Sometimes you go to write something and then decide to check it first.

We've finally moved house. FINALLY! So we now live in a little village on the outskirts of Chelmsford, wake up to a beautiful countryside view, etc etc etc blah blah blah but for the most part, since moving in last Wednesday we've just enjoyed the wonderful vista... in the rain.

On the whole the move itself went fine, but particular highlights included:

• having to do half the journey from Harlow to Chelmsford with the car windows wide open as the cat was a bit poorly on the way (poor thing, he wasn't best pleased at being put in his basket then into the car and showed it).
• trying to get the sofa into the lounge. And failing. Instead, making do with putting the sofa upstairs in a spare bedroom, scuffing paintwork and plaster on the way, and vowing to get this rectified asap.
• erm, that's it. Only two points. I'd make a rubbish officer.

But now we're settling in nicely but are still up to our ears in boxes etc.

So the title of this post. Do you ever get that, when you're just about to write or say something then you think "I'd better just check exactly what this means" and actually do check it?

Just had that. Was gonna call this post 'Like Flynn' (as in the phrase 'In like Flynn') but then checked it out. Google it for yourself if you can be bothered then realise why I scrapped it.

Hopefully I’ll get hooked up to t’interweb at home soon and stop being such a Luddite, then I can post more often. You can hardly wait. Go on, admit it...

Even more so than usual...

We're out of the loop at the moment: we're no longer at our old address, but don't move into our new house until the middle of next week. If you desperately, urgently need to get in touch with either of us, e-mail or call/text us on our mobiles. If you haven't got the numbers, try asking someone who you think will!

Blooming typical:

Post rant about the delays in the legal process: 2.54pm...

...then exchange contracts: 4.20pm.

Correct me if I'm wrong...

Time for a bit of a rant: it's on the subject, still, of buying and selling houses, so sorry if this will bore you but I'm just completely stumped by the whole thing. According to my understanding (and this is where the title comes in) of these matters, gleaned over the past few weeks of frustration and delays, there appears to be absolutely no legally-enforceable deadline by which point you have to have exchanged contracts for buying/selling a house.

In the case of our current move this means that basically any one party in the chain (and there are about 4 or 5 in ours, I think) can slow things down without anyone else involved being able to do anything about it.

In short: we agreed to sell our house to our buyers at the end of January. We had an offer accepted by our vendors at the start of March. We then did all the stuff required of us, in terms of mortgage paperwork and other legal paperwork, before going on holiday at the end of March. We came back mid-April to be faced with loads of stuff to do but expected this so it wasn't too much bother. We duly filled out all the necessary forms and returned them as quickly as possible, chasing up people as and when necessary so as not to delay the whole thing further.

So why, over two months later, are we (those of us actually buying and selling, and ultimately occupying, the houses) sitting here waiting for the exchange to go through?

Why is there no statutory time limit for all this stuff to have been completed? Why can one party legally delay things without any of the rest of us being able to stop them doing it? It's just complete and utter madness.

Our buyers are first-timers, i.e. they've got no property to sell and are buying a nearly-new property, so the legal paperwork took them next to no time, but through no fault of their (or our) own they've had to wait 4 and a half months to move house. We and our vendors have pushed and cajoled our legal representatives and done all the paperwork as quickly as possible but are still sat waiting.

IT'S ENORMOUSLY FRUSTRATING AND STRESSFUL!!!!!!!