Sunday, November 19, 2006

Losing It

I have to say I lost it. Browsing the shelves of Fopp! Bath on a lovely day off the phone rang and it is Dianne, my former next-door-neighbour to ask if there is any progress on the sale of the house and I say that it is going through and the new owners have had all the surveys they're ever likely to need and we are waiting for a completion date.

We chat for a while and it is nice. When I finish I discover I have an answerphone message and it is my Estate Agents.

During the week the purchasers had, cheekily in my opinion, asked for a contribution from us towards the cost of replacing the boiler. Since they were already getting the house for £2000 less than what all the estate agents agreed was 'bottom book' I declined.

Now the purchasers had delivered a letter threatening to pull out unless we reduced. I'm afraid I allowed all my frustration at various short-comings in securing the property after surveys, along with an insistence on calling me Reverend Tilley despite my much rehearsed desire to be addressed properly (Steve or Mr) to come to the fore. I explained that the purchasers should be told that the property would be returned to the market on Monday unless they indicated a completion date and this time 'with a different agent.' If these agents wished to bridge the gap between seller and purchaser with some of their commission that was fine by me. I gave them the choice of no commission (they are on for a fee on sale only) or some.

An hour later I received another call saying that the sale was going through at the agreed price 'after a long phone call.'

'They've given them some money' Liz said. I know not if that is true. What I do know is that I attracted quite a crowd raising my voice on a mobile in Fopp! a thing which I generally despise people doing. I'm sorry world. No really.

Bought four albums and hastily exited. By the way thanks for the token Martin. Choose which you bought me:

Herbie Hancock - Thrust and Headhunters (both for £6)
Four Tet - Everything Ecstatic
Fried - Fried
The Dears - Gang of Losers

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The person who bought the house from me wanted everything done to it. I offered to reduce the price after agreeing a 1.5k reduction and she still wanted everything done. It cost me a fortune. She even turned around after the work and refused a completion date saying she wasn't really that bothered.

Not a nice world.

Martin said...

Sorry I took so long to get here - I managed to not get round to blog reading for a while, and am now reading your's semi-backwards.

Glad you got the house sorted in the end. I'm sure you'll manage to reduce your raised voice mobile usage now.

As for the voucher, you used it on the Herbie Hancock. I'm actually amazed you didn't already have them - they are very fine albums, and Headhunters is reputedly a seminal jazz/funk crossover album - really changed things. No need for guitars to create that funky sound. The album art on Thrust is pretty cool (the music too) - especially if you have the good ol' 12" sleeve. Liking the afro endowed jazz genius piloting the keyboard console controlling the thrust of the spaceship look.

Martin said...

Sorry, need a grammer lesson. Should I have said "your's" or should I have said "yours" in the beginning of my comment?