Moving House: Let the saga begin again.....

Long standing readers of my blog will remember back in 2013 when we were forced out of our old rental house and had to move to a new one (no?  read about it here).    In the last 18 months we have taken the shell from a run down house (with mould on the walls and ripped wallpaper) to somewhere we love to call our home.  3 months ago we finally finished (with the landlords permission) decorating the kids bedroom.... just for (a month later) a letter to hit our doorstep ....... the landlord was selling our house and we were to move out at the end of our tenancy (May).

  

  

We rushed round to the letting agency to see what was going on, all along they'd been confident this was a long term let, even when they came round to value the house at Christmas we were told it had to do with the Landlords mortgage and he wasn't selling up.  So why this sudden announcement?
Being Blundells they knew nothing (they've been useless for the last 18 months so why didn't this surprise me) and it took over a month from notice to a sign going up advertising it for sale (they still claimed until the day before it went up they didn't know it was being sold).

Obviously we started to look for a new rental property but when we found one within our price range in the area we needed (due to schools and work) we were told they would not hold the property for us and if we wanted it we would have to rent it for the 2 months we'd not be living in it.  Now I don't know about you but we don't have a spare £550 a month for this so we had to turn it down.  Then our guardian angel appeared.  Hubby has a friend who wanted to enter the buy to let property market, even better he wanted to buy OUR house and keep us on as tenants, giving us a long standing tenancy.  He wrote to the landlord with an offer but it was refused as the landlord had struck up a deal with Blundells to market it through them.  So as soon as it was on the market (middle of April) he put in an offer again..... again it was rejected so we (him and us) set about looking at other houses to move to - now getting a little concerned that Moving Day is fast approaching, but not finding anything that was suitable.  Within 2 weeks of being on the market our house sold, in the same week we found a dream new property (with no chain) and our friends offer was accepted.

Our friend has given the estate agents 4 weeks to turn it around in - the mortgage is sorted (in principle) it's just the paperwork and survey to be completed.  We've met the new landlord for our current property and they gave said we could stay on as tenants (they don't know of our intention to move as the house wasn't confirmed at the time and the sale has still not been finalised on either house).  What we don't want though is to have to sign a contract/ change over deposits etc for any longer than a month when potentially we may only need the roof over our head for a matter of a few days.

So now everything is out of our hands and we play the waiting game.  We are packing (ok I am packing) boxes and decluttering the house ready for moving (praying it all goes though and we do move mid May).  Please keep all your fingers and toes (and eyes and ears) crossed for us.

And once we are in........ the fun of redecorating will start all over again.......

Keep an eye on my blog over the next few months as I'll be bringing you all the ups and downs (hopefully ups) of our move and then focusing on the new house and how to turn a shell into a home.

Right I'm off to box up/ declutter the play room ...... please send a search party if I'm missing more than 24 hours.