More hum drum here in terms of living - walks, meals etc - so I thought I'd give you an update from the world of International Finance. Irish house buying law works a bit bizarrely compare to the UK in that the two sides do not 'exchange' on the same day. The buyer has to make a firm, legally binding commitment to buy the property (that "Contract of Sale" Mum and Dad signed last week) but the vendor is not similarly tied in for several weeks. Everyone seems to agree that this is weird and a bit unfair on the buyer but it's Irish law and no-one has been able to change it. I guess 50% of those affected (the vendors) like it like that and if you are in a chain I guess it doesn't matter; it'd be like swings and round abouts.
At the time of the CoS, we have to pay a good lump of the money across - normally 10% or so, but in our case, because we've sold the Faversham place and have the money sitting there, we decided to pay it all across and the conveyancing fees. So that's where we are, pretty much all paid up and waiting for the other side to get through the searches (bankruptcy, good 'title', rights of way etc) so that they can give us the keys and, presumably, deeds and documents to prove we own it.
This gives us a strange one-step-removed feeling which is a bit frustating and we can't wait to get in there and start. The only timings we have to go on are some original predictions (the source of which we cannot now remember; possibly the Irish solicitors) of 6-8 weeks from start, which we calender'd out to 2nd Dec, and a more recent promise that we'd be in by Christmas. The solicitor has now transferred all the money and correspondence to what our lovely contact, Mary Rose, amusingly calls "the other side" along with something called the "Closing Searches for completion and return" and ends "We look forward to hearing from you with Closing Documents and Keys to the property". Woo hoo! Mary Rose promises to "let (us) know the minute the keys and documents arrive!!!" which is fairly exciting if a bit woolly in terms of timings and deadlines.
Chuggin' on
Deefs
