A mixture of sadness & relief - we lose the flat. Again.

It was 2 weeks ago we made our offer for the Dalston flat of 160k to take it off the market before auction. We were told repeatedly that the reciever was interested and that we'd hear an answer shortly. Well. The answer finally came last Friday at about 4pm, when the auctioneer rang Darren to say, yes, they will accept our offer of 160k and we can exchange contracts on Monday. He did raise a slight spanner in the works, by saying there was a 3k charge (unsubstantiated!) on the property that we would have to pay. Darren said he'd speak to me and then we'll go for exchange on Monday.

We spent HOURS doing all the finances, spreadsheets and even planning layouts for the flat over the weekend.

On Monday morning at 8.40am, the auctioneer rang Darren to say the reciever had changed their mind and wanted it to go to auction.

Very frustrating. Again.

Today was the auction. Darren went along and I paid 75p a minute to listen in on the premium phone line. We'd agreed that our final bid would be 161k. The auctioneer had all along told us that he thought we were crazy not to go to auction as he thought there was no way it would get to 160k.

Well it did. Darren was a bit naughty and ended up going to 169 again. The other bidder got the flat for 170k.

So the housebuying dream is offically over. We agreed that there was no way we could do this process again. The laws in the England are grossly unfair and have caused nothing but disapointment and stress - not to mention cost us a lot of money.

I really wish I could now be looking forward to our amazing trip across the USA, but unfortunately we booked with BA who have announced 12 days of strikes over the time we are flying out. This means we might not even get there.

What was supposed to be a break from stress is turning into a nightmare. We don't know whether we'll be going away and when. And, we'll probably end up losing money. Not the Christmas I was looking forward to.