were knocked up in a couple of weekends by someone using offcuts. The bench cupboards and drawers were neat and functional but pretty crappy. Spending $1400 would be a waste.

Bunnings sell kitchens for a little over $2000.  And you can get some nice used kitchens from ebay for much less than that from people who have upgraded.

One of the repair companies the agent called in to inspect the damage noted that the surface was made of a softer material than should have been fitted to a kitchen bench top. I wasn’t aware laminex came in different hardness ratings. This advice fits with the general condition of the property which is all a little less than perfect. I expect the previous owner would have opted for a cheaper option. It explains why the knife marks were deep. The tenant was still wrong in using the bench top as a cutting board.

A lot of people use bench tops as cutting boards. I’ve seen them doing it. Though, I don’t understand why. Knives can be almost razor sharp. I admit it must be convenient to abuse your bench top like this, but it will surely shorten its life. These people may also be the same ones who use metal implements on Teflon saucepans. You shouldn’t do that either. To me this is like using the bonnet of your car as a surface to mix concrete; the paintwork will be damaged. It’s just something that shouldn’t be done. Even cutting boards get damaged. So why would anyone not use one? Perhaps someone can explain it to me.

From this point relations between us deteriorated rapidly. It’s not that she was a tenant any more. A new tenant had already taken up residence. Our claim that she damaged the bench top was denied, saying the surface was already scratched when she moved in. She plainly believed it wasn’t her fault. She became angry, upset, and then abusive. Her only defence was that the damage already existed, that it wasn’t her. This was in spite of the fact that we’d witnessed the damage worsen under her care.

This dispute and argument took place while she was living in our half of the house that we had made available to her as a favour, as a kindness, and at our inconvenience. She did not seem to appreciate that situation. At one point she telephoned leaving an abusive tirade on our answering machine some of which was unintelligible due the sound distorting due to the intensity of her screaming on the phone line. On hearing the message she was told to pack her things and vacate. We drove to the coast immediately. The two hour drive to ensure she vacated was worth it for our peace of mind.

When we arrived that evening we told her to leave. The dispute continued. She became angry, and threw a punch that fortunately missed its target. From that point her belongings were moved out with less care. She phoned her parents. She screamed abuse. She phoned a friend to help shift her things. She was upset. We were pissed off. The police arrived.

The new tenant said when we spoke to her later, that she was unaware of the commotion. Perhaps she was being tactful. There seemed to be a lot of noise. The police knocked on the door of the unit belonging to the new tenant. This must have been confusing for both of them. She couldn’t help the police and directed them downstairs.

I don’t know who called the police. So, I don’t know the pretext on which they were attending: to check out a disturbance, or to protect a tenant’s rights. She didn’t have any tenancy rights as the lease had expired and a new tenant was already in the unit. To put it mildly, we just wanted an unappreciative ex-tenant out of our property. When the police understood the situation they went on their way leaving their phone number should there be any problems. Eventually, someone called by with a ute, helped her packed her things, and they drove off. We locked up the place and went home. I wondered what the new tenant thought of all this.

When we returned on the following weekend several things had been left behind. An old car battery, a gas bottle, and a large lounge chair were left on the footpath at the front of the house. I didn’t want to pay for disposal of something that was obviously rubbish. The bond wasn’t going to be returned until the rubbish had been cleared. The items eventually disappeared.

The vendor gets tough

Up to this point the vendor's agent had been leaving messages trying to get things moving faster. Possibly being pressured by the vendor. This had been going on for a few weeks. But the most recent call was different. The most recent contact had a vicious edge to it.

The message was along the lines, if exchange does not take place within a week the property will be put back on the market and listed with another real estate agent. It had a nasty tone. These vendors didn’t seem particularly nice at all. Of course, the agent had always been polite to me. I could tell that the real estate agent who rang me wasn’t pleased with the vendors either. After consideration, it seemed to me to be an empty threat.

From things we’d been told by staff from various real estate agents who knew this particular property this threat didn’t make much sense. Various agents had said the property had been on the market for ages. It was priced way too high initially and wasn’t selling. We were told that there had been a few offers in the past, but all had been rejected. They had shifted agents once and it still wasn’t selling. Anyway, it occurred to me that should the vendors have decided to relist the property with another agent I would have spotted it with the new agent and I could have worked with them. By all accounts we were the only people showing any interest in recent months. Chances are that we would be buying the property from whichever agent they chose to sell it through. Surely the vendor didn’t think listing with another agent would magically release a whole new bunch of potential buyers that would somehow have excluded us. Anyway, I was doing all that I could, under the circumstances. This was an annoying development.

I can understand the agent feeling miffed by this recent development. After all, it’s the agent who stands around showing people through the property week after week waiting for some punter to come along. I imagine they wouldn’t be impressed if, after hooking me, the vendors decided to pull the property from sale and change agents.

It was with this aggressive attitude of the vendors and all the badgering they had been doing in recent weeks that we decided to cancel the arrangement to buy the existing furniture that was in the house. The arrangement would have suited us, but it was also done in part to save the vendor the inconvenience of having to deal with it. They lived in Sydney and may not have wished to go to the trouble of moving it. Stuff them; they can keep their furniture. But we still wanted the property. Though the thrill and excitement of owning it had been eroded.

It was at about this time I heard some news that took my attention. There was a news item on TV. It may have been coincidence, but a few days before the vendor made this threat there was a news segment that took my interest. The essence of the news story was to say that real estate prices were moving upward again. The news report said that the upward movement related to capital cities only. There was also an implication that the financial crisis may have been coming to an end. I wondered if our vendors had spotted that news item too and may have considered they might have been able to get more money for their property. Perhaps they were wondering if there were any buyers out there willing to pay more than we had them locked in for with our offer. We were certainly dragging our feet somewhat. Though, the news item focussed on major cities, which was certainly not the location of this property. There was no comment in the bulletin regarding regional towns.

I suspect with finance being tight, jobs being lost, that investment properties or holiday houses would be getting sold, and country areas would be the first to see property sales. People are not going to sell the family home if they have an investment property. And that was the appeal for us: get a bargain if we can. On the other hand, perhaps the vendors were just pissed off with us for taking too long to finalise the deal. Who knows? Though, it’s not as though real estate prices had fallen to bargain basement give away prices. This property was okay and it was a fair price.

Anyway, it was remarkably soon after that news bulletin that the vendors seemed to be getting agitated and wanted things to move faster. I was still having difficulties with the finance people. I was on edge over the deal. I wanted the property, but had no funds as yet.

Another lender

I applied to another lender for a home loan. Not a bank. I went through the whole application process again, resulting in more time being spent in completing another multi page form and waiting for approval.

My chosen lender had a web site like most others. It included various calculators. I entered my details in their calculator which indicated I would be approved. That wasn't really a surprise. I suspect financial institutions make it easy for you. To get you hooked. The world hasn’t learned that much since the Global Financial Crisis. Anyway, I printed an application form and began filling it out.

I was absolutely honest in completing the application. I checked and double checked every entry, particularly the financial questions. I provided copies of my payslip, credit card statements, current home loan statement, absolutely everything. I checked the start date of my employment, double checked I had my driver’s licence number correctly stated, and $ amounts, dates and other information was checked and rechecked. I didn’t want anything looking suspicious or found to be inaccurate. I imagine they would make a few spot checks, but who knows, perhaps they confirmed everything. If any errors were found it may have delayed my application, or worse, they might have rejected my application. It was the most carefully put together application I could manage and it was mailed to them. I had good reason to concentrate on having this application go through smoothly, and it wasn't just because the vendor's real estate agent was on my back.

It was easier this time, having applied so recently. Most of the required information was the same, and fortunately I had kept a copy of the first application. I sat back and waited.

They want the solicitor’s details

When the agent rang to say our offer had been accepted she also asked for my solicitor’s contact information. What solicitor?  Oops, was I supposed to have one already.  I agreed to forward the information, but until I had finance organised I quietly ignored this request.

Within a remarkably short time, the vendor’s agent rang again asking me to provide details of my solicitor, and in the days following (or was it weeks) I was continually asked for this information.

I was dragging my feet. I didn’t want to proceed until my finances had been worked out. It was getting embarrassing.  But there was no way anyone was going to find out my real situation.

Unhappy with the response from my current lender, I was now shopping for a home loan elsewhere. I should have done all of this a lot earlier. I was beginning to get a bit anxious.

As a first step in financing the new property I scanned the web for a suitable lender. There are so many banks and other financial institutions that the task of filtering them becomes overwhelming. There are even web sites that do the filtering for you.

If you search using the phrase “home loan comparison” you get almost two million results. The phrase “home loan guide” returns 26,000 results.  And the last thing I wanted was it to be presented with was tons of pictures of smiling people on web pages with them sipping wine or carrying meaningless symbols when you are feeling stressed.

It gets confusing. Information overload. In the end, I opted to ignore the pretty web sites with pictures of happy smiling faces in favour of talking to people I knew seeking their experiences. This doesn’t say much for my web based solution.  I had already checked out the organisation that was currently financing my home, and that had ended abruptly. The search continues.

This ad must be a joke

There was a radio advertisement that made me laugh. One of the Canberra real estate companies was advertising that its company more than any other could sell your property and get you more cash for the sale than any other.

In addition to the radio ad I noticed the following appears on the Blackshaw web site:

Proven sales record
At Peter Blackshaw Real Estate we continually achieve higher prices right across Canberra.
We have achieved more record-breaking sales in more suburbs than any other agent in the ACT. (check it out)

I don't know about you, but this seems dumb to me, and I think Blackshaw are assuming we are all idiots. Perhaps Blackshaw needs to be treated to the same lack of regard as they treat the punters.

The thing about real estate companies is that they are stuck between buyers and sellers. Property owners want to sell for as much as they can get. Potential buyers want to buy for as little as possible; everyone wants a bargain. In real estate you can’t keep both buyers and sellers happy. And there’s seldom a fair price in real estate. Generally, when someone talks about the great deal they got, rest assured, someone else missed out badly.

There doesn’t seem to have been a lot of thought gone into that ad. Sure, pushing the notion that selling your property for more than the opposition might offer may attract a few potential owners with a property for sale. But it doesn’t take too much imagination to consider that the punters are listening to that ad too. Why should they buy anything from a company that is essentially announcing that they are going to be ripped off.

The previous owner

K, the previous owner dropped by. She promised to pick up some gym equipment that had been left behind in the carport. She also spoke about arranging to finish some carpentry work on our wardrobes. The stuff in the carport was no problem at all. We had left a ton of stuff in Melbourne. That was not an issue to us. However, the wardrobe situation was troublesome.

Despite promising that work on the wardrobes would be finished before we moved into the house the work had not been completed. The mirrored doors had been fitted, and while the wardrobes were new, which was nice, it would have been better had the job been completed. Some of the railings were missing from the inside, and the drawers needed fascias to be fitted to improve their appearance. Wardrobes are pointless if you can’t hang your clothes in them.

More logistics

Fay, our Warrandyte conveyancer, rang to say everything was going fine. Hey. That’s a surprise.

She said settlement will take place at 11.30am on the 13th, that a cheque will be made out and sent to the Canberra solicitor to cover Stamp Duty, with the remainder left over for the purchase of the Flynn property. She also said that a section 27 form has been faxed to our real estate agent in Warrandyte to release the deposit to us.

I called by and picked up the cheque from the real estate agent. The deposit had been eaten into by the agent’s commission: $9230, advertising: $4115.74, GST: $1339.07, other expenses: $45 (I wonder what that was). The timing for this cheque was good, as I’d just stretched my credit union cheque account to the limit.

There was no sign of the Virgin Home Loan documents as yet, so I rang them. Apparently, they were very busy, but I was on the list of things to do their end. Well, at least the wheels were turning.

The lease for the car seemed to be a more difficult process than I’d expected, and not real cheap either. Though the exact costs will have to be worked out later, when I get some time.

A few things were selling on ebay: my old motor cycle, mulching machine, and of course the trailer were the biggest items.

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.

Can legal people go any slower

B, the Canberra real estate agent, rang to hassle me. She wanted me to get on to my conveyancer. B could very easily become a pain in the neck. Anyway, she had a point: she asked if I could contact Vickie, from William Heague, and get the exchange of contracts pushed through. B is probably being pressured by the owners of the house in Flynn.

The settlement date change seemed to be known and agreed to by everyone except the legal people. Vickie won’t proceed with the exchange until all the paperwork is in order, and in particular, that Fay, our Melbourne conveyancer, confirms the settlement date with her, and Virgin Home Loans confirm the loan. There’s not much for me to do, really.

My contact at Virgin Home Loans is difficult to catch at times. He said the increase to $150k is okay. He asked about the documents I had faxed, as he hadn’t seen them as yet. I told him what I had sent and he seemed satisfied, and assumed they must be held up somewhere on his side. He also said he had “ordered” a valuation, but he was perplexed when I said no one has been contacted this end as yet about it. The person doing the valuation was supposed to contact the agent here in Canberra to set it up with the current owners, but no one has done that yet. Seems like Virgin haven’t quite got things worked out yet.

S called in at our Melbourne real estate agent’s office to present her thank you gifts that she had bought for them. She bought a gold pen, and she thinks he was pleased. Though by the sounds of what I heard, I gather he would rather have had a letter of commendation. Something for his portfolio, of course. While in the office, he asked if he could show Melody through. S doesn’t want to do this. I’ll do it. S is more enraged with Melody than me it would seem. Though I wasn’t impressed by her one little bit.

I have been spending some time checking out some more utes in the paper and on the web. There are a few possibilities here and there. I’ve also looking into Novated Lease. I wonder where it got that name from. I’m not sure if leasing is for us, but there really aren’t too many alternatives; this could be one.

S is feeling edgy about the contracts not being exchanged, concerned that the vendors may be anxious and leave the house in a poor condition when they vacate, because we don’t seem to be keeping our end of the bargain. She suggested I get Vickie to get a wriggle on, leaving the worry of settlement in Melbourne and the home loan in our hands.

Some maintenance

It’s true: credit cards work wonders in cleaning the frost off the car windscreen, and there was so much frost it looked like piles of fluffy snow at the edges of the screen. The poor little starter motor in my EXA is also sounding as though it has a sore throat or a cold.

It was just a sort of administrative day today.

Vickie, of Willian Heague our Canberra conveyancer: I dropped off the contract, checked that she would note that work needed to be done to the three wardrobes in the house, the garden shed was noted (I didn’t want it removed), got her to mark S and myself as joint tenants, and handed over the deposit bond certificate. She will contact Fay, our Melbourne conveyancer, and have her send a cheque to cover Stamp Duty, which has to be paid promptly (on or before settlement, I think). We should have a final inspection too.

Fay, our Melbourne conveyancer: I rang Fay to advise her of the changed date for settlement, but in her unique manner, she really wanted to know about the insurance details first. Melody is contacting her solicitor today, apparently. So this should (hopefully) work out! Fay said the normal cost of setting up a contract to rent would be about $180-$200, but not required as it is us who are renting. I don’t quite understand that.

Virgin Money, our home loan lender: I rang Virgin to check that everything was proceeding okay. It turned out that, despite someone phoning S and getting the credit card number from her, in case we “should we back out of the loan” after making arrangements to do a valuation, the number wasn’t recorded, and a valuation check hasn’t yet been organised. So, I gave them the credit card number again, and accepted their advice that a valuation will be organised. I must keep checking on them. It puts you on edge when people fail to do things that they should.

B, the real estate agent from Flynn: I emailed B her and subsequently spoke with her to keep her in the picture with developments. The developments being the new settlement date, valuation needing to be done, contract with Vickie, expected delivery of our belongings.

Mal, Westpac loans officer: He emailed me hoping I had a nice stay in Melbourne, which was nice of him, and he reminded me that his offer was still open. Well, that story has been put to bed now. It’ll be a Virgin home loan. I still remember his attitude and can’t get over it. Westpac will remain my bank; I wonder if he’ll remember me when I walk in there.

And S buys a few gifts for the helpful Melbourne real estate agents and their staff.

While all these house issues are going on things are building at work. I have a major deadline within a week and then when that’s done I want to shoot off to Melbourne straightaway afterwards. I also have a new task to come to gips with at work. I can’t focus on studying it. I find I’m filing, tidying up, and cleaning the desk. It’s avoidance behaviour.

When will the problems end?

I spent some time bringing some boxes and stuff down from the attic on Sunday. It’s surprising how much stuff was up there. I packed the car with some of it, and was off back to Canberra in the afternoon. It was a particularly cold trip without the heater. But the audio books were great, particularly the Bill Bryson tape of his book ‘Down Under’. Bryson has a fantastic view of the world and he has some really funny sections in the book, and I loved his views on Canberra. I have only positive memories of this book. It’s a must read, or in my case it’s a must listen.

I rang Virgin Home Loans to keep things on the boil. Yes, the materials I had faxed to them had been sufficient. The home loan application moved to the next phase, and a property inspection was required. So, when the property inspector gets in touch I will contact B, who will contact the owners to organise access, to get the evaluation. I don’t really know why they are bothering with a valuation. I’m sure they could recover their investment without too much effort.

I took this opportunity to enquire if the loan could be increased from $100k to $150k. I wanted access to some extra money, at home loan rates, should I need it. They didn’t think this would be a problem, but they had to do some internal checks to confirm it. Oh, they’re busy little bees.

Someone from Virgin also rang S to confirm this next phase, and to advise that it’d cost $490 to back out if we change our minds about using Virgin for a home loan, and to ask her for our credit card number.

A fax arrived for me at work from Deposit Power, to say that the bond certificate had been approved and the original was in the mail. This seemed to be one of the few things that had worked out with a minimum of fuss. There is a lot to be said for doing it yourself.

I rang Vickie, my Canberra conveyancer, and asked about settlement, and whether she knew about the 3-day hold up that banks impose on interstate funds transfers. Yes, she did know about it. I wonder why she didn’t tell me. I was tempted to unleash my rage at her, which might have made me feel good. I elected to keep quiet, not get her off side in the interests of good relations lest she deliberately put my file to the bottom of her priority list. This is exasperating. Aggh!

As we can’t change the Canberra settlement date we should try to change the Warrandyte settlement date, to alleviate this three-day funds hold up issue. S phoned Fay, our Melbourne conveyancer. She finds Fay grumpy, and they both get a bit short with each other. I rang Fay. I asked her not to write to Melody’s solicitor as she was planning to do. She agreed to put that on hold, at least until there was a plan that would work. Better to write to confirm something, than beg for something, or attempt to ‘press’ them into changing the settlement date. S tried to contact our Melbourne agent, but both agents were at a conference in Sydney until Wednesday. What next?

I email our Melbourne real estate agent with information I’d got from Vickie, our Canberra conveyancer, with information that indicates the date that would allow sufficient time to transfer the funds. That is, if Melody would change the settlement date, again. I would feel embarrassed about this, but as Melody stuffed us around with the deposit, I don’t really care. Anyway, this is the fault of the conveyancers in my opinion.

Here are the conveyancers details, should anyone be interested:

Melbourne
Canberra

I found it interesting that Vickie said to me that our Melbourne conveyancer said the date was “locked in to the 19th,” because Melody’s solicitor had said so. Nothing was ‘said’ in so far as I knew. I know this is a small point, perhaps on the verge of hair-splitting, but it turned out that Fay had a letter from Melody’s solicitor to say settlement would be on the 19th. Well, of course she did. It was me who asked our Melbourne real estate agent to ask Melody to set it to the 19th because B had asked me if the settlement date could be changed to the 19th. The lack of communication going on here is astounding.

Vickie also reported that she had received no information from the Flynn solicitor. I thought the owner was doing his own conveyancing. At least, that’s what the contract stated. I asked Vickie to keep me informed of any developments, and I said I’d keep her posted with anything I found out.

S rang Westpac to look into this 3-day delay that’s causing the current problem. Apparently, there was something called ‘portability’ that will allow the funds to be transferred. This sounded like a positive development, but I was sceptical. I don’t believe a word of it. I think this person is talking about transferring a home loan from one person to another. The home loan that we almost signed up for at Westpac boasts this very feature. It’s amazing the crap people will feed you instead of good advice.

S got in touch with our Melbourne real estate agent, who got in touch with Melody. That was a lucky break. No one could get hold of her before the deposit was paid. Maybe she was hiding. He asked her if the settlement date can be changed. Yes, no problem. Wow, something that worked.

I put the phone down after S’s call. A simple answer: “Yes,” and the problem had disappeared. I was stunned. She said, “Yes,” and the problem went away. Settlement date can be moved, yes. No need for bridging finance, yeah. We can relax, yes.

Nothing had been simple so far. I was staring at the empty cup in front of me. My eyes were focused somewhere about a mile below the cup on the desk in front of me. After a minute of so, I rang S again, and asked what she was doing. “Wandering about the house in a daze,” she said. So was I; in a daze that is, I said to her. S said, “This is awful. When will it end?”

Our gruff old real estate agent is well and truly a friend, now. And we have a new settlement date. That should do the trick. But we will have to rent our house from Melody for about a week. So, $350 plus set up costs will be a lot more pleasant that a bridging loan. Anyway, Virgin doesn’t do bridging loans.

The inspection

I called around to the Flynn house around 5.30pm as arranged to inspect the work that had been done, which was a bit pointless as the wardrobe doors had not yet been fitted. That was rather disappointing, as it was promised to be done. Some work had been done, but it was unfinished. People shouldn’t make promises they can’t keep.

I met K, one of the owners of the house, and she ran through a few things in the house. She showed me the laundry, which had had some work done and wasn’t quite finished. There were still a few tidy up things to do. She worked in a kitchen renovation company, and I presume she was able to use these contacts to get some work done on the house, and the laundry revamp was one of the renovations in progress, which was nice. And why wouldn’t you do that if you worked at a place like that. And of course, the kitchen itself had been renovated not long previously by the look of it. The kitchen floor looked better than it had done when I saw the place last during the inspection. Areas of the floor had been revarnished. It appeared as though there had been a few spillages of varnish on the floor that had been allowed to dry, as some areas of varnish on the floor looked to be much thicker in areas than in others. They didn’t do the entire floor for some reason. I wonder why they stopped part way through the dining room. Anyway, it’s something that can be done again later.

K produced a letter while I was there to say the robe doors would be completed. She seemed concerned at their absence, and presumably this letter of commitment was to make me feel at ease. She was probably embarrassed. I was disappointed it hadn’t been done, but she seemed genuine enough.

We had a chat. She was very chatty, in fact. She promised to steam clean the carpets to remove the stains. She said the stains were just surface marks and would be easily removed.

I couldn’t stay. It was getting late. I was in a hurry to pick up some removalist cartons that I had arranged through work, and then I was off to Melbourne. I was aware the drive from Canberra to Melbourne was about eight hours for me. I didn’t want to be driving too far into the early hours. K seemed oblivious of my need to keep this visit short. It would have been nice to have spent time there studying the property and chatting to the owner; there could have been things that would have been useful to know about the property, but I had to go.

I made my second visit for the evening to someone’s house who worked in the place I work. They had some removalist cartons they no longer needed which I wanted. I loaded my little EXA brimful of folded cardboard boxes and was off arriving at Warrandyte at about 2.00am. What a day.

Conditional approval

I rang Virgin Home Loans to see how things were progressing with my loan application. They said it had been conditionally approved, and I was put through to someone else; to my customer relationships manager, and David from Virgin Home Loans was a very pleasant chap, and seemed good to work with. Actually, everyone I’d been dealing with at Virgin has been good. He wanted me to fax some documents before the approval was finalised; just some very simple tasks. He began to talk about getting a property valuation, but I asked for that to be put on hold for a few days, lest they charge me, and should I go with Westpac in the end. But, the loan seems to be in the bag. That’s a relief.

So, it was time to get the Bond Guarantee arranged. I rang Mal at Westpac. He apologised for not getting back to me. I asked if he’d read the material I sent that I got from Virgin. He said he had, but wouldn’t be able to beat their rate. It’s a different type of package, he said. Afterwards, I wondered what he had meant by that.

I asked him if I could have the Bond Guarantee back, as he had been holding it for me. I wanted to organise a replacement for the property I’m about to purchase. The bond has to indicate ‘Private Treaty’ instead of ‘Auction’ as on the current document. He was happy for me to call by.

So I called by at lunch time, and was invited into his office. I was expecting only the briefest meeting. Essentially, to be given the document and be on my way again, but he had prepared a letter for me. It was an offer of rate reduction. If I were to take up Westpac’s ‘Premier Advantage’ loan, which has an annual fee they offered a discount of 0.4% off the standard home loan rate. Mal’s deal was to offer me 0.5% off instead. And then while I was there in his office he made a call, presumably someone in the bank who was authorised to endorse special rates, and the word was that I can have the loan at a rate discounted by 0.6% below the standard rate. It was nice that he was actually doing things to encourage me to take out a loan with Westpac. But why so late in our relationship? Virgin’s rate was lower. No commitments were made.

I said to him that I would be going to Melbourne on the weekend and would be discussing the situation with S, but promised to get back to him. On the way out of the bank, with his letter, and bond certificate in hand, he said in parting that he only negotiates reduced rates only after the second knock back to try to keep a customer. I may be wrong, but it seemed to me that he said that with a boast in his voice. I only negotiate reduced rates only after the second knock back to try to keep a customer. Perhaps had he been negotiating rates with me a lot earlier I wouldn’t have tried so hard with Westpac’s opposition. His comment floored me. As I walked back to the car park I found myself repeating his comment over and over.

His comment surprised me to say the least. I made no response. But upon thinking about it my interpretation of his comment went as follows: I don’t give a stuff about you. I’m only interested in my own commission. I’m not going to bother with you until I see you back here sometime later. If I think I’ll loose you to another bank I’ll throw you a crumb.
I wasn’t feeling happy with Mal, despite his better offer. Not happy at all with Mal. I felt insulted.

I started to organise the new Bond Guarantee. I telephoned Deposit Power to confirm the documents I needed. The property title was not required; just the two contracts and the loan approval. But they need both of our signatures. This involved a rush job by S to print the appropriate form, sign it, and fax it back to me. Things are difficult with me in Canberra and S in Melbourne. Of course, the person faxing it at her local chemist in Eltham goofed, and it had to be faxed again, which is kind of funny as the fax didn’t come through properly. One of the tick boxes got left off the fax. And then while looking through the Contract for Sale document for the property I noticed the amount shown for the deposit was not the agreed amount. When we put our offer to the real estate agent, I said, or rather, asked if I could use the existing bond certificate that I had (ie. 5% of purchase price), and she said that would be okay. So, here I am about to send this stuff to Deposit Power, and they’ll see that the amounts don’t match. B must have forgotten that little bit. Happy that I caught it in time and fixed it. I bundled it all up in an express post envelope and it was in the post, and out my hair.

More finance discussions

Mal the Westpac banker rang. A friendly chap on the surface, but he came across as a bit of a trickster. He may be defending his commission; I think he was trying to stop me shifting to Virgin for a home loan. With the hours he works, I assume he’s on commission. Anyway, I had rung the Westpac home loan help line asking about the bank’s home loan interest rates. Now, that was an illuminating experience.

It was only the day before that Mal made his best offer and made it sound as though he was offering me a special rate. Well, it turned out that his best offer was just the every day fixed rate they give to anyone. So much for the best he can do. That’s not a deal, that’s the bank’s standard rate. Discoveries like this are not helpful to good relations. The reassuring handshake, the gentle hand on shoulder, and friendly smile now seemed like deceit. Anyway, he rang saying he’d try and work something out, and we spoke about Virgin.

With experiences like that you feel like telling them where to go and dumping them, and going somewhere else. Okay, I am considering going somewhere else, but I also want to keep my options open while I find the best deal. He asked what I’d been offered from Virgin. I said there was nothing in writing but I could email him the details, and I also sent him some information from the Virgin web site.

B, the agent, rang. The only time she can set up a time to see the house to inspect the work done to the wardrobes etc was Thursday at 5.30pm. So much for my early departure for Melbourne. I was planning to get away from work early on Thursday afternoon to drive to Melbourne. Vicki the conveyancer is still waiting for information from the vendor’s solicitor. I thought we’d be the hold up with all the trouble with our buyer in Melbourne no paying the deposit on time.

About bloody time!

A busy day, the biggest event that took place was that the deposit came through; about $36,400 of it according to the real estate agent.

But it was frantic day before that news came though. B, the Canberra real estate agent, had already written to me with a copy of the Instructions of Sale saying exchange of contracts was to be tomorrow. She also said I could inspect the property this week. Which was nice, but I wanted to ward her off. I suggested I take the contract to Melbourne, so that both S and I could study it properly. My actual reasoning was that, perhaps the deposit would be through by then. I was just trying to buy myself some extra time. Anyway, as it turned out she couldn’t tee up a time to see the work, and was to contact me later, possibly the following day. So there I was talking about various arrangements, trying to appear nonchalant, and all the while I was fretting that we might get caught out. The things I said and the manner I said them bore little relation to what I was thinking, most of the time.

I got a call from William Heague. This is the company who will be doing my conveyancing for the Flynn property. It appears that my previous contact Abby will no longer be doing this and I’ll be working with Vicki. She seems okay, and recommended having the work written into the contract, which sounds like a good idea to me. Though, you wonder about passing work from one person to the next. I hate picking up the threads of someone else’s work. It’s so hard to do. I also spoke to her about changing finance from Westpac to Virgin, which wasn’t a problem, she said. I just have to keep her posted. However, there was a problem on the vendor’s side with a change in solicitor. It seems that the owner, who is a lawyer, was going to do everything himself, will now only do his own property. This may have been the reason B said the contract exchange will be next week. That’s a relief. That was absolutely great timing on their part.

As far as our Warrandyte real estate agent was concerned, in addition to asking him to contact the bank to check for possible hold ups, at S’s suggestion I pressed the idea that our buyer get a personal loan to cover the deposit, and that if the Canberra property fell foul because our buyer’s deposit wasn’t coming through that we cancel the sale and consider removing the property from the market. Within an hour he was on the phone saying he had the deposit in his trust account. At bloody last! Was that coincidence, or did my threat get him on the phone to his bank manager to hurry things along. Who knows.

I opened my little bottle of champagne, that I’d been keeping for the purpose. S didn’t want her’s. She was feeling so flat, and generally pissed off over the whole experience that she didn't have the appetite for it. I felt a bit like that too. The chance of revelling in the excitement of the purchase of our new house had been extinguished by the antics of our buyer. The worry she put us through was horrible. It just wasn’t fair.

I spent ages on the phone to Virgin Home Loans getting a loan application lodged. S didn’t like the experience either when she had to go through it with them too. Virgin have relatively low fees and their interest rate was better than Westpac could offer. I rang Mal at Westpac and told him of what Virgin could offer. I wanted to play one off against the other. He said he couldn’t better the rate, except to offer a fixed interest rate for 3 years, which was better than Virgin’s fixed 3-year rate.

I raised the issue of the Bond Certificate with Mal, and he said he was only doing that under the assumption the loan would be provided through Westpac. He implied that I’d have to go through a bank for another Bond Certificate. This was not true. I don’t think he likes Virgin. Well, it’s the opposition, and darned good competition too. I subsequently rang Deposit Power, and was advised that anyone with the appropriate documentation can apply for a certificate. However, they do make you run around gathering documentation: the Melbourne house contract for sale, the Melbourne house title, the Canberra house contract, finance approval or pre-approval statement.

Random musings

I wonder if B, the Flynn real estate agent, would have been so casual (no deposit requested, no contract signed) over the sale of the house, in this honour arrangement she seemed to have embarked upon, had we arrived at the property when we first inspected the place in my smoky old EXA rather than S’s sleek MR2 sports car (some refer to the MR2 as a baby Ferrari), and had she taken S’s name as Ms rather than Dr. Impressions can be influential.

Very early in our acquaintance B had asked if we were genuinely interested in buying, and I said yes. She confirmed again, orally I must emphasize, that if we might back out of the deal to say so, and I said we wouldn’t do that. From that point it was as though we were honour bound to go through with it.

I had checked out a few other lenders. Virgin seems better than Aussie. Virgin claims no fees, but there are some. They guy I had been speaking to at Westpac mentioned the annual fee, but didn’t say a word of the Application Fee. I only discovered this from the infochoice web site.

I find it difficult to compare the offerings as each institution tends to use different terminology. What is a ‘legal documentation fee’? Is this another name for an establishment fee? What’s the difference between an annual fee, a service fee, and a maintenance fee; all Westpac terms for different loan types. I’ll must talk to someone from Virgin tomorrow.

In Warrandyte, S noticed some dampness in one of the kitchen cabinets. Water from the skylight, not begin deflected by the plastic sheet we had removed from the top of the kitchen cupboards, had been running inside the cupboards. There was a sheet of plastic running along the top of the kitchen cabinets. It had been there since we bought the house, and not sure what it was there for. It was a bit untidy looking so we removed it.

It seems that the skylight above the kitchen leaks a little water. The plastic caught the occasional drip during rain storms, and allowing it to evaporate later. I guess the absence of the plastic sheet caused the water to get straight into the cabinets. It’s strange the things you discover about a place when you are about to leave.

Some light ($s) at the end of the tunnel

Our Melbourne real estate agent emailed me the document he said he got from the buyer’s solicitor. It was a note which could have been typed by anyone, on a plain sheet of paper, that stated our real estate agent “…is the beneficiary in a transmission from Burnt Britt Cardens – Walrod” of an amount of 15,000 in a currency type of GBP. It appeared legitimate, in so far as a few words on a piece of paper are concerned. It was a step forward.

I left a message on Mal’s answering service (Westpac) to say it had arrived. S is feeling lousy over this whole shemozzle.

There were two other properties in Flynn that we didn’t see properly last Saturday. One was in Jacobs Place and another in Rolland Place. We were at Rolland Place when B rang and we upped our offer to win the property. Rolland seemed like an ex-govie, was very ordinary and a bit depressing inside. Sure, the pool looked nice, the back garden was done up nicely but it was a sad little property, and advertised for the same price as the property I'm hoping will come through. Rolland didn’t seem worth the lower end of its advertised $340-$360k price tag. Jacobs Place on the other hand had fabulous views, and did seem a large place, but the property made no connection with me, which was just as well for the $420-$440k price tag. The agent at the property pointed me toward a property in Carandini Street for about $400k. It was an okay property, with huge windows but it overlooked the neighbours in an imposing sort of way. Little impressed me today.

I took a drive out to Fyshwick to check out the used car lots for a ute. I need a ute to be able to transport our camper van, that’s sitting in the driveway at Warrandyte, up here to Canberra. The old ute I used to have literally rusted away, and then the engine blew up, but that’s another story. There wasn’t much in the offing from the used car dealers; and they often seem so much like con-artists.

While I was at Fyshwick I spotted a branch of Avis, and wondered about truck rentals. I paid them a visit. Prices for trucks, that can be driven by people with only a car driver’s licence, though pricey are within my budget. The trucks were a very good size too. We have a lot of stuff that we don’t trust removalists with. This might be a solution.

And still no deposit

S got a load of firewood delivered to our Warrandyte house. The wood supply was getting low and the weather becoming colder. The truck driver got panicked on how get up the drive, but it worked out. He must have been a new driver. It is an awful driveway, with the truck having to do a three-point turn in the wide section at the top (I should have said nine-point turn, on a slope).

I got into a pickle with that driveway once that had me frustrated. After a long drive from Adelaide with the ute loaded to capacity and a heavy trailer on the back we got to Melbourne at about 2.00am. I was concerned about the weight of everything, and was worried about being able to get the car and trailer up driveway, being as steep as it was.

I asked S to hop out before I attempted it. She was really tired and went to bed leaving me to park the car. The drive is almost impossible to drive into from the centre of the road, but is angled and is a breeze when making a left off the road. So, I drove down the street, made a u-turn, kept it in 2nd gear, and pulled into the drive doing about 40km/hr, or thereabouts. A speed I thought I was guaranteed to get me to the top of the hill.

The driveway is particularly steep as it comes off the road, and curves in a sweeping bend all the way up. My plan was simply to get the car to the top where the surface was relatively flat, park it and go to bed, and leave the unpacking until the next day. Approaching the drive at 40k was not a problem. I’d done this many times before, but I hadn’t realised how heavy my load was that night.

The car got about two-thirds the driveway and stopped. It got past the steepest section okay, but I could feel the power dropping, despite the throttle being wide open. I thought my initial speed might have compensated for the lack of power, but the engine was going to stall unless I stopped. I attempted to get it going again, putting it into 1st gear, but all that happened was that the clutch slipped.

My next plan was to pull the handbrake on, leave the car in gear, perhaps put a few chocks under the wheels, and go to bed. I’d deal with the problem in the morning. That didn’t work.

With the engine off, and the hand brake fully on, the weight of the car and trailer was pulling me down the hill. Of course, anyone familiar with the delights of driving with a trailer will know that reversing with a trailer takes some care. I was familiar with this experience. My problem was that with the car loaded as it was I couldn’t really see the trailer, plus the fact that the drive was curved. Curved drives and trailers aren’t a good mix; particularly when driving forward isn’t possible. A jack-knife situation would be inevitable.

I was stuck. I did not have a solution. If I had a mobile phone I could have rang for help. S was in bed. And I was sitting here with my foot on the brake, not knowing what to do. Bugger.

I began looking around. Not that there was much to see at night. There were a few large rocks nearby. Perhaps I could leap out the car, grab a rock and wedge it under one of the wheels before the car started to roll backwards. I doubted my changes, and had visions of being crushed. I remained where I was, and began to fret. My only option was to sit there and wait until S got up in the morning. But what if I fell asleep? I was thinking, let it jack knife. That would take some of the load of the car, but it would get damaged. I’d just have to sit and wait.

Then out of the shadows I saw S walking down the drive. The feeling of relief that came over me almost brought tears of joy to my eyes. I had to ask why she had come down. Oh, just to see how you were going, she said. Is there ESP between us? I explained my experience, but I don’t think she was interested. I got her to place some chocks under each wheel, which worked a treat and in addition to the handbrake the car was secure. I spent about half an hour unloading the heaviest items from the trailer, wheeled it aside to park it, and drove the ute up the hill. This was one very scary episode.

Squeak our cat had the cheek to use Elsa’s poo box, but left her bum hanging over the edge, peeing on the floor. Elsa was indignant. And then Squeak rolled on her back with feet in the air, and then darted to the door to get out. It’ll be tricky getting these naughty cats to Canberra. Though Elsa is a seasoned traveller; I used to drive between Launceston and Hobart and she came with me in the car, and she had to put up with a few Bass Strait crossings on the ferry.

The Melbourne real estate agent rang. He’s expecting the funds for our deposit to be paid into the office trust account, but the money isn’t through yet. He contacted the buyer’s solicitor in the UK again. At least he’s doing things on his own initiative now. He said they’ve sent the money, or some of it. He also said they would email him some documentation relating to the transaction. The document will be scanned and emailed to him. I asked him to forward it to me.

A sinking feeling

I had an early meeting with Mal from Westpac. He was the loans officer I had been talking to earlier. The bond certificate had to be reissued. The current certificate was for an auction only, and could not be used to buy a non-auction property. However, it will be replaced without charge. I must also demonstrate that there are sufficient funds to back it up; in other words, documentation that the deposit will be paid on the Warrandyte property to be provided before a new certificate is issued. This is unhappy news.

It seems that the current certificate had been issued in error. Mal had assumed we already had the deposit. We thought we might have had the deposit too, last week, but that’s another issue. It would seem that Mal didn’t ask the right questions or didn’t check into everything. I was upfront with everyone.

So, now the problem expands. We can’t get the bond certificate until we get our own deposit. A sinking feeling developed in my stomach.

S blew up at one of our real estate agents and doesn’t want to deal with him anymore. He was adopting a business manner with her. As a consequence S was thinking of withdrawing the house from this agent in favour of an Eltham real estate agent, one that draws a different client base.

Before we came to Warrandyte we had been living in Hurstbridge, and Eltham is one of the main centres which is reasonably close to Hurstbridge. It was through an Eltham agent that we purchased the Warrandyte property. It was advertised in the real estate section of the local rag, which seldom covered many Warrandyte properties, dealing mostly with Hurstbridge, Eltham, Greensborough. In fact, most Warrandyte properties for sale appear in their own local newspaper, which we seldom got. It’s possible that with our current real estate agent not targeting their newspaper ads to the region where we lived prior to buying the property they were missing out on potential punters. After all, that’s where we used to live. Advertising locally, is a bit like preaching to the converted.

I emailed our agent, asking if we can get the buyer’s solicitor’s phone number, with a view to contacting them, or getting our conveyancer to contact them. It’s all very well of the buyer reassuring us, but that carries little weight. They may be engaged in a shonky; making more than one offer, and just biding their time. Perhaps they are willing to loose their $1000 partial deposit in favour of a better property. He agreed to contact her solicitor. He got back to me latter, with advice from her solicitor who told him that the UK property had settled yesterday, and £15,000 would be transferred as our deposit, and it would take about 24hrs to transfer, and this was in process.

This was excellent news, though S was only slightly impressed. It’s only one step. It’s still only words. We still need to see the deposit. But I’m definitely feeling a lot happier. The next couple days are going to be excruciating until the deposit has been paid. We could get a personal loan to cover our own deposit if required, and who knows, perhaps a bridging loan if we end up with two properties.

Still no money

B, our Canberra real estate agent, delivered the contract to my solicitor today. S and I are both worried about the whole situation with the deposit. The deposit should have been paid ages ago, but little has been forthcoming.

I had a look for our buyer on the internet, to see if anyone had her listed as a problem person. There was nothing on the net, that I could find. I found her telephone number. Boy, I was tempted to ring, and confront her with a few issues. I resited the urge.

I searched on her address and found a listing of someone else at that address in the State Government Gazette, on a listing of people Telstra owes money. But that was all; which could be a good thing.

I rang our Warrandyte real estate agent about the buyer, but there was no news. And still no money for us. The deposit still hasn’t been paid. Then later in the day she made contact with our agent, apologised again, and according to our agent made positive noises about having been in contact with her solicitor in the UK. She said the deposit will be coming, but there may be a delay. Oh great!

Apparently, it takes some time for the funds to be transferred. You’d think the transfer of funds would be instantaneous. The time delay that exists between the UK and Australia was pointed out to me. I wasn’t quite sure how that fits with the issue. When you pick up the phone and talk to someone, it doesn’t really matter where you are, be that the house next door or UK. Surely, if you transfer funds electronically it’s just as fast.

According to our real estate agent, there is no problem in shifting the settlement date from the 16th to 19th June. Well, that’s good at least. Assuming the deal goes through, assuming the deposit is actually paid. Oh, I don’t like any of this. This is just so wrong. This should just not happen.

S got a quote for removalists – Dawkins (approx $9000). Boy, that’s a lot.

An early rise for me tomorrow – a 7.30am appointment with the bank.