We put our beautiful 2 bedroom "bursting at the seams" house on the market during the 'Rona, and received a near-asking-price offer within 7 days. Chuffed!
Now "proceed-able" (a must during Covid times) we headed out to market to buy a dream house for our growing family.
We viewed so many dreary, over priced, underwhelming houses that I just never thought we'd find anything. And we had our own buyers on the hook, so we really didn't want to waste any time.
2 weeks into our search, a new property popped up. Slightly smaller than we wanted but with a south facing garden that had views across to the black mountains in Wales... no small feat considering that we live in England! The property was being marketed on PurpleBricks and so we were given the tour by the owner herself. She seemed... quirky. But friendly. She mentioned that she'd had buyers pull out before and now she was in a rush to sell. Later we submitted our offer via the web portal.
She countered with a sad story about how she was in a "rush" and chain free (going into a new build) and if we came up to her asking price, she would take it straight off the market. We did. She did. Champagne flowed.
In the coming days, her behaviour became erratic. Just 2 days into conveyancing, she asked us to confirm our desired completion date. We were happy to pencil something in to work towards but she was being odd. She called. A lot. I had to ask her to stop hassling me during working hours. It was constant. She seemed to have nothing better to do! She said she just felt "anxious" because she was "doing it all herself" so we tried to be patient with her. We actually pitied her.
We scheduled a survey and she clammed up. She offered instead to flog us one from a previous buyer who had "dropped out". We declined but she wouldn't stop banging on about it. Eventually we explained that we might consider a lesser survey if we could see the full structural survey from her last buyer. But that we couldn't give her any money for it. Our conveyancing solicitor would go mad if he found out we'd been transferring her money on the side. I mean... c'mon! So, I asked her for the contact details of her previous buyer. She hated this. She cried. She said he was "mean" and would "make up nasty lies about her". She said he'd dropped out because she'd asked him for "a bit more time" just before exchange. She said he called her "crazy". Red flag.
We calmed her down (having decided ourselves that she was pretty nuts... but you're buying the house not the woman, right?) and explained that we wouldn't contact him for his old survey (never bloody wanted to anyway) but we would definitely need to book our own survey. Which we did and the house passed. Phew.
She waffled on during phone calls and voicemails about how we needed to hurry up. She needed this done now. She needed to have moved house yesterday. "Her life was in boxes" and on and on.
And yet, strangely, when we arrived to measure up and have one last look around before, about 4 days before exchange, her house was not remotely packed. Even her ex boyfriends coats were still lined up in the bedroom.
We had a bad feeling, but exchange was just around the corner. We just needed to limp over the line....
And then
24 hours before exchange, she sent a short text:
"I can't do this. I'm sorry".
Suddenly the daily phone calls dried up. We spent the weekend wringing our hands. It was torture. Eventually we got her on the phone on Monday morning. We offered her more money. We offered to pay to store her belongings. She just said she needed more time. The stamp duty holiday was moving out of view for us. She asked if we could wait until November. It was April. We told her to shove it. Blocked her number. Moved on.
She cost us about £9,000 in additional stamp duty (we missed the June deadline) and about £2,000 in surveys and solicitors fees.
We've been in our new home for 3 months now and it is The One. I'm so glad we didn't end up buying the crazy lady's house. I can't imagine better than this! It all works out in the end...