Shelter

You have probably gathered that Family Beans haven't moved house yet. If you've been following the saga, we accepted an offer on our flat back in March, when I was just 12 weeks pregnant. In April we had our offer on a family house in Kent accepted, and the aim was for both the sale and purchase to be completed by the end of June. Sounds pretty straightforward doesn't it? And having bought two properties and sold one before, I had every hope things would progress smoothly.

Well, suffice to say that didn't exactly happen and now here we are in October - about to start all over again. Our buyer pulled out of buying our flat a couple of weeks ago, just days before we were set to exchange and complete contracts. The buyer has been incredibly slow and unreliable, so earlier in the process the Boy and I fully anticipated problems. But when we had got to the point where we had all spent money - our buyer spending over £1k on a very detailed survey of our flat! - we were optimistic the transaction would be closed off successfully.

I was bitterly disappointed that the process collapsed. I've recently had some bad news about my Mum's health and I was very keen to be near her in Kent - I was hoping time with Lucy would be a happy distraction for her at this difficult time. We also did all our antenatal (NCT classes) in Kent and I have become very close to a couple of the girls, and was muchly looking forward to seeing more of them. It is so helpful to know other new Mums when you are just starting out as a parent. We were also both ready to move from our little flat which is bursting at the seams now with baby paraphernalia (as well as everything else we had!) and move to a proper little family house with a garden. The Boy and I had both fantasised about Lucy's first Christmas being in our first family gaff.

Having the carpet pulled from beneath us has been quite a bitter blow and it took us a moment or two to pick ourselves up. The thought of starting again and having to work viewings etc around little Lucy felt somewhat overwhelming and we needed to pause and recollect ourselves. And that we did. We've now had estate agents around, instructed one to sell the property, and we are starting again from this week. Deep breath!

The good news is that the flat has rocketed in value even since March, with the redevelopment of the area. We can now how to sell for at least £20k more than the price we agreed back then - so, I suppose every cloud has a silver lining and all that... and while we would rather not be in this position we will make the best of it. We've lost the house we were going to purchase, and we've decided now to just rent in the area we were moving to at least to begin with. We're both loathe to get stuck in a chain again, and this way as soon as we have a buyer secured we can up sticks and move. Renting means we can spend some time getting to know the area better and making sure we move to the right place. Wish us luck!