A bizarre conversation with my solicitor

Things begin to fall into place. Finance was approved. The real estate agent had the deposit and contracts were exchanged. A settlement date was set. I’ve always been so curious about the process involved in settlement, and at some stage would like to be present when it takes place.

I imagine a darkish, sombre room. The room might be wall-panelled, perhaps a glassed book case stands against a wall, a mahogany table dominates the room, everything reeking of conservatism and money; perhaps it would be the office of a bank. On opposite sides of the table the solicitors or conveyancers are seated, representing me and the vendor. The real estate agent might be present, and perhaps a couple of bankers representing the financial organisations. The very stern solicitors would study the contract of sale, check the sale price, ensure the cheques were just so, and then various documents would be slid across the table.

Though, probably a brightly lit office tended by clerks and junior legal staff manage one settlement after the other, and the coffee stained table is strewn with snack wrappers. It would have to be this way given the lack of care some conveyancers and solicitors demonstrate.

I was curious about this particular settlement, given that it was almost 200km distant from Canberra. I wondered that one or other of the legal teams would travel to the other city, or meet somewhere between the two locations. Neither of these options were considered, when I enquired. My solicitor would contract someone to act on his behalf, or if no one could be found, the vendor’s solicitor would be asked to handle everything. Did I mishear something: the vendor’s solicitor would do everything. Sounds like a potential conflict of interests. It’s done all the time, he said.

Meeting our solicitor

We made an appointment with our solicitor. The solicitor’s office was on the top floor of one of Canberra’s few tall buildings. We took the elevator to the top and got out. The office was on the next floor up. That’s odd, and a thought occurred to me. I began to think of the movie “Being John Malkovich” and that weird seven and a half floor thing. We climbed the remaining stairs to the office. Glossy stairs, shiny handrail, gleaming black marble everywhere. The office was perfectly neat and spotless. We sat on the plush leather couch and waited for our solicitor. It was such a surprising contrast being led into our solicitor’s room to see an untidy tousled haired unshaven man. So long as he can do the job. That’s all that counts.

We looked over the contract with the solicitor. Property contracts are boring documents with few interesting sections. Though their detailed maps are worth a second look, and documents showing the history of the property makes interesting reading. Some of the maps and diagrams are ancient, and you get an opportunity to check out all the previous owners. There’s a lot of legal mumbo jumbo to look through. It was a tedious meeting. Our solicitor was slow and he pondered over things that didn’t interest us.

The property has an access lane at the back. I don’t know what the history of that was; possibly something to do with sewerage and access. Most of the properties have a driveway leading from the lane, with some having a carport. Our property had a garage that was accessed from the lane. That was in addition to the driveway that came off the street. It was unusual. Our solicitor studied it and pondered the situation, and took pains to point it out. Yes we knew the set up. Despite us telling him we’d seen the property, walked around it, and knew about the lane our solicitor pondered some more and took pains to discuss the easement and describe the hazards.

In some ways it would be good to learn how to undertake your own conveyance processes. There are do-it-yourself kits available, though I’ve never been game to try it. Perhaps if someone deals in a lot of property it might be worthwhile. There was a news item on the weekend about a real estate scam that caught my attention.  If it's true the solicitors didn't do much of a job in checking ownership.

The document had to be signed and the deposit paid. Up until this point no money had exchanged hands. And that wasn’t going to happen until my finance was approved. We asked the solicitor about making the sale conditional on securing finance. This was not possible, he said. I was amazed. Properties can put purchased subject to the sale of another property. So why wasn’t this possible. I don’t know but it was annoying.

There was a clause in the contract, our solicitor pointed out, which would hit us hard if we backed out of the deal for some reason, or did not proceed on the specified dates. We asked the solicitor to sit on the contract for a while. There was no way it was going to be signed with that sort of clause, at least, not yet. Not until finance had been approved. The waiting continues.

Being hassled by the agent

The pressure was on again in quicker time that I would have liked. The vendor’s solicitor must have mailed the contract to my solicitor immediately. My solicitor contacted me asking us to call into his office to sign the contract so that exchange could take place. That’s a commitment I didn’t want to make until I had some home loan finance organised. I put off making an appointment. That didn’t worry my solicitor, but I began to get badgered again by the vendor’s agent.

At a time when it would have been good to have things move quickly this new lender worked at a leisurely pace. If only the vendor wasn’t in such a hurry to close the deal.

My application with the new lender was progressing. I was contacted to provide documents in addition to what had been requested in the application package: more financial statements, rates notices etc. It was reassuring to know that the wheels of industry were turning. Though, I wonder why they didn’t ask for this stuff earlier.

Solicitor

The weeks dragged on. The vendor’s agent was getting pushy wanting our solicitor’s contact details. They wanted the contract signed.  I selected the first solicitor that seemed okay. What can you tell from an ad? Nothing at all. I went to the allhomes website which listed a heap of solicitors, and selected one from the range that was advertised.

The allhomes website advertised solicitors specialising in conveyancing. I had no preferences and selected the first one that caught my eye. No preferences, that is, other than avoiding one at Belconnen that stuffed up part of my finances on the last property I purchased. Don't get it wrong; I'm not a big league property dealer. I own a house where I live, and this new venture was something completely new for me. Anyway, after my last experience when buying my current home there was no way I was going to use that company again.

The company I had used back then was recommended by the real estate agent that I bought my Canberra house from. Perhaps that was the lesson: never trust a real estate agent. I had used William Heague at Belconnen. You would think a few solicitors or their reps meeting with a few banking people to swap a few cheques, sign a few documents, and pass some house keys across the table would be the formula for a simple exercise. The person Heague sent goofed. The settlement went okay, but they had organised a very large cheque to be made out to me, which should have gone into my account. The consequence was that I was paying interest on the loan for this huge cheque that should have been earning me interest.

Anyway, an email to the first company on the list brought a detailed response of their fees in very quick time and I was able to advise the real estate agent of their contact details. That kept the agent quiet for a time. Of course, at that point in time I had no finance approved from a lender. My application for a loan was in the mail, and so far I’d heard nothing one way or the other.

Here I was putting in an offer for a property, organising a solicitor, and as yet had no money. I wasn’t too worried, but I would rather the agent wasn’t pressing me so much. I emailed the solicitor’s contact information to the agent hoping to keep them off my back. I guess I was living in hope! Hope that my finance application would be approved.

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.

Our offer is accepted

It may be stating the obvious, but it’s probably wise to grab some money before going on a shopping trip. It could be embarrassing having the shopkeeper wrap an item only to discover you only had a few coins in your pocket. The same is true with real estate deals.


We found a suitable property and made an offer. Thinking back on that day, I must have seemed a little off hand to the agent. Just before the agent got off the phone with our final offer the agent said she didn’t think the offer would be accepted. This was just some real estate trick to try and have us to increase our offer. It had no effect and asked her to put it to the vendor all the same. I also said we were going out in the afternoon; off to the movies. We love going to the movies.

Driving into town we chatted about the property and whether our offer would be accepted. We considered if it was accepted then we’d have a new property; if not then that would be too bad. We’d just keep looking for another property in the area. There seemed to be plenty of properties on the market. Anyway, late in the afternoon the phone rang. It was the agent. She seemed a little perturbed. It’s amazing how people don’t listen. I said we were going to spend the afternoon at the movies. Despite that, the agent seemed annoyed that we weren’t contactable. Don’t people know that you switch the mobile off when at the theatre?

Anyway, our offer had been accepted. All we needed to do was provide our solicitor’s contact details to get things rolling.


Actually, there was more to do than just contact our solicitor. I had to find a solicitor, but there was a bigger problem. I had to get some finance. I should have made a few serious financial enquiries before shopping around for a property, but I didn’t think there would be any problems. There were problems.

These photos are of Surf Beach at sunset. This is the local beach. This spot is not much more than five minutes walk from the property. There was plenty of incentive to get everything organised.

A $90,000 loose end tidied up

The Virgin card arrived in the post this afternoon. At last I can correct that dumb mistake that occurred during settlement and deposit the $90,000 cheque. But I wonder what it has cost me in increased interest repayments.

S called in at the Belconnen solicitor’s office to pick up the cheque. She was treated in an offhand manner by the staff at the office. That was at William Heague, Belconnen. She was amused to note, that when they spotted her title (Dr) their manner changed markedly.

Stupidity, incompetence, and lies

At settlement I had a couple of cheques issued in my name, the larger of which was in the region of $90,000. The cheque was not drawn at my request and was done due to absent mindedness, error in judgment, or incompetence by the people undertaking settlement on my behalf.

I had rang David, from Virgin Money when I first got wind of it as I was concerned I hadn’t completed all the various forms exactly as required. He telephoned to say I had completed everything correctly. So why did the Virgin agent and my solicitor go making decisions on their own and fowling things up? My solicitor had said she was advised by Virgin to draw the $90,000 cheque. It could have been that the Virgin agent knew little about banking, nor how to conduct a property settlement. It could have been that the solicitor had little regard for my interests. I don’t know what it was, but someone had goofed. No one sought advice from me. If there was any doubt they should have contacted me and asked.

I rang Wridgways to find out when our furniture would be delivered. It would be delivered on the 4th July. Now that’s curious, considering Wridgways in Melbourne said our things would be delivered definitely before July. It sounds as though Mark De Lacy, the Melbourne Wridgways guy, was making things up when he said our furniture would be delivered before the end of the month.

Is that the technique? Whenever there is a problem, just open your mouth and tell the punters a whole heap of crap. It doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not just smooth the waters to get them out of your hair. Well, it fitted with the whole Wridgways experience.

A duty of carelessness

The solicitor rang. She said, “Settlement went through without a problem.” This was really good to hear. And then she dropped a bombshell. She mentioned, in what seemed like a passing comment that there was a cheque for about $90,000 in my name. The cheque was in her office and ready to pick up.

Wrong! Wrong! Wrong! Wrong!

This was dumb to write a cheque. This amount was to remain in my home loan offset. I didn’t need this money as a cheque, cash, or anything else. This was an amount that was built into my home loan should I need cash for something in the future, but at the home loan interest rates.

The home loan interest is calculated on the amount that is borrowed. I had no intension of borrowing the full amount available to me, but now that a cheque has been issued the interest that will be calculated will be based on the full amount, rather than just the cost of the house. While these funds remained in the offset I would not be charged interest on them.

This offset amount was never actually intended to be borrowed. It was money for a rainy day; a kind of nest egg. However, now that a cheque has been issued I will be paying interest on an additional $90,000 that I have no need for. She said she “…was instructed by Virgin’s agent to draw all funds.” I find that difficult to believe. It was Virgin that had set up the offset. Surely, they knew what an offset was. Surely, they’d know they were going to send me a cheque book. Surely, they’d know I could write my own cheques whenever I wished. Whatever it was that happened between these two at settlement I’ll never know, but between the two of them they goofed badly, and stuffed me up into the bargain.

Put it back into the account, I said.
It can’t be done, the solicitor said.
Why not, I asked.
Because it’s in your name, she said.
I have no means to put it into my account, I said.
She said sorry.

Aggh!

Virgin Home Loans claim that one of the ways they keep their interest rates low is by having no shop front. With a bank you front up to one of their branch offices and carry out your business. With Virgin there is no branch office that you can visit to speak to someone from Virgin Money. Everything is done by phone, and if you want to make additional payments you go to your local Post Office with your special Virgin Home Loan ID card in hand and make the deposit, and your deposit gets directed into your account that’s encoded on the plastic card. This seems a simple process, and that’s how I would deposit the cheque into my home loan account. However, as a new customer Virgin Money hadn’t got around to sending this card. Without the card I can’t return the funds to my account. So, until the deposit card gets delivered I’m paying out more on interest than I need.

I think I just need to remind everyone about the people I’m dealing with: My home loan comes courtesy of Virgin Money who provided the cheque that I don’t need, and my solicitor who works with William Heague accepted this cheque without my instruction.

Both the lender and the solicitor appear to have shown little interest in my needs. Acted contrary to my wishes, in fact. You’d think with mobile phones someone might have spotted this whole situation as a bit odd, and thought, perhaps they should speak to me. But no, that was too difficult. Lazy sods. And to think these people bill for their services.

Melbourne to Canberra

So, with S in the MR2, packed to the brim, me in the truck, we arrived in Canberra not at 11.00pm on the same day as we had hoped, but 8.00am on the next morning. It was a lousy trip. We were both tired. Watching the tail lights of the car in front bob around, rather than remain focused. Was that because they were bobbing around or because I was nodding? We took lots of breaks. S was driving behind me said she began to see a face on the back of the truck. I woke with a start at one point to the sound of a horn then realised I was leaning on the steering wheel. There was no way to get comfortable, and you can’t sleep in the driver’s seat.

It was early in Canberra when we arrived. I dropped off S at my lodgings. I’d previously flagged her arrival with my landlord. She went straight to bed. No sleep for me as yet, and I drove the truck to Flynn, which fortunately wasn’t too far away, to unload our stuff. We had made arrangements with the owners, who were still living in the house. They were happy for us to drop off our things. Anyway, most of the truck was loaded with pot plants and other bits and pieces that could stay outside or in the carport.

Gerald was there. He is a friend of the owners, and he helped me reverse the truck up the driveway, which was good of him. It would have been tricky on my own.

There was surprisingly little damage to the plants during the journey. The table tennis table had been set up as a table inside the truck on its trestle legs. I had screwed them open and linked them together with a piece of timber to prevent them moving during the trip. Having legs collapse during the trip would have been nasty. And it all worked very well.

I had placed large plants under the table with smaller pots on top. I also had a couple of pieces of steel reinforcing mesh; the type that concrete workers immerse inside concrete. I was going to leave this behind, not really having a use for it, and then S said it would easily go on the floor of the truck. In fact, it helped locate the plant pots in position and prevented them from moving around.

I was unloading the stuff, and the whole family turned out to greet me. K showed me through the house, offering me a coffee which was welcome, and we had a chat which I couldn’t afford. I wanted to get on with things, catch a nap, and get back to Melbourne, and I also had a very inquisitive little girl of theirs chatting and trying to help unload the stuff. What else can you do but go with the flow, and let her carry the odd thing. We were already a day behind because of the Wridgways removalist stuff up.

I had a worrying telephone conversation in the morning. My Canberra solicitor (Jaki) rang while I was unloading the truck to ask how I would be making the loan repayments. She said she had had someone on the phone from Virgin enquiring. I wonder why Virgin didn’t contact me directly. This was a bizarre question. Why didn’t they know this already? I’d already completed these details which were on the documentation that had been sent to me while in Melbourne, and had been returned to them. I told her how I’d completed the documentation and returned it by express mail. I was perplexed as to why they didn’t know, and said as much to Jaki. She was short with me saying that I’m not answering the question. She was rude. She worked with William Heague. I think it’s worth making a note of this. Anyway, she was correct; I wasn’t answering the question. I wanted her to tell me why they didn’t know something I’d only recently informed them of. She made no attempt to explain why they might be asking this, I provided the information, and she rang off. Virgin Home Loans or their legal people seem to be ignoring their own paperwork.

It’s bizarre that these legal people spend so much effort on sending documentation to customers, making it so difficult to cope with, and then when you return it to them including the basic information, like yeah, there will be a regular salary deduction toward the home loan, and they can’t read their own forms but have to ask you the same thing all over again. Nutty.

When the unloading was done I drove the truck to my digs.

I packed up the stuff that I had been collecting at my digs, loaded it into the truck. It was a handy bonus having the truck to do this. I drove it up to Flynn and unloaded it there. I had more stuff than I expected, filling the entire floor of the truck.

So, with the MR2 parked under the Flynn carport, we’re ready to set of on a return trip to Melbourne. Got to get the rental truck back to Melbourne before 8.00am. I’ll sleep in the truck while S drives.

The 'to do' list grows

I had a very large ‘to do’ list, and only got through part of it with the most important being that the home loan forms got signed, witnessed, and sent off to Virgin Home Loan’s solicitors.

A day of packing and even more packing. The garage is a mess. I hope it comes together in time for the removalists. Emptied a sideboard that was in the garage. That was where the old stereo and my old uni notes were stored, but rats had taken up residence. I wrapped the stereo in plastic and old sheets to keep the dust out, but all it was doing was keeping the piss in close contact with everything.

I had to throw out a lot of urine soaked photocopies. But then, if I haven’t used then in all this time, I’d be unlikely to use them at all.

I've just noticed the tags I've selected: I seem to have inadvertently placed rodents and solicitor in the one posting. I wonder if there is a message there. Freud might have been proud.

The legal stuff arrived

S did a stint of teaching at Monash. I returned a missing printer panel to a chap at East Bentleigh. I had sold an old printer to this guy on ebay, and months afterward realised there was a panel that had been left off, which made me feel bad. This was almost a year ago, and I only made this discovery while I was in Canberra. Anyway, this guy lived near to where I’d dropped S off. So, I paid him a visit while she was teaching. This chap was an enthusiast and bought the printer pretty much because it was a museum piece. He had collected a multitude of old computers some of which were quite impressive looking items.

We also spoke of the Monash University computer museum. He hadn’t seen it. It’s really a must see if you like that sort of thing. The museum has displays of calculating devices through the ages. Of all the items on display the one that got my attention and drew me up with a start was a terminal-come-printer of a type I had occasionally used when I was studying at uni. Things change quickly. Another interesting thing in one of their displays was an example of computer memory, which was essentially a wire spiral. I don’t really understand the principle involved in this, but presumably, by the time it took a charge to accumulate in the wire and dissipate, it stored the value for a short time. I wonder why a capacitor wouldn’t have done. An excellent display.

Melody called today. S made herself scarce, and I showed her around the garden and house, pointing out the various things, and gave her $350 for rent with our extended overstay. I said we’d leave the keys and garage door clickers on the bench.

A package of home loan documents (from Virgin Money’s solicitors) was sitting on top of the letterbox when we got back from Monash. Balanced precariously – thanks Australia Post. This was not a one or two page form to sign, but a massive bag of stuff to wade through. The swanky bag had “your home loan is in the bag” written on the side. Don’t you love it? I think it would have been fitting if instead the bag had the words, ‘we’ve put more hoops in the bag for you to jump through.’

A reading of the documents was more confusing than informative, but because it arrived late on Friday there was no time to contact anyone to clear up the issues. The document referred to monthly repayments – I wanted fortnightly repayments. They want insurance documentation for $210k, but I’ve already got insurance for $183k. And they want a rates notice! How could I possibly have a rates notice? I don’t live there yet. And they want an ID form sent via the Post Office. Most of the material they are asking for is in Canberra. I wish they’d said something to me before I drove down to Melbourne.

Tiffany dropped off the ute in the drive, but kept the ignition key. I gave her the cheque from the leasing company, and she completed the transfer of registration form, and passed that across with the RWC and car handbooks. This is step closer to actually having a car, but frustrating not to be given the ignition key. At least I can work on the ute and make a start to fitting the four anchor points that will secure the campervan that needs to go onto the ute. Everything is happening much slower than I’d like.

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.

Don't trust the removalist

I rang to check how things were going with the removalist companies. I wasn’t aware of it when I started this, but it turned out that there was a contract between the company I worked and a particular removalist firm. I had no choice but to use them. I needn’t have got quotes from other companies. Wridgways was the preferred company.

I rang the Wridgways Canberra office to check on the quotation. They said they were busy “crunching the numbers.” That could mean they are working on a price, or it could have meant something along the lines of oops we’d better get on with that job.

An important point for me to check with the removalists was when they might want to be paid. This was an issue that was dear to my heart. I had a nasty experience when I was moving from Tasmania to Victoria a few years ago. Something I didn’t want to repeat. We had used Watkins Removals in that shift. I was at work in my new job on the day our furniture arrived, and S rang to say the removalist truck had arrived at our new place. She said the men were refusing to unload our furniture until they were paid. I found this an unexpected event, particularly as it hadn’t been raised with us beforehand. It was a tricky situation, made worse by the fact that there wasn’t much in the way of cash in my bank account at that time. I got out of it by sweet talking my boss, who faxed a note to the company indicating they would be assisting with expenses, and to bill them. I didn’t want to be in that situation again, and put it to Wridgways. They assured me that this situation would not occur, and they said they would probably bill the company. Anyway, it’s as well to commit people to arrangements, and then you can argue with them later from solid ground.

I noticed on the documentation I’d received from my solicitor there was reference to something about Perpetual Limited. It sounded like the name of an insurance company. Apparently it is the organisation that will be funding my home loan, along with a little note I almost missed which said that if this name did not appear on my insurance policy, settlement may be delayed. I’m glad I spotted it. I would have thought such an important issue would have been emphasized by all concerned.

I spoke with David at Virgin Home Loans, and he explained something of the background, much of which I didn’t understand. So, if I get this wrong, I’m sorry. However, it would seem that Virgin Money operates under something called a ‘scrutinized program’. An organisation called Perpetual Limited, which is affiliated with Reserve Bank managed investment bonds of the Macquarie Bank. The consequence of this is that Perpetual Limited is an interested party in our home loan. If the house burns down they want their cut. Hell, I thought I was borrowing Virgin Money funds.

I had promised Fay, our Warrandyte conveyancer, some information regarding the trouble we had been put to in getting the deposit, and emailed this along with a proposal for her to put to Melody, through her solicitor, that we deal directly with Melody, rather than giving her solicitor a $300 set up fee to rent the Warrandyte house. I’m annoyed at the whole thing. I’m not feeling too kindly to paying $650 for about a week’s stay.

Pat the Warrandyte neighbour has been coming down making a nuisance of herself. It’s not our fault that her cat would rather sleep in our place than live in a cage at Pat’s house. No wonder it escapes and seeks out a snugly warm place.

Greedy lawyer, bungling conveyancer

The nicest thing that happened today was that David from Virgin Home Loans rang to say that our home loan had been approved. The valuation had been sent in on the Saturday (now there’s an odd day of the week for someone to be working), and with that being the last step the funds for the loan were approved. He said he would contact Vickie, the Canberra conveyancer, and Virgin’s solicitors would send the relevant documentation regarding the home loan to Warrandyte.

Fay, our Warrandyte conveyancer, had got word from Melody’s solicitor about the change in settlement date. I was wondering if that was in response to me emailing our real estate agent, who made contact with them to arrange it, or was it just coincidence? Who knows, and who cares? The settlement date has been changed, and that was excellent news. However the bad news was that her solicitor will charge $300 to set up the documentation whereby we rent our property for $350 pw for the few days we have to stay past the settlement date. Fay said her solicitor is one of the most expensive in Melbourne. S was enraged at this fee. I expected a nominal fee, but not the $300. What sort of crap is this? Greedy lawyer.

I was pleased it was the last legal problem. Though, the idea of paying a fee on top of rent to rent my own house was burning at me throughout the day. Perhaps we should charge a $300 fee for a final inspection. We didn’t get our deposit from this buyer for so darn long, and I didn’t charge a fee. And now this. To point out that this is unfair is an understatement.

Two letters arrived. One from Fay – Transfer of Land, and a Goods Statement. Another letter arrived from Vickie confirming that contracts had been exchanged. The letter went on to say that “settlement will be on or before 19th May, next.” Hang on. Wasn’t May last month? It must be a typo. I liked the reference to when stamp duty had to be paid: “By this date, from sale proceeds in Victoria.” Which date was that? Oh, yes: “this date.” How more vague can you be? It was also interesting to see under the Insurance heading: “Lender’s name: Perpetual Limited.” I wonder where that came from as I had just insured the property with GIO. I’m not sure if there is any point in trying to work this out? It’s confusing. Though, mistakes such as the typo don’t extend your faith in the people managing your affairs.

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.

A loan organised, settlement stuffed

We visited Westpac at Eltham to talk to their loans officer about home loans and I went over my recent experiences with Mal at Belconnen. Who knows, a new enquiry with someone different might put something new on the plate for us to consider.

The loans officer we spoke with was hesitant to ‘step on his toes’ as she said, “he had progressed the loan,” which was interesting because I never said we’d be going with Westpac. In fact I had been open with Mal saying how I was shopping around, and would let him know my decision when I returned from Melbourne. The Eltham loans officer was very helpful, and explained the various options and how they might benefit or disadvantage us.

She couldn’t better or match Virgin’s rate, but came up with an alternative – a Premium Option loan. This loan did not have an offset facility but the extra amount beyond what we paid remained available for redraw; I presume this was the ‘limit’ that was available with our previous home loan.

It’s as well to confirm things. It does no harm and you might regret not checking later. We got word from Virgin Home Loans.

There was a letter waiting for us when we got back home after visiting the bank. It was from Virgin advising that a Rocket Repay Home Loan application had been approved. It was good to get it. We’ll go with Virgin rather than Westpac.

Later in the day, we also visited our conveyancer who was assisting in the sale of our Warrandyte property. There was some paperwork to be taken care of. Fay, our conveyancer, worked from her home and had set up an office there. Whatever works, I guess. Her office was on the way to one of our shopping centres, so it was convenient to call in there on the way.

Fay was an unusual person. She was quite an experience to work with. She seemed to know her job in so far as she always had an answer whenever requested, but we both found conversing with her to be an unusual experience. Most communication with her seldom flowed as a conversation does. Possibly, with her being in this industry for so long she had come across all or most questions people put to her. She had a disconcerting habit of not waiting until you had finished asking the question and would interrupt and begin offering you the answer before you had finished putting the question. On most occasions this okay, but sometimes she should have waited until the question was out there.

We passed across the documents she needed and sat waiting while she completed her work. I thought, given this opportunity, with the three of us together that I might ask about settlement. I was curious as to the procedures that might happen at settlement. I had various assumptions about what happens during these transactions. To me, settlement was when the deal is completed: the buyer (through their conveyancer) provides the money, and the seller (through their conveyancer) hands over the title and keys of the property, or something similar. I have a semi romantic image of people seated around a large mahogany table in a wood panelled room, with them carefully and systematically checking their documents and passing cheques around.

It’s probably nothing like that, but because the public seldom get to see what happens it has always been both a mystery and a curiosity to me. However, I didn’t get too far in my enquiry when we got side tracked onto a particular aspect of settlement. I’m glad I asked, and thank my lucky stars to have asked. My innocent little question was quite an eye opener, as it happened. I wonder why no one mentioned the problem to us.

It turned out that there will be a delay in transferring funds following the sale of our Warrandyte property to when they become available for the Canberra property. It seems that banks have set things up so that there is a three day delay in the funds transfer process. It doesn’t matter whether you have the cash in the bank, the technicalities of which are not clear to me, but the funds from the settlement of our Warrandyte house will not be available to purchase the Canberra house until three business days have passed. The settlement date of the Canberra house is the 19th June. The settlement date of the Warrandyte house was a few days earlier; insufficient time for the funds to be transferred.

Fay said this is not a problem when buying and selling within the same state because the bank cheque can be exchanged on the same day, but there is no way we can get the funds interstate during business hours, on the same day. She also said the funds could be deposited directly into our Canberra solicitor’s trust account, but they still wouldn’t have access to the money for three business days.

Apparently, funds sometime go astray during interstate transactions. Three days was considered by banks to be an appropriate time to ensure the funds went to the correct locations. If the funds went missing it could be investigated before settlement was scheduled. There is a certain cautious logic in that arrangement, but I wonder who gets the interest during those three days: oh, don’t tell me it’s the banks.

You would have thought the solicitors and conveyancers who were organising the sale and purchase for me would have been aware of this and attempted to avoid the problem. It wasn’t so long ago that the Canberra agent had asked if our Warrandyte settlement date could be shifted to match the Flynn settlement date, and this was done. This was no doubt at the Flynn owner’s request, the owner of Flynn is a solicitor who was doing his own conveyancing. Why didn't he know? So, how is this dilemma to be resolved?

One solution might be getting the settlement of the Canberra house put back a few days – I will ask B, our agent to make some enquiries to see if this can be done. Another solution may be to change settlement of the Warrandyte house forward three days. I don’t really want bridging money for some restriction the banks had imposed.

And I thought our problems were over when Deposit Power rang saying the Bond Certificate was in the mail.

I would have thought that a pair of conveyancers working for the same client would get together and work these things out. I would have thought that this was part of the service that I was paying them; to alleviate problems. They both knew I was buying/selling interstate. So why didn’t they offer advice that would help with the transaction rather than potentially stuffing it up. Aggh!