Wednesday 30 September 2015

The long wait


Things seem to be ticking over smoothly and quietly on the sale and purchase.  In the “quiet” moments I’ve been looking at what I can do to help things along.  I say quiet, I never have a quiet moment, everything has to be planned to the Nth degree to fit in! 
So I have been looking at removal firms.  We haven’t decided whether we are going to use one or do it ourselves with a 3.5 Luton van.  It’s the cost that is putting me off.  I’ve had some quotes in around the £550 – 700 mark which is putting us off.  However for the help on the day, maybe it’s a no brainer.

There are a couple of local firms I am getting quotes from who visit the house and once we’ve got them all we can make a decision based on that.
I’ve just discovered the Agaliving website…..I really shouldn’t look but can’t help myself. 

Maybe I should pack a box or two to keep my mind from wandering.

Tuesday 29 September 2015

House number 2!


What a stressful time moving is turning out to be!  I use moving in the loosest of terms as we’re not moving anywhere just yet!  The first farmhouse has fell through as the valuation on it came back at 25k less than we’d offered to pay and the owner wouldn’t budge at all.  So we walked away.  The house was fabulous and the land was everything we wanted and more, but we wouldn’t pay more than it was worth.  There is too much to do to it to bring it up a decent standard of living and we’d be behind before we started financially, should we ever have had to sell it!
So we quickly set about looking for a new house and viewed four in one weekend.  Each viewing takes up to 1.5 hours depending on how much land comes with it, how big the house is, what outbuildings there are and so on.  We really loved the third farmhouse we viewed that weekend.

After much discussion we put an offer in which was rejected, as was our subsequent offer.  A day or two went by and we waited for them to come back and change their minds.  They didn’t.  I had a growing feeling that we were making a mistake by not upping our offer as the house is perfect and the land is pretty near perfect too.  We could afford the asking price but nobody pays the asking price these days, right?
Well after much to-ing and fro-ing, we settled on a figure which was 10k below the asking price and showed at least a small amount of flexibility from the owner.  That was Thursday 17th September 2015! 

Since then we have sat through the mortgage application again, updated the solicitors, took a hit in the form of a £95 fee for work done on the one that fell through, been asked to move out by end of September and had a whole bunch of paperwork sent through, processed and returned.  Of course we can’t move out by the end of September. 
Where do we stand as of today?  Well the valuation is being completed on Wednesday 7th October and then hopefully the mortgage should be issued shortly after that without any hiccups.  The searches have already been issued and should be back in line with the mortgage being issued.  We’re waiting on the property information form from the people who we are buying from.  That will make for interesting reading.

I’m tentatively hoping for 26th November at the latest but wishing for a lot sooner.
Did I mention it has an Aga?

Sunday 6 September 2015

Whilst we are waiting

We are keeping ourselves busy with natures freebies.  Today we went for our second bramble picking of the year.  We take a good haul but leave plenty for other people and the birds.  They are currently sitting in a bowl of cold water letting all the nasty's float out, before being open frozen and bagged up.  Hubby uses them for his smoothies and I'll of course have to make a apply and bramble crumble with them.  We may go back next week for the last picking.

Rodney and Buster, the two latest additions to the family are settling in very well.  They are 12 weeks old tomorrow and have now had their first injections.  An awful experience for them as the first one is a stinger but it is for the greater good.

In smallholding news, well smallholding to be news, we had a valuation completed on Friday which means we should get the results back by Wednesday.  Fingers crossed they say it is worth what we need for the mortgage. 

I wonder what this week will bring?  Will our buyers finally get organised and get some paperwork through to the solicitor?  Will our purchase property find her onward house as she hasn't as of yet.  She will move in to rented if she needs to but by when is the question!  We are hoping to move on Bonfire night.......It will be a Guy Fawkes we certainly will remember, remember.

Tuesday 1 September 2015

We've moved

blogs.  At least blogs for now.....

We are amazingly in the process of buying our dream farm!

Please follow us on the new link:

http://oursmallholdingadventure.blogspot.co.uk/

Thank you :)

Welcome to our new adventure....

We are about to embark on an adventure that we've dreamt about for a long time.  There's never a perfect time to do anything, something can always hold you back if you let it, so we're taking the bit between the teeth and letting nothing stop us.

'We' is myself, Tracy, husband Steven and children Grace and Jack.  It doesn't stop there as we have Buddy, our black Labrador and Rodney and Buster.  They are 2 Jack Russell's who joined our family on Friday just gone.  There are 4 horses and an extended family & friends in that mix too.

Our 'adventure' is moving to a new home, a smallholding.  We have had an offer accepted on our current house and our offer on the smallholding, or farm as the kids call it, has also been accepted.  Formalities have started and the wheels are in motion.  We hope to be in this side of Christmas and can't wait. 

So why don't you join us as we sell our lovely family home on a main road in North East England and move to a small hamlet, still in North East England, where broadband is the latest thing.  All 2mb max link of it.....

Week 8 - The depths of February and going strong.

We have decided to put the area where the pigs were a few years ago back to grass.  They did a great job of eating what was there, weeds and...