A spanner in the works: a flat is back on the horizon

Yesterday we found out that the flat in Dalston we bid at auction on 2nd Nov, is back up for auction on Dec 17th. This was the flat that we were competing against one other bidder and in the end was outbid (by a mere 500).

This provided us with a massive dilemna. With the legals already paid for, what do we have to lose in bidding for the property again? We've done all the figures, seen the property and know might be able to get it for a similar price that we bid last time. BUT - obviously, we've just spent a fair bit of money booking our trip to the US.

Darren rang the auction house today (in true real estate fashion he had to leave 2 messages and then keep ringing back). We wanted to establish why the buyer didn't complete on the flat. If it was because they couldn't get a mortgage, then we'd have issues too - so we'd leave the thought behind about bidding for it.

But, it turns out the auction house had been trying to contact us to see if we wanted to purchase it after the other buyer fell through. THe other buyer was actually the previous owner (who had the property repossessed) and was essentially either a: trying to be obstructive and drive up the price or b: genuinely trying to rebuy their flat but without the finance to do it. The buyer didn't even come up with the deposit and the auction house are now trying to sue them.

So frustratingly we WERE the highest real bidder at the auction and shouldv'e know owned it.

The buyer even went so far as to write a fake letter from the 'freeholder' saying there would be works on the property to try and put off potential buyers.

In fact, the freehold has been taken over by HM Treasury because the company has gone into liquidation and the Treasury has written to the auction house to say that they will be offering the freehold to the leaseholders - effectively meaning the flat is a share-of-freehold.

Darren said we'd like to offer 160k to take it off the auction and complete before 31st Dec (when stamp duty comes back into force for properties under 175k. The auction house guy then said (wait for it...) actually, how about you offer 155k and then if the reciever wants a bit more you've got room to go up to 160k. WHAT? A real estate person actually telling us to offer less?! He said he's worked with the recievers for years and know what they're like. He also said they've had interest around the 150k mark, but 155k would still be above everyone else.

We are now awaiting a call tomorrow that will tell us whether we can buy this property. The waiting continues.

Part of me really wants this and the other part really doesn't and just wants to enjoy planning the Big Trip USA.

We booked the 'BIG TRIP'

So.. We took the plunge last week and booked flights to the USA. I've always wanted to spend NYE in New York, so we're departing 31st December and spending 4 nights in NY. So excited. I have a file of cuttings from newspaper travel sections that I've kept for the past 3 years with cuttings on what to do in NY. So with flights booked, we looked at hotels. Hmmmmm.. New Years Eve in NY is extortiante! We ended up booking a 3 star hotel - The Washington Jefferson within walking distance from Times Square. I always thought I'd stay somewhere uber cool, tiny and in Harlem when I went to NY, but sadly, everything seemed to be already booked or ridiculously expensive, so middle of the road hotel in a tourist area it is.

We also made the decision to drive across the US. Yeehah! We're going to leave NY and then drive to LA. We've spent a good deal of time over the past 2 weeks studying the map and seeing what would be the best route to take in what we want to see. Here's what we've come up with:

New York
Washington
Nashville
New Orleans
Dallas
Roswell
Grand Canyon
Salt Lake City
San Francisco
Los Angeles

Here's the route:

http://www.mapquest.com/maps?1pn=Newark+Liberty+Intl+Airport&1c=Newark&1s=NJ&1a=10+Toler+Pl&1z=07114&1y=US&1l=40.710106&1g=-74.190677&1v=ADDRESS&1id=21508340&2c=Washington&2s=DC&2y=US&2l=38.892143&2g=-77.036156&2v=CITY#b/maps/m:map:2:35.510979:-98.378905::::::1:1::::/l:Newark+Liberty+Intl+Airport:10+Toler+Pl:Newark:NJ:07114:US:40.710106:-74.190677:address::1:::21508340/l:::Washington:DC::US:38.892143:-77.036156:city::1:::/l:::Nashville:TN::US:36.165798:-86.784401:city:Davidson+County:1:::/l:::New+Orleans:LA::US:29.957079:-90.0625:city:Orleans+Parish:1:::/l:::Dallas:TX::US:32.783298:-96.800003:city:Dallas+County:1:::/l:::Roswell:NM::US:33.394199:-104.522499:city:Chaves+County:1:::/l:Grand+Canyon+National+Park:Highway+64+N:Grand+Canyon:AZ:86023:US:36.0544:-112.1386:address::1:::/l:::Salt+Lake+City:UT::US:40.760799:-111.890297:city:Salt+Lake+County:1:::/l:::San+Francisco:CA::US:37.775002:-122.418297:city:San+Francisco+County:1:::/l:::Los+Angeles:CA::US:34.0522:-118.242798:city:Los+Angeles+County:1:::/io:1:::::f:en_US:M:/bl:/e

The car is all booked and very resonable too! Darren's dad found us a great deal!

Trip-planning at the moment is focused on New York. I have spent hours pouring over guide books, TripAdvisor and NYCgo.com, as well as asking everyone I know for recomendations.

New Years Eve in Times Square doesn't really get the best of write-ups in cyberworld. Apparently we should be expecting to be penned in with no access to toilets, food or drink in sub-zero temps for 7-8 hours. So we looked into other options - booking a restaurant/bar for the evening.

Bubba Gump Shrimp was $350 for a ticket - this included all food, open bar, a t shirt and most importantly being inside the warmth of the bar in the middle of times square from 7pm until 2am. Sounded good, a tad on the expensive side, but the real downside was having to pick up the tickets by 30th December - no exceptions. This is not very useful when we are arriving on the 31st and they won't post the tickets.

The Marriott at '2 Times Square' has a nice looking bar so I rang them and asked how much it would be to book a table/attend their pre-organised evening. $2500. Yes, that's right, $2500. For food and drink in Times Square.

Then I stumbled across The Olive Garden restaurant. Also addressed '2 Times Square' and from what I can see, directly below the Marriott, they had a similar deal to Bubba Gumps - all food, open bar and an outdoor (ie on times square) viewing area where you can see the famous ball drop. Lovely manager told me he'd be happy to UPS the tickets to us and the cost was even better than Bubba's at only $250 per person. But, just to complicate things, he needs a 'check' in US$ - he can't take credit card or PayPal or anything else. So we have to figure out how to get a cheque in US$ and post it to them.

Part of me thinks we're gettting totally fleeced, but then again, 7-8 hours outside with no toilets, food or drink after getting of a flight from London doesn't really sound like it will fulfill my dream of being in NY for NYE. I think I'll take the warmth, toilets and all-you-can-drink alcohol any day.

Our attempt at house buying and real estate scum

We were married 4th May 2009 at County Hall in London. This blog is to document our 1st year of marriage and the adventures that go with it!

Since we got back from our lovely 5 day honeymoon cruise around the Med, we have been trying to buy our first flat.

Everyone said 'it's a buyers market' and 'it's so cheap at the moment'. Enthused, we embarked on research and viewings galore. We leaped over the first hurdle - we were approved for a mortgage straight away. We were signed up to every real estate alert known to mankind. Everyday, 50+ emails of properties in our target area (essentially anywhere in zone 2 in London, less than 10 min walk to a tube) came through. We thought we were being pretty flexible - a big 1 bed or a 2 bed, for under 200k, preferably under 175k (the no stamp duty mark) and wide range of areas we were interested in. We met dozens of estate agents and listened to same 'sales talk' at the dozens of viewings we had. Our Saturdays and weeknights were consumed.

5 months later, 1 auction bid, 9 offers made and 5k in legal fees, we still do not have a home.

Out of the 9 offers:

• 3 were rejected for being too low
• 2 accepted but then we pulled out because the real estate didn't mention the block was to be demolished sometime in the near future (yes, its amazing this happened on 2 different flats)
• 1 accepted and was 2 days before completion before there was a massive leak and the ceiling fell in
• 1 accepted (after fierce bidding war in which we had to go 5k over asking price) and then it was revealed ( 3 days before completion) that the real estate agents had lied and told us the 18k owing on the property for block service work would be paid by the vendor. The vendor had no intention of paying.
• 1 accepted and then we pulled out due to emotional heartbreak (more on this later)
• 1 accepted and then gazumped (but only after the 1st day, so no real harm)

But... The real clincher in the whole journey happened this week.

The flat in Fulham that the Real Estate agents blatantly lied about the 18k owing was a reposession and our absolute favourite flat of them all. From the moment (3 days before completion) we found out about the lie, we fought every which way to try and convince the bank's solicitors that it wasn't worth 18k more just because the block had had its rood fixed. 3 weeks later, Darren sent one final heart-strings pulling email to them, giving them a deadline of Wednesday to get back to us.

On Friday, we received an email from our solicitor with the news that the bank's solicitors had agreed to take 14k off the price! Yippee! Huge celebrations - this meant we were only going to be 4k out of pocket - but in reality because the price dropped to 175 it meant we saved 1800 on stamp duty PLUS didn't lose the 2k in legals we had already spent on the property. It was an exciting day! We couldn't believe they'd actually responded to us! We spent the weekend living the dream again - looking at sofas and planning bathroom alterations.

Immediately on Friday we went to get our mortgage offer amended. Now all we had to do was wait for the offer to be in writing and then our solicitor could exchange immediately.

On Tuesday, our mortgage offer arrived in the post.

Our solicitor went to exchange. Only to be told there had been a higher offer.

After 4 weeks of to-and-froing with solicitors exclusively and the real estate agent not showing the property - they had 'accidently' shown someone who decided to make the offer just before we were about to exchange. Their offer was 180k. 5k over ours.

It went to final bids by 3pm. We went up to 180k, but couldn't go any higher. At 4.30pm we had lost. We were devastated. To have the lost the property one time was upsetting, but a second time was heartbreaking and seemed so unfair.

We still have no idea how it went from the bank's solicitors liaising with us directly and offering US 175k on Friday to someone else seeing the flat and making an offer (knowing about the 18k owing) and getting the property Tuesday when we were going to exchange. We are convinced that the person is connected to the real estate agents. There is something distinctly fishy and we suspect the estate agents.

So - its name and shame time. The real estate agents involved, who we are going to take legal action against for misrepresentation (and if there was a professional standard for agents, unprofessional and underhand behaviour) are Caroline and Brian from Barnard Marcus Fulham.

Quite frankly, they are scum. Scum of the earth.