karltsmith
2nd December 2004, 10:32 PM
A MOVING STORY!
Well we finally managed it!
Out of the rental and into our new house! All 170 boxes of clobber safely arrived and most of it even unpacked! My thanks to Craig and Justine (ENZ) who were fantastic helping me unpack!
Was it a smooth ride? Anything but!
We don’t do anything the easy way …although I do think that I seem to attract the best and worst of people and so in a way....... “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”
So here it is in a nutshell!
Having purchased said property completion day finally came into view and we were getting exited about moving out of our rental and into our new home!
The first land mine we encountered was by way a good friend who had recommended a firm of solicitors to me and whom I had used to do some preliminary work on a couple of other houses we were considering buying. He informed me that he had just got a bill from them, after buying a rental property that was almost 60% over the original quote.
Two weeks to our completion and I was a bit spooked so I emailed them and asked for clarification of costs as I had been quoted $1100-1200 all up. The person I originally dealt with had moved to another firm and so could not comment directly.
After a couple of days the original fees were confirmed by one of the partners in the firm. I felt reassured and decided to proceed with them as jumping ship at this late stage would involve further documentation and other costs.
I was asked to go in and sign contracts at T minus 10 days to conveyance and was literally ambushed by the other partner of the firm and was told that she didn’t like the way I handled this case! What followed was a full blown row that could be heard throughout the building during which they accused me of not paying my bills (untrue, their accounts had received several payments and had assigned them against the wrong properties…incompetent or what?), I was accused of lying about the fees I was quoted although they gave me nothing in writing and my friend had a similar figure quoted by the same person. I then asked her for some legal advice…..”does this letter from your office that was sent to me following a request for clarification of your fees, that refers to you partners agreement to these fees of $1100-1200 constitute a legal contract?” Her reply “I refuse to answer that question”…..very professional.
After 45 mins of arguing, I could go on, suffice it to say I wrapped her in so many knots and found so many loopholes in her lack of management systems that she left the office leaving me with the person whom I had originally gone to see to sign contracts. There are liars, damned liars and then there are solicitors! Under duress I decided to continue with them just for the sheer hell of it and to ensure that if anything did go wrong I could sue them…….and did anything go wrong I hear you asking…sure as eggs is eggs it did……I’ll come back to that later!
Before the day of conveyance it is a good idea to go and inspect the property and chattels prior to completion and I duly did. During my visit the vendor mentioned that they were moving out 3 days earlier than expected and hadn’t told us. As it stood, they new we wanted earlier completion to avoid the cost of going into a motel for a few days while they moved out. So I got them to agree to and earlier completion, the next day in fact.
My bank (ASB) we terrific and arranged a bank cheque for our funds. The furniture removers were great too and arranged to move us in in the evening. The only thing outstanding was to get the vendors solicitors to contact my solicitors to formally agree the exchange. Did they? Did they hell! A further two phone calls to the vendor and finally they called my solicitor to agree. Did my solicitor contact me to tell me this so I could cancel my motel booking, confirm things with my movers, landlord etc. You guessed it..NO! I phoned them right at the end of the business day to be told “yes we have agreed with the other party” no feed back whatsoever without chasing!
On the day of completion I was contacted by my solicitor around mid day to tell me that they hadn’t received any funds (mortgage portion of this transaction) from my bank and would I contact them to find out why! My answer “ WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR” I spoke to my bank who told me that my solicitors hadn’t requested to draw down the money i.e. they hadn’t asked for it to be transferred, so t never would have happened without me getting involved. ASB again, to the rescue, arranged to jump the queue a bit and send the funds priority numero uno it took them just 20 mins and they called me personally to confirm the transfer. We go completion at 4:45 pm….. big sigh of relief!
On the day of the move, the following day, we moved out of the rental and that went as smooth as silk but what awaited us at the new house was a bit of a surprise! The place was filthy! They had arranged a cleaner to come in to clean the place before we arrived and had then turned the power off! Even though we had agreed prior it should be left on. So the cleaner came, cleaned the bathrooms and then left again with a note to say she would be back later in the day!
Fortunately I’m an ex Boy Scout and being ever prepared I spotted an opportunity to have the place steam cleaned before we started getting our stuff in. The steam cleaner came at1:00pm and I watched in horror as the rather non-descript greyish carpet turned fern green before our eyes! By 2:30 pm he had finished.
My wife started cleaning out the walk in pantry adjoining the kitchen to be faced with hundreds of dead spiders and dead black things that do not bear description. The vendors were Doctors incidentally and managed a medical practice!
The cleaner then arrived at about 3:00pm and cleaned for another couple of hours before our furniture arrived at 6:00pm one hour ahead of schedule. All boxes placed in rooms, beds made, kids packed off to bed at 8:00pm and my wife an I unpacked the essentials before retiring at 11:00pm.
The following afternoon Craig and Justine (ENZ members) arrived and really got stuck into unpacking all out clobber. Its so nice to see your stuff again after eight months and once unpacked it starts to feel like home.
My girls are really happy and keep asking as we go out if we are coming back to our new house….bless!
The vendor has left about 20 cubic metres of garden waste cunningly disguised as compost heaps! We will soon knock it into shape however. I hope you all have better experiences and remember “what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger”!
Finally I suppose you can plan for everything you can think of, as we had done and still be let down by the most unexpected events…it pays to be a boy scout! DIB DIB DIB! My apologies for not mentioning the wild Gypsies as promised…….but then you may never have read this if I hadn’t provided a carrot or in this case Gypsies!
Karl
Well we finally managed it!
Out of the rental and into our new house! All 170 boxes of clobber safely arrived and most of it even unpacked! My thanks to Craig and Justine (ENZ) who were fantastic helping me unpack!
Was it a smooth ride? Anything but!
We don’t do anything the easy way …although I do think that I seem to attract the best and worst of people and so in a way....... “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times”
So here it is in a nutshell!
Having purchased said property completion day finally came into view and we were getting exited about moving out of our rental and into our new home!
The first land mine we encountered was by way a good friend who had recommended a firm of solicitors to me and whom I had used to do some preliminary work on a couple of other houses we were considering buying. He informed me that he had just got a bill from them, after buying a rental property that was almost 60% over the original quote.
Two weeks to our completion and I was a bit spooked so I emailed them and asked for clarification of costs as I had been quoted $1100-1200 all up. The person I originally dealt with had moved to another firm and so could not comment directly.
After a couple of days the original fees were confirmed by one of the partners in the firm. I felt reassured and decided to proceed with them as jumping ship at this late stage would involve further documentation and other costs.
I was asked to go in and sign contracts at T minus 10 days to conveyance and was literally ambushed by the other partner of the firm and was told that she didn’t like the way I handled this case! What followed was a full blown row that could be heard throughout the building during which they accused me of not paying my bills (untrue, their accounts had received several payments and had assigned them against the wrong properties…incompetent or what?), I was accused of lying about the fees I was quoted although they gave me nothing in writing and my friend had a similar figure quoted by the same person. I then asked her for some legal advice…..”does this letter from your office that was sent to me following a request for clarification of your fees, that refers to you partners agreement to these fees of $1100-1200 constitute a legal contract?” Her reply “I refuse to answer that question”…..very professional.
After 45 mins of arguing, I could go on, suffice it to say I wrapped her in so many knots and found so many loopholes in her lack of management systems that she left the office leaving me with the person whom I had originally gone to see to sign contracts. There are liars, damned liars and then there are solicitors! Under duress I decided to continue with them just for the sheer hell of it and to ensure that if anything did go wrong I could sue them…….and did anything go wrong I hear you asking…sure as eggs is eggs it did……I’ll come back to that later!
Before the day of conveyance it is a good idea to go and inspect the property and chattels prior to completion and I duly did. During my visit the vendor mentioned that they were moving out 3 days earlier than expected and hadn’t told us. As it stood, they new we wanted earlier completion to avoid the cost of going into a motel for a few days while they moved out. So I got them to agree to and earlier completion, the next day in fact.
My bank (ASB) we terrific and arranged a bank cheque for our funds. The furniture removers were great too and arranged to move us in in the evening. The only thing outstanding was to get the vendors solicitors to contact my solicitors to formally agree the exchange. Did they? Did they hell! A further two phone calls to the vendor and finally they called my solicitor to agree. Did my solicitor contact me to tell me this so I could cancel my motel booking, confirm things with my movers, landlord etc. You guessed it..NO! I phoned them right at the end of the business day to be told “yes we have agreed with the other party” no feed back whatsoever without chasing!
On the day of completion I was contacted by my solicitor around mid day to tell me that they hadn’t received any funds (mortgage portion of this transaction) from my bank and would I contact them to find out why! My answer “ WHAT AM I PAYING YOU FOR” I spoke to my bank who told me that my solicitors hadn’t requested to draw down the money i.e. they hadn’t asked for it to be transferred, so t never would have happened without me getting involved. ASB again, to the rescue, arranged to jump the queue a bit and send the funds priority numero uno it took them just 20 mins and they called me personally to confirm the transfer. We go completion at 4:45 pm….. big sigh of relief!
On the day of the move, the following day, we moved out of the rental and that went as smooth as silk but what awaited us at the new house was a bit of a surprise! The place was filthy! They had arranged a cleaner to come in to clean the place before we arrived and had then turned the power off! Even though we had agreed prior it should be left on. So the cleaner came, cleaned the bathrooms and then left again with a note to say she would be back later in the day!
Fortunately I’m an ex Boy Scout and being ever prepared I spotted an opportunity to have the place steam cleaned before we started getting our stuff in. The steam cleaner came at1:00pm and I watched in horror as the rather non-descript greyish carpet turned fern green before our eyes! By 2:30 pm he had finished.
My wife started cleaning out the walk in pantry adjoining the kitchen to be faced with hundreds of dead spiders and dead black things that do not bear description. The vendors were Doctors incidentally and managed a medical practice!
The cleaner then arrived at about 3:00pm and cleaned for another couple of hours before our furniture arrived at 6:00pm one hour ahead of schedule. All boxes placed in rooms, beds made, kids packed off to bed at 8:00pm and my wife an I unpacked the essentials before retiring at 11:00pm.
The following afternoon Craig and Justine (ENZ members) arrived and really got stuck into unpacking all out clobber. Its so nice to see your stuff again after eight months and once unpacked it starts to feel like home.
My girls are really happy and keep asking as we go out if we are coming back to our new house….bless!
The vendor has left about 20 cubic metres of garden waste cunningly disguised as compost heaps! We will soon knock it into shape however. I hope you all have better experiences and remember “what doesn’t kill us only makes us stronger”!
Finally I suppose you can plan for everything you can think of, as we had done and still be let down by the most unexpected events…it pays to be a boy scout! DIB DIB DIB! My apologies for not mentioning the wild Gypsies as promised…….but then you may never have read this if I hadn’t provided a carrot or in this case Gypsies!
Karl