An exchange of contracts

This week has been a super exciting one in the R-M household. Having had an offer accepted on our first family home back in March, we have finally

 

contracts and are due to move in on the 11th August. Little R-M’s due date is the 7th August, so he or she may well be moving house before reaching one week of age, but there’s nothing I like more than a challenge.

And challenging it has been. I’ve never really understood the saying that moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do before actually doing it. The first flat I bought was chain free and the sale went through in just six weeks with no real problems whatsoever.

This one, however, has been a different kettle of fish and my first two weeks of maternity leave have been long days of chasing estate agents and solicitors as we moved ever closer to the rental agreement on our current flat ending. It was a nail biting finish, but we are there and now nobody can change their minds. Phew!

I won’t bore you with the details of people pulling out of sales due to bad surveys, agreeing new sales at the 11th hour, sub-sale disputes and the like, but I think my favourite story of the sale deserves a mention.

The entire chain was struggling to get in touch with the estate agent at the top of the chain last week and all were getting increasingly frustrated. Removals had been booked, but we were suddenly finding out that exchange (which should have been last Friday) was likely to be delayed by another three weeks, putting the entire thing in danger of collapse for a range of reasons.

So Mr M asked me to pop into town and visit said estate agent to see if I could get any idea of what we were waiting for. So off I waddled.

When I entered the offices and announced myself, the agent (also the manager of the branch) launched into a defensive monologue about how hard he was trying etc etc.

Three minutes later I asked if I could sit down and explain why I was there.

A long ten minutes of it not being his fault (which I never said it was) and not much explanation of the problem, he told me I didn’t understand the role of an estate agent in this process.

I told him my husband was an estate agent, so I was well aware of his job role.

To which he replied: “No you don’t. I have four sisters and they have all bought their own houses.”

I wondered where he was going with this, thinking that perhaps they had thought they knew due to his job.

But no.

He continued: “They have also all done this in varying degrees of pregnancy and got far too emotionally involved in the process.”

Queue jaw dropping.

But he wasn’t finished: “I am fully sympathetic to your situation, but pregnancy is an emotional rollercoaster and you’re probably not thinking as rationally as usual, therefore you are unable to understand my role here.”

What. A. Charmer.

I quietly asked for his director’s details in order to make a formal complaint before leaving his office rather quickly.

Would you complain about him? I haven’t yet, but would love to hear your views.