Project New Home: Almost A Reality

Since our offer was accepted yesterday afternoon, Jonathan and I have been dancing around excitedly about the prospect of being in our new home by Christmas time.

We kept pinching ourselves that we have found our dream home, and are now waiting anxiously for our solicitor to do his thing prior to exchange.

The solicitor we engaged is a long term associate of Dad's, and someone I have had dealings with in my past working as a paralegal. The solicitor fondly remembers our past dealings, and continues to tell Dad to this day (some 15 years later) that he thought I was one of the most efficient and thorough paraglegals he had had the pleasure of doing business with.

Our lovely agent called late yesterday afternoon to ask for Jonathan and my full names, as well as our solicitor's details, which I promptly emailed over. The contract front page was amended and was faxed straight to our solicitor, who called me to confirm he had received the front page. We talked about a few things, namely the settlement date of the contract. Oddly enough, a date has been specified on the contract for settlement, and not the usual 6 weeks from the date of exchange as is with most conveyancing contracts.

The specified date is 1 December, which makes it 3 or so weeks before Speedy is due to join us. The timing was just a bit too tight for us, so we had asked the agent to speak with the owners about shifting the date earlier, if possible, to mid November.

Our solicitor asked us if the settlement date was a deal breaker, and in all honesty, it's not, but it would be lovely to be in our new home and all settled in before Speedy joins us, and definitely before Christmas. Moving house is stressful at the best of times, and I would hate to go into labour early. In fact, Speedy is not allowed to make his grand entrance any earlier than 18 December - if he does, I will lose my paid maternity leave, which would suck for all involved.

So we asked our solicitor to go back and talk to the vendors' solicitors about moving the settlement date, and he warned us that even if the vendors are willing to move the date, to say, 15 November, they still don't have to settle on that date - there are provisions for the vendors to settle within 14 days after the specified settlement date.

We've just heard from the solicitor, and he said that the vendors were unwilling to commit to an earlier settlement date. The instructions that came back were that they will try their best to settle in mid-November, but the settlement date will still remain 1 December as stipulated on the front page of the contract. Our solicitor asked us if we would like to negotiate the 1 December date to be "time of the essence", which means settlement must take place on that date, and we agreed that would be the best course of action for now.

Now we wait and see what happens next. The contract was being sent to the solicitor, so he'll be in touch when he's gone through the contract with a fine tooth comb. Stay tuned!