It has been a few months now since exchange. A lot of hurry up and wait it seems, but finally the big day came. From the day we first visited our new home, until completion was just under 3 months. That doesn't sound like a long time, but it certainly felt like ages.
Besides some confusion of which day was actually the completion day, completion itself went through without a hitch. A tip for you if you are buying a house, chase and confirm constantly with your solicitors right up until you have the keys in your hand. My solicitors were seemingly annoyed or put out by the fact I would check and confirm that everything was in place, that money was received, that dates were set. Yet still, even with all my chasing, on completion day there was a question of whether in fact the completion date was for the next day! Remember that your solicitors work for YOU...they may not take, what is in effect the biggest commitment you have ever made, as seriously as they should.
The morning of completion day arrived. Miss Gorgeous and I had taken a week off work. All we could do was sit at home and wait for the word that completion had taken place. We had made the decision the last time we moved home to have the luxury of a moving company do the move for us.
A side note on the moving company...Plan this well in advance, get a few quotes, and try and get some sort of commitment from them once you have chosen which company to go for. We found a company that ticked all the boxes. Price was right, insurance was included, and they would take care of our rental property and new home with protective sheeting on the floors. We got this quote a month before actual completion took place. However at this time we didn't have a firm date for completion, we only got this a week before the completion date. When we phoned to confirm with the moving company the date of our move, they told us that they didn't have availability! This cause a mad rush of trying to find a company who was available at fairly short notice. This meant going with a national firm, for 25% more than our previous quote. (the costs just keep adding up!)
Forgot to mention, the week before completion we got invited for our first walk around the new place with the site supervisor. This was to find any initial snags that needed to be sorted out. We had a list of about 20 items, mostly decorating issues (scratches in paint work etc.). There were a couple bigger issues, like a broken tile, sliding doors on our cupboard that didn't stay in place, large chip in the door frame to the kitchen and a couple others. It was really great to see our home all finished off with the carpets/flooring done. Big smiles on our faces.
Back to the completion day. We had the movers in to pack up all our things. It took the one guy from 9am until about 3pm to get everything into boxes. I called up the Bloor sales guy at around 11am to check on things. No news, he tells me. 20 minutes later I get a phone call from him to tell me that we have completed! Exciting times!
We head off down the road to pick up our keys. We received a welcome pack from Bloor containing all our paperwork for the various things in our new home. We pulled into our new driveway, and opened the front door to our new home! We spent the afternoon putting up blinds, and checked that our first snag list had been taken care of, it hadn't. We had contractors in and out sorting out little things. This would be a theme over the next few days. Even though not everything on the snag list had been sorted, it wasn't too much of an issue. Things were getting done.
Congratulations to us! Our new home!
Besides some confusion of which day was actually the completion day, completion itself went through without a hitch. A tip for you if you are buying a house, chase and confirm constantly with your solicitors right up until you have the keys in your hand. My solicitors were seemingly annoyed or put out by the fact I would check and confirm that everything was in place, that money was received, that dates were set. Yet still, even with all my chasing, on completion day there was a question of whether in fact the completion date was for the next day! Remember that your solicitors work for YOU...they may not take, what is in effect the biggest commitment you have ever made, as seriously as they should.
The morning of completion day arrived. Miss Gorgeous and I had taken a week off work. All we could do was sit at home and wait for the word that completion had taken place. We had made the decision the last time we moved home to have the luxury of a moving company do the move for us.
A side note on the moving company...Plan this well in advance, get a few quotes, and try and get some sort of commitment from them once you have chosen which company to go for. We found a company that ticked all the boxes. Price was right, insurance was included, and they would take care of our rental property and new home with protective sheeting on the floors. We got this quote a month before actual completion took place. However at this time we didn't have a firm date for completion, we only got this a week before the completion date. When we phoned to confirm with the moving company the date of our move, they told us that they didn't have availability! This cause a mad rush of trying to find a company who was available at fairly short notice. This meant going with a national firm, for 25% more than our previous quote. (the costs just keep adding up!)
Forgot to mention, the week before completion we got invited for our first walk around the new place with the site supervisor. This was to find any initial snags that needed to be sorted out. We had a list of about 20 items, mostly decorating issues (scratches in paint work etc.). There were a couple bigger issues, like a broken tile, sliding doors on our cupboard that didn't stay in place, large chip in the door frame to the kitchen and a couple others. It was really great to see our home all finished off with the carpets/flooring done. Big smiles on our faces.
Back to the completion day. We had the movers in to pack up all our things. It took the one guy from 9am until about 3pm to get everything into boxes. I called up the Bloor sales guy at around 11am to check on things. No news, he tells me. 20 minutes later I get a phone call from him to tell me that we have completed! Exciting times!
We head off down the road to pick up our keys. We received a welcome pack from Bloor containing all our paperwork for the various things in our new home. We pulled into our new driveway, and opened the front door to our new home! We spent the afternoon putting up blinds, and checked that our first snag list had been taken care of, it hadn't. We had contractors in and out sorting out little things. This would be a theme over the next few days. Even though not everything on the snag list had been sorted, it wasn't too much of an issue. Things were getting done.
Congratulations to us! Our new home!
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