Having been given early access to our new house for cleaning and a part move, we merrily went to the property on Tue PM with the front door key. Spent all of Wednesday cleaning and unpacking stuff, felt very organised by the end of the day and fully prepared for the truck removals on Thu morning.....what could possibly go wrong?!
2 "tanks" and 2 trailers for bit of self move before the big day.
That evening I casually asked the agent about the rest of the keys for the property and what time we could collect on completion day.....he didn’t have any and the solicitor also had none. That meant that we could not get into 3 of the 4 doors and much of our gear would not go through the one door that we could open!......our agent chased the vendor and a finger pointing exercise started between the ex owners (now divorced).
So we woke on completion day with only one key and removal guys who would have probably driven away from our old house in an empty van if I had told them of the predicament. After a few hours of calls between agent and both solicitors, I was given the green light to call a locksmith at the vendor’s expense. So I started calling locksmiths.......did the entire yellow pages and none were available until the following day!!!!
The agent and both solicitors had read the riot act to the vendor and they had until 2.30pm to produce keys call in the locksmith. At 1PM, the truck was full and my happy removal men were blissfully aware of the problems that lay ahead. We set off to the new property, me leading with white truck men following, still no idea on the keys or a Plan B......2 minutes to go, with new house in view, my phone goes in car, it's the agent who has had a call from Mrs Vendor who states that he does not have any keys!!! But 9 months ago there used to be one under a rock next to the back door!!!!......BINGO, with are in.
Now, half way through the above, we had a "Buyers final inspection", something I had not heard about until the night before. An Aussie option to inspect the property that you are buying prior to releasing your funds and purchasing.....a bit bloody late if you ask me. However, new "potential" owners arrive at 11.30 on move day for a walk around our half empty old house, for what I thought was going to be a 15minute look to see if the tiles were still on the floor etc etc. 1hr15min later, our agent is stood with them using his Ipad to prove that the blinds in Immi's room are not included in the sale - I'm on the phone outside with my solicitor who has been called by their solicitor saying that they wish to contest the contract.....OMG! its the 11th hour and 59 minutes, the Dorsett's Worldly possessions are on a truck and the purchaser you are about to pull the plug because of a kids roman blind.......
Fortunately, I had spent some of the time during their inspection showing the new Mr 3 Myrtle the pool and a few other features / things we had left so the ice was broken between us and he came out to talk direct - blinds gifted, all sorted. Solicitors horrified that their clients had spoken directly, but a handshake was all it took.
Also, on top of all that action and in the same hour, I had a call from Optus phones saying that after 2 full months waiting our Iphone4s had arrived but we had to pick them up before 5pm or they would sell to another customer! and the flight company called to double check that we would pay for our UK flights by end of business or the price would go up......its nice to be popular.
OK, so that little debacle is over and we get on our way to the new place. On Tue we had found a lot of gear from the last owners of the new place and by a lot I mean a very large skip full – fortunately they agreed to provide a skip. At 3PM on move day a lady walks down the drive and I go to meet her, its Mrs vendor who is very emotional about seeing her Ex-house being filled....we are talking sobbing type emotional....I was mentally "full" by this stage and Sal stepped in to comfort the lady, accepted her forwarding address, agree skip size and turning her around to walk back up the drive way.
We are in the house, everything has gone through. The place is just perfect for us and we struggle to believe that it is all ours.....but looking back, move number 16 was by far the most challenging.
