A Conveyance of Disappointment

So at long last, after nearly 5 months, my mother's house is sold.

It's been a long uphill struggle. After an estate agent that overvalued the property, and advised us that doing a “offers above" price would work best, we've actually managed to sell it. Why anybody would offer more than the price listed on an estate agents card is beyond me. Particularly for a small  2 up 2 down terrace property just outside Rotherham! Anyway, I did manage to get a discount on the estate agents fees by challenging her that I thought the property had been put on the market at the wrong price.

Actually the selling price  was rather  immaterial. All the proceeds over and above £24,000 will go to the government  to pay for my mother's care. The slow drip feed of my inheritance into the coffers of Rotherham Metropolitan Borough Council.

We accepted an offer from somebody £6000 below the asking price on condition that they were a cash buyer and would move quickly. That was in May! I  don't think the other buyer has deliberately delayed. I certainly haven't delayed, and wanted the whole process to be over as quickly as possible and appease my Mothers worries. It is after all for her the last stage of settling comfortably into Rotherwood, the care home which she now calls home and where I rather fell she rules the roost.  So who was holding up the process?

I'm sure any of you that have bought or sold a home will know the answer. Solicitors. And what were they doing? Conveying. And what were they conveying? Well, it certainly wasn't information to me! Solicitors seem quite happy to just take the instructions and leave you in the dark for weeks. I remember this happened when Richard and I bought our current flat, and it has certainly just happened during the sale of my mother's house. Having instructed the solicitors back in May, I heard nothing from them for several weeks. I rang and asked if I could get a timescale of how we expected things to proceed. The solicitor tells me that the client will now be trying to get their mortgage together and that we will have to wait until that has happened. I  said "could you check that out" as it  sounded rather strange. The estate agent had told me they were cash buyers and developers so in a position to move immediately. The solicitor looked down at her papers, and if a blush could be communicated  along the telephone lines, then one came my way.

“Oh yes" she replied “I see that they are"

“Which means!" I asked in the spirit of  hopeful enquiry. 

“ Well, it should all move quite quickly now then" she said. That was the end of June. We completed on Friday. Actually it wasn't all down to her delaying or not chasing things up. The other party's solicitor went on a two-week holiday which meant that the whole process ground to a halt  as evidently that meant there was nobody else in his office  who could deal with anything.

The only upside of this is  at least when you're selling a property and not buying one, the fees are low. Much lower than the fees of the barely competent estate agents.