So much has happened, most of it not good at all.
Conveyancing rumbled on at the beginning of last week and by Tuesday we are the point where the only thing holding up exchange is my mortgage offer paperwork. I have been chasing Chelsea as much as possible and Mark has been liaising with the central office on my behalf. On Tuesday at 4.45pm, I am just leaving the office to go and order my kitchen from B&Q when I get a call from Mark. He wants to ask me a few questions about my bank statements. I politely point out that I have answered many, many questions about my bank statement already. In fact I spent half an hour on the phone to Claire answering questions about my bank statement. I’ve no idea why the underwriters care that I spent £7 in a kitchenware shop, but I did, and I don’t care so there *raspberry*. He then informs me that all is fine and the underwriters will now be processing the paperwork. However I’m not fooled. Claire told me the same thing when I ran through my bank statement with her WEEKS ago.
From Wednesday until Thursday I’m kept on the end of a bloody string – being given deadlines by Mark “Well we did to get this done by 10am or we won’t be able to release the funds in time” followed by “well we can still do it via telegraphic transfer, but it will cost you an extra £25” (I told him where he could stick his £25). All this time, apparently, the underwriters are chasing up with the compliance department, who for all I know have serious concerns over the fact that I once spent 99p on a lolly.
Apparently Chelsea could have got the paperwork, exchanged and completed on Friday, but in the end I called it off at 4.30 on Thursday when the papers were not through.
To add insult to injury. POP rang me on Friday to tell me that after I’d damn near given myself a stroke getting all the papers sorted out in time, my buyers couldn’t release the funds in time to exchange that day. At this point I strapped on my angry eyes and considered (for the first time, but not the last) going on a mad axe rampage.
The weekend passed, I did a bit of halfhearted packing (by this point, I have actually stopped believing that I will ever get to move) and before I knew it, we were at Monday morning. I feel quite cheerful. Today is the day. I will exchange and then everything is ok for completion on Wednesday. Easy peasy. I call my solicitor first thing to get him on the case. He tells me that he is waiting to hear from the buyers’ solicitor on whether they are able to release the deposit funds for exchange. I suggest that he chase them up on that – he says that he will if he hasn’t heard anything by lunchtime. Useless eejit. Does he have more hours in the day than the rest of us? Only thing I can think of to explain the complete lack of urgency attached to everything.
I call him mid afternoon when I have heard nothing. He tells me that he chased up (Not sure when – 1 or maybe 2ish, lalalalaaaa) and has not heard back from the other solicitor. A vein starts to slowly throb in my forehead. I stress the importance of exchanging today. In one ear and out the other. I’m starting to really hate this man.
At 5pm I get another call from him. He has received a call from the other solicitor and wanted to check with me if I was still ok to complete on Wednesday. WHAT THE F@CK IS HE WAITING FOR? A GOLDPLATED INVITATION???!!!! JUST EFFING EXCHANGE, I HAVE BEEN CHASING YOU ALL DAY! DON’T YOU THINK I MIGHT HAVE MENTIONED IT IF I WANTED TO CHANGE THE EFFING COMPLETION DATE???!!!! I then receive another call from him at 5.30 explaining that he has been unable to contact the other solicitor and there will be no exchange of contracts today. Frankly I lose it. I tell him to make sure the exchange happens tomorrow by 10am – no pissing around waiting till lunchtime – just GET THE EFFING JOB DONE! I point out that this is costing me extra money – we’re now looking at the telegraphic transfer, and given that there was no earthly reason why we couldn’t have exchanged, I am appalled at the abysmal service. He did not know what to say. I get off the phone, tell my dad the bad news, hang up and cry and cry and cry for about 10 minutes. Murdoch licks my face to try and cheer me up.
I fail to understand why this has to be so difficult? I think these people have law degrees written on the back of a McDonalds napkin in pink crayon. I cannot believe that anyone who has enough passion, commitment, drive and intelligence to get through law school could be so incompetent. It’s just a mystery to me.
So this morning I send Loveless an email to reiterate that I expect exchange to happen by 10am today. Frankly by this point I don’t care what he has to do to achieve this. If he has to run up Haslemere High Street with his chap hanging out, I don’t care - whatever it takes. I go into a meeting at 9.30am and come out to a voicemail message telling me that the buyer is now on board but they are having trouble contacting the people that I am buying from. Good job it was a voicemail or I would have gone ballistic. The vein from yesterday is still throbbing in my forehead and anyone that knows me knows not to mess with the vein. It is a harbinger of doom. I also have a message from my dad. He tells me that he has spoken to Loveless and instructed him to go ahead and exchange as soon as possible, no need to ring me up and check.
12:10 I get a call from Loveless. My heart beats faster in my chest. Unfortunately this only causes the vein to throb harder when Loveless tells me that they are ready to exchange and he is just ringing me to check that I am still ok to go ahead. WHAT THE [insert your favourite expletives here]. I calmly told him to just get the bloody job done.
12:22 I get another call. We’ve exchanged – about effing time too.
