All Change

A week last Tuesday we had a phone call from the Estate Agents down in Kent. Apparently the people we were buying the house from in Littlestone had had second thoughts about selling. They were peeved that a house a few doors down had just been sold for £50,000 more than they were selling their house to us for. The Estate Agent tried to explain that their neighbours had sold a far bigger house with far better fixtures and fittings but they were not mollified and insisted that they were taking their house off the market with a view to re marketing it for £50,000 (ish) more.

So what did that mean to us? well we were stuffed. There was no way that we could afford the extra 50k even if we thought that the house was worth it (which it isn't) To say that were were livid is something of an understatement but after I'd dried my tears of hurt and anger we set about trying to arrange yet another trip down to Kent to start the whole process of house hunting again.

It never ceases to amaze me how selfish some people can be. If they were having second thoughts why did they leave us hanging on for two months believing that they were looking for a new place that they were going to have as a restoration project?

We had an inkling a few weeks before the bombshell that all was not well, nothing tangable, just a feeling that they were dragging their heels. We'd been down and tried to find another property 'just in case' but had been pipped at the post (literally by a matter of hours) on a house that would have made a brilliant, if not totally wacky, family home.

If they had only let us know sooner that they were having second thoughts we could have a) bought the wacky home at a knock down price and b) saved ourselves about £1000 in surveyors fees and travel expenses up and down from Cheshire.

The outcome of all this nonsense is that we have now put in an offer on a property in Hythe. It is only about 50 metres from the beach and just a short stroll into town. So it's fingers crossed all over again, although in fairness, these sellers seem a lot less 'flaky' than the last ones. They genuinely want to sell but as they still have to find somewhere to buy, it may be a while before we are moving.

(And there is no truth in the rumour that I have put a hex on the vendors of the first house - as if I'd do anything like that!)