New House

This is a very long, boring Blip about buying a house. Please feel free to skip to the bottom to read about today!!

I have just been hunting through my Blips to find any reference to when we accepted an offer on our house in Bicester. I can't find one. We accepted a low offer in March but the buyers disappeared off the face of the earth after a week - not returning calls, not instructing solicitors and not having the courtesy to actually tell us they'd decided not to buy our house.
So back on the market it went.
I realise I didn't mention the next offer because I couldn't bear to have to have it fall through - again - and have to read about it again next year. It seemed easier not to mention it!! It was about the time Miss E moved schools and my dad had his biopsy and found out he had not one but two different types of cancer. It was a stressful time! 
Sometime in late April we accepted a ridiculously low offer from a couple who are investors. Chain free, used to dealing with renovations and possible mortgage complications involved with a listed property which needed substantial work. Perfect buyers!!
Everything went swimmingly - we were super organised with all the paperwork, kept in touch with solicitors, answered queries immediately.
All the searches came back quickly. Wow, we could be completing in just a few weeks.
A bit of a wait for their mortgage survey. Just like last year. It was like deja vu whenever anyone asked me how the sale was going I replied "just waiting for their mortgage survey.......". We waited with bated breath as that's where it fell through last year. After a couple of weeks waiting I rang the agent to ask him what was going on. It was a Friday. He chased it and was told the survey would be organised within 48 hours and carried out within 14 days. He'd let me know.
I left it a week and then called to chase. He vaguely said that yes he would have expected to have heard by now. No shit. He called the mortgage company and was told the survey had been carried out the previous Monday, May 9th - just two days after I'd called to chase. No-one had asked for a key so it was obviously an office based valuation. On the one hand it was a huge relief that the mortgage had been approved, but heartbreaking to think that if they'd just done an office based valuation last year we wouldn't have lost our beautiful Victorian town house and would be about to celebrate our first anniversary in our new house..... 
Anyway. 
So all was going well. All searches done, mortgage approved, all paperwork up-to-date. Exchange any day now we thought. It was May 17th.
On May 20th I went to see a house in Buckingham - which I did mention in my Blip!! Mr K went to see it the next day and we put in an offer. A bit of back and forth with negotiations but we agreed on a price. Explaining that we'd be exchanging any day now.
Between then and now we've just been waiting for the buyer to exchange without any explanation as to what was taking so long. Everything was done!!
The agent was useless. Leaving long, long, long detailed rambling messages all saying nothing. 
Every day wondering if today's the day we exchange or whether it's the day it all falls through.
By July 8th I'd had enough. I called the agent and said that unless we had a response from the buyer about when they planned to exchange then the whole thing was off and we'd put the house into auction. The deadline for the August auction was yesterday. So they had a week.
He spoke to their solicitor - he weirdly never seems to speak to the buyers themselves - and was assured that they are ready to exchange, have the paperwork and would send it back that very day. 
That was the Friday.
We heard nothing on the Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday or Thursday.
ENOUGH!!!!!!
I rang the agent yesterday morning to say if I didn't have photographic proof that the contract and deposit were in the post by close of business then the house was going to auction. Enough is enough and I couldn't cope with one more day of waiting and wondering. I told him I had an appointment to see the house we're buying tomorrow to take the Little Misses to see it. They know nothing about any of this!! I said I couldn't take them if our sale was going to fall through. I didn't want to let them down like last year.
Staggeringly he was very snippy with me, saying it wasn't his fault and he'd called the solicitor at 9am that very morning for an update.
I don't give a shit!!! Why aren't you calling the buyers and asking them what's going on? Why aren't you doing your job and selling our bloody house?!!!!!! Why are you such a useless estate agent?!!!!!!
I cut him off and said they had until close of business.
He rang Mr K later in the afternoon - obviously not wanting another conversation with me! - to say he'd spoken to the solicitor (why not the f*****g buyers?????!!!!) and she had assurances that they were sending the contract that day (yesterday) by recorded delivery and transferring the deposit electronically to be in a position to exchange on Monday.
Apparently their sale (which we knew nothing about, having been told they were chain free and it was going to be a quick sale!!) had fallen through and they'd been trying to sort a deposit from elsewhere.

So today we took the Little Misses to see our new house. They loved it!! The current owner was there with his daughters - one in sixth form, one in university - and he showed us round. He was really lovely, even offering to go round on the day before we move in to assemble the giant trampoline he's leaving so that the Little Misses can play on it on moving day!
The two daughters have lived their whole lives in the house and it's lovely to think of the Little Misses carrying on. It feels like a lovely family house.
My mum came too and afterwards we went for an explore of the neighbourhood with River. We found a great park and lovely fields for dog walking. And we bumped into one of Miss E's friends from school who was stood outside her house not 500 yards from our new house!! 
So assuming the buyers have done what they said we'll be exchanging on Monday.
I'll believe it when I see it!