Thursday
There are times when the reality of the times in which we live hit you hard. Today, that happened.
I have a lovely client who is looking to move into an empty property and she has been hindered by the chain below her who were slow to get things moving initially and have never really caught up. She was prepared to move out of her house two weeks before completion so that her house could be deep cleaned and so that there was no risk to her buyer. The house she was buying was being sold under a Power of Attorney, all of the documents had been signed in readiness, and subject to getting everyone to agree a time scale in which they could all move safely, we were nearly there.
This morning, she emailed me, enquiring whether I had heard anything from the lower part of the chain. She then as an aside, mentioned that the elderly owner of the house she was buying had died and that it was therefore a difficult time for the son who was acting as Attorney. She said nothing more.
It was apparent she did not realise that this was going to bring her purchase to a halt. The son was going to need to get a Grant of Probate and as the Probate registries are not working to full capacity, that was going to take some time. I called her. I explained the situation to her. I heard the catch in her voice as she realised that she would not be able to move for some considerable time. Her mortgage offer runs out in the middle of May. I told her to speak to her lender to see if she could get the offer extended. I tried to console her but she knows that she will not be moving house for some time despite all of our efforts to get this completed. And there is a son who has lost his mother. And there are doubtless other house moves where the same is happening and people are having to deal with the stress of death as well as moving house. We live in sad times.
Tears are words that need to be written
