Dilemmas

We found a place we wanted to buy the other day, but I guess it wasn't meant to be... The price was right, we all loved the place, but unfortunately things fell apart before we even laid down the booking fee...

The owners' solicitors sent a Letter of Offer which Abang thought would put us in a dangerous position. Despite saying this, they didn't bother to change the letter, even after we pointed out the problem. To make matters worse, we didn't have a lawyer on hand to represent us and we didn't take steps to immediately make the necessary changes through our lawyers. Furthermore, the time frame was terribly short, which gave us no time to sort things out before the offer came due.

After going back and forth for almost a week, the owners decided to accept another offer at a higher price. It's a bit upsetting to me, because I thought it was a good buy, but the sale fell through because of  bad communication and cooperation.

First, Abang decided to haggle over the price AFTER I had agreed to the initial amount. Of course that didn't go well with the sellers. Then, I don't know what he told them, but it sounded like we couldn't pay the deposit, even though we already put aside the money. I only had some reservations due to my uncertain financial circumstances.

Then there was the problem of the solicitors' reluctance to make amendments to their offer letter. They asked me to sign first and make amendments later. But the S&P will follow the original acceptance letter! I had HUGE reservations about putting my signature on a legally binding document that basically puts all of us in danger of financial jeopardy. So even though we have the money, and I pointed out that we could amend the letter itself, Abang didn't like the idea of merely scribbling on the offer letter, especially when the owners' signatures were not included.

At the end of the day, I just decided to let it go, because none of us had the time to wade through the morass of miscommunication and non-cooperation from their side.

On my side, it is quite a letdown, after being so excited about moving to the new house. It WAS a good buy, with a lot of extras, but basically the legalities held us back. After all, we couldn't afford to lose so much money in case anything went wrong. They already had one failed buying attempt before, probably due to the unrealistic agreement. Basically we think the lawyers don't really know what they're doing, and the agreement is basically unfair because the lawyers are related to the sellers. So good luck to future buyers...

So now I'll have to start looking again. I have to say that I was initially annoyed with Abang for hanging on to the document, but then I realised that he did have a valid point. On the other hand, he could have engaged his legal guys to fix the problem immediately instead of keeping mum and sitting on it! But then, the unrealistic time frame and agreement was another huge stumbling block...

While I do understand why the owners are annoyed, but they should have addressed our concerns too. If they had done something about the agreement, we would have happily signed and put down the deposit without further delay.  I could have called the owner and explained it properly, I suppose, but everyone was harried and rushing all over the place, so in the end, it all went to pot.

At the end of the day, I'd say both parties made mistakes, and things could definitely be handled better. But now I have good reason to get a proper job, because I hated being stuck because Abang held the money and his ding-donging cost us a perfectly nice place to live in. Hrmm.. you can see I'm still a little bit cheesed off. Heh.