The house in Livingston was the first one we owned. We both moved lots of times, but didn't own our homes. That was before marriage, and before children. The past is indeed a different country and I've not updated my passport to go there.
When we moved up here from Suffolk our house was on the market, and we had buyers in place, so we rented the only house we could find to rent in this nice little town, thinking we'd buy later. This was two years ago, and bad things were happening to the housing market. Our buyers demanded ridiculous things and we let them go, and then we couldn't get any interest as our house was perfect for first time buyers, and there weren't any because it was 2010/11 and they couldn't get mortgages. Our estate agents (Flick and son) were great. Our solicitors were great. Nothing was happening. For ages. Our house didn't sell for over a year, and by that time Kenny was thinking of applying for a new job, so we kept on renting.
When it came to starting the conveyancing process to buy the house we like in big seaside town we couldn't find the last solicitor we used in Scotland (Unwins in Livingston - they were excellent), so we asked for recommendations. I posted on Facebook asking any of my friends if they could recommend a fairly local solicitor? I was hoping for a local one so that paperwork would be easier. Nothing. Some people knew of solicitors, but hadn't used them. Some people could recommend we didn't use certain solicitors, but no-one felt they could actually recommend someone. A friend advised me that a good conveyancing solicitor was an oxymoron... To be honest, we've only so far had good experiences with our solicitors when selling houses, so perhaps he's right.
So Kenny's parents recommended their solicitor, near where we're going to live. It made sense, they'll know the area, and Kenny will be able to go in while he's up there with work. So he went to see them, and easy-peasy, we have a solicitor. She has been wonderful, so far. She even gave me a call one time when everything was going a bit Pete Tong with the mortgage company (of which more, next time), just to let me know it happens a lot, and I shouldn't worry about it. She was probably billing me for the time, but it still made me feel much better... and next time I will start to tell you the saga of getting a mortgage.
Today is the fourth day of January. I know I said it wasn't raining yesterday, and it wasn't, then... but it managed to rain before the day was out. Kenny and I had a look at the Met Office website, where you can see weather stats on a map (see left), just to make sure that I wasn't a rain obsessed daft bat. The website is marvellous. Lots of lovely statistics, beautifully illustrated, to look at, and it proved that it's not just my opinion, our little rainy town is under a dark blue (rainy) blot on the map, whereas new big town is in a brown (maybe not arid, but working on it) patch. Obviously, it's not going to hold a candle to Suffolk, but it's better than living in a puddle.
We are away from home visiting relatives at the moment, and I don't know for sure what the weather is doing in rainy town, but I have a sneaking suspicion it isn't as good as it is here. It is a beautiful day. The sun is shining, and it's pretty warm. I was outside not half an hour ago, taking photos with the little girl. All is well with the world.
0 comments:
Post a Comment