There goes another one
From the department of feeling sorry for myself: health warning, there is a whinge on the way.
For some months now I have been silent about the big house build. Most of you with memories that hold onto the trivia and forget the important stuff will have assumed that the whole thing was dead in the water, but I have been beavering away in the background trying to salvage something from the ruins.
Yesterday I finally had to concede defeat.
Some history. You may recall that my plot was the subject of a hostile takeover bid by some wanker with too much money and no conscience. To give him his due, Farmer Moc didn't immediately take the offered cash. Instead he came back to me and said if I could rase my offer half way to the high bid, the plot was still mine. I couldn't find the cash and told him so. Then he came back with a strange scheme whereby I'd buy the plot for the original price but he'd have a ten percent stake in the finished property. Effectively this meant he got the halfway price, but not until I could afford to buy him out of his ten percent share. It was a generous offer, if somewhat unorthodox, and only the cynical bastard in the back of my brain thought that the whole scam was just a means to screw more money out of me for the plot and there was no mysterious gazumper.
Fast forward a couple of months, and I have been battling with mortgage companies and their useless intermediaries. Conservative to the last, no mortgage company will lend me anything like enough money to complete the build whilst allowing a third party to have a ten percent interest in the property. If it's mine outright, they're as happy as Larry (whoever he is), but ask them to factor in a small extra complication and they go all 50% on me. Bastards.
So the dream is truly dead this time. Unless of course, Farmer Moc comes clean and admits it was all a scam. Given the price of plots around here now, this is unlikely. He'll easily get his £100k and I'll be left with a bitter taste in my mouth and a one-twenty-fifth cardboard scale model of the house of my dreams.
On the other hand, some good may come of it all. The whole Wales expedition has been souring for quite a few months now, to the point where Barbara has started looking for work elsewhere - not banging on people's doors or calling in old favours, but quietly putting out feelers within the industry. No doubt the harsh reality of the property market around here has had something to do with this malaise, but it's not the only factor (being constantly passed over for promotion in favour of spineless lickspittles doesn't help, nor does doing the work of someone two pay grades higher, but this is my whinge, not Barbara's). Buying a plot and building a house - at best a two year project - would probably not be wise at the moment.
So maybe I should be thanking my onanistic gazumper, really, for getting me out of a whole pile of pooh, but damn me if it hasn't been a rough ride.
They say moving house is one of the most stressful things that you can do. They are wrong. Moving house is easy - you just pay Pickfords their money (or the Shore Porters, Mr Stuart), and stand back. What's stressful is all the unnecessary shite that goes on beforehand.
There's good news coming soon. Honest.
It was never going to be big enough for all of us.
For some months now I have been silent about the big house build. Most of you with memories that hold onto the trivia and forget the important stuff will have assumed that the whole thing was dead in the water, but I have been beavering away in the background trying to salvage something from the ruins.
Yesterday I finally had to concede defeat.
Some history. You may recall that my plot was the subject of a hostile takeover bid by some wanker with too much money and no conscience. To give him his due, Farmer Moc didn't immediately take the offered cash. Instead he came back to me and said if I could rase my offer half way to the high bid, the plot was still mine. I couldn't find the cash and told him so. Then he came back with a strange scheme whereby I'd buy the plot for the original price but he'd have a ten percent stake in the finished property. Effectively this meant he got the halfway price, but not until I could afford to buy him out of his ten percent share. It was a generous offer, if somewhat unorthodox, and only the cynical bastard in the back of my brain thought that the whole scam was just a means to screw more money out of me for the plot and there was no mysterious gazumper.
Fast forward a couple of months, and I have been battling with mortgage companies and their useless intermediaries. Conservative to the last, no mortgage company will lend me anything like enough money to complete the build whilst allowing a third party to have a ten percent interest in the property. If it's mine outright, they're as happy as Larry (whoever he is), but ask them to factor in a small extra complication and they go all 50% on me. Bastards.
So the dream is truly dead this time. Unless of course, Farmer Moc comes clean and admits it was all a scam. Given the price of plots around here now, this is unlikely. He'll easily get his £100k and I'll be left with a bitter taste in my mouth and a one-twenty-fifth cardboard scale model of the house of my dreams.
On the other hand, some good may come of it all. The whole Wales expedition has been souring for quite a few months now, to the point where Barbara has started looking for work elsewhere - not banging on people's doors or calling in old favours, but quietly putting out feelers within the industry. No doubt the harsh reality of the property market around here has had something to do with this malaise, but it's not the only factor (being constantly passed over for promotion in favour of spineless lickspittles doesn't help, nor does doing the work of someone two pay grades higher, but this is my whinge, not Barbara's). Buying a plot and building a house - at best a two year project - would probably not be wise at the moment.
So maybe I should be thanking my onanistic gazumper, really, for getting me out of a whole pile of pooh, but damn me if it hasn't been a rough ride.
They say moving house is one of the most stressful things that you can do. They are wrong. Moving house is easy - you just pay Pickfords their money (or the Shore Porters, Mr Stuart), and stand back. What's stressful is all the unnecessary shite that goes on beforehand.
There's good news coming soon. Honest.
It was never going to be big enough for all of us.
Comments
Threatening letters for EVERYONE!
*Not Shore Porters, I should add, for legal reasons.