different breathing problems

we've just spent a nice weekend in Vienna with K's parents and sister.

The weekend got off to a great start at the point where wandering through a typically Germanic Christmas market, Gluehwein in hand, flakes of snow started drifting down. My MiL (mother in law)'s delight was plain to see.

the ony downside of the weekend was that the locals seem to all smoke - everywhere!
There were no "No-smoking" sections in any of the restaurants, cafe's etc we went to, or in the hotel breakfast room - the only smoke-free areas were the public transport and the museums.

Roll on March, when the public smoking ban comes into effect in Scotland...

breath baited part 2

The offer we put in on the house was accepted !!!
We did it subject to survey, which is now being done.
This morning we should hear back about the survey results, and all being well, we will be owners of a lovely 3-bedroom house from January 23rd. :)

breath baited

We decided to put a note of interest in for a property we saw recently. THis lets the seller know we are interested, and it means the solicitor has to keep us up to date with anything that happens

we were told that the closing date was in 2 hours time, so we quickly decided on how much we would be willing to pay for it (not as much as the first one we missed out on), and we'll see what happens

The closing date was half an hour ago (at time of writing this)......

Or perhaps....

When discussing the situation last night, we did realise that perhaps something else had come up which caused out prospective buyer to have cold feet, and putting his offer "subject to Survey" was a convenient way for him to be able to back out.

Perhaps he hadn't been expecting to have the highest bid, and didn't really want to buy the flat anyway.

Back to Square 1

We're putting the flat back on the market.
The offer we accepted last Wednesday was "subject to survey" - this allows prospective buyers to wait until their offer is accepted before they then shell out on what can be an expensive check on the building. Many people are doing this nowadays, and we had no objections to this, as we would make offers in the same way.

The survey was done on Thursday afternoon. Apparently it noted that the building had been subject to subisdence at some point - so the buyer wanted the weekend to think about it - and to get someone else to have a look at the outside of the building in daylight to check again.

Now when K. (my wife) bought the flat 3 years ago, the survey she got done also mentioned subsidence, and even the casual eye can spot that the window ledges on the other side of the building slope differently to the ones on our side. However, K's surveyer said that not only did the subsidence affect the other side of the building more than it did ours, it would have been the original settling of the building, closer to the time it was built (in the late 1800's) and so was not anything to worry about now.

Sadly it appears this extra information regading the timing and specific location of any subsidence was not intimated in the newer survey, as the "buyer" has now dropped out, citing the subsidence as his reason.

So the flat is on the market for at least another week, as various publications here have a Monday afternoon deadline which we have missed.
We then have to work out if we will keep it on the market at "offers over" and see if someone else is prepared to offer as much if not more that we accepted on Wednesday, - or if we should instead shift to "fixed price" and the first person to offer us that much gets it.
We also need to decide if we keep it om the market (and therefore continue to do viewings) over Christmas, or if we should take it off next week and start again in the New Year.

Harrumph.....

Halfway there

Well, it turns out we didn't get the nice house we were going for. They wouldn't even tell us how much we lost out by.

But we will be selling our flat. The highest offer presented to us had a fairly far away proposed entry date, which gives us more time to try and find somewhere else nice - and we'll be seeing if that person would agree to us pushing the date even further back as apparently he has somewhere else to sell before he can move out.

Even if we get to the selling date and don't have anywhereto move to, it's better to have to stay with friends or in rented accommodation before moving than it is to move but still be owning an empty house.

The Mission Bell

I got a copy of Delirious? 's new album "The Mission Bell" yesterday.
I haven't listened to it all properly, so no review as yet - but from initial snatches it sounds promising

One thing I don't like though, is the design of the CD booklet - it has a white border round the artwork, is printed on matt paper, and the photos and pictures are not completely sharop so it looks like a dodgy photocopy, perhaps like the 5.99 pirate copies of latest albums available at your nearest car boot sale.

Hey but at least it's better that the bright Orange writing on very shiny white paper like they did with Audio Lessonover.

Our House ?

Well, what better time to start a blog than during "One of the Most Stressful Occasions in your Life"™ ?
Thankfully there has not been a bereavement or a divorce. We are however (hopefully) moving house.

Tomorrow at noon is when we get to find out how much different people, hopefully lots of them, think our flat is worth. Given that we have had about 25 or so sets of people viewing our place in the last 2 weeks, some people viewing more than once, we're hoping there will be plenty of interest.

Tomorrow noon is also the closing date for offers for the house that we're hoping to move to.
So not only do we get to sell our flat, we find out if we can get the house we want.

Should we be succesful with our offer, we still have to sort out the money (a new mortgage) and so on, so it looks like either just before Christmas or just after New Year before we actually move