I originally put something about this down in another to help cheer up taztastic under the guise that there is always somebody worse off than you! I didn't want to hijack his thread so - here goes!

We live in a rented house and eventually (even this is convoluted) we decide to buy our own place. The house we want to buy has been without occupants since Novemebr 2010 although it is fully furnished. The owners have fallen on hard times and need the money so you'd think there would be some urgency in selling (not a repossesion but I feel it was getting close). I beleive they live wih in-laws somewhere down south.

I guess with no chain in either direction and a need for money this is about as simple as it gets.

We put an offer in April, bit of usual haggling and the offer is accepted. We already had a mortgage in principle agreed with a building society.

Couple of weeks pass with finding solicitor etc. Formally apply for mortgage, survey in operation. That brought us to our holiday in May. Good, we thought, come back from holiday and things will get rolling. Wrong. £4000 retained pending certain repairs to be undertaken. Electrical report and roof report are necessary (hardly surprising on a property built in 1896) but that wasn't causing the retention... that was "sub-floor ventilation needs improving". Ho-hum. Builder now involved who furnishes a report stating the only way the ventilation could be improved was the addition of an extra air brick - he issued an estimate - £30 Actually, after this was submitted the retention was removed (FAIL 1 surveyor)

I think I'll skip loads more for the sake of brevity!

Come to the beginning of August now and we receive an email on a Saturday evening (yes - I know) informing us the vendor would like to exchange contracts this Friday (12. with a completion date of 19th August. Can we do this ... yes we can but it's a bit tight. Exchange was right down to the wire last week - the vendor couldn't be found 16:50 no response from him... but 17:10 exchange took place. Excellent - things are finally happening.

Come to yesterday (19.. I enquire of my solicitor as to what was happening. She had just contacted the building society and the money was released at 11:00 and should be in account within the hour. Good - nearly ours then!

THIS NEXT BIT IS THE MOST UNBELEIVABLE PART

We exercised extreme patience (I guess you are too if you've got this far) and didn't bother a soul until 15:30... then patience wore thin so I phoend the solicitor.... READY FOR THIS.

"Your money has been transferred to the worng account. We can't find it nor can the banks involved - I'm afraid we will not be able to complete today - maybe Monday or Tuesday".... speechless.

There is much more to this - trust me when I say it has been a saga.

I wish I'd have asked where shall we live now? We still have 4 weeks rent left on this place so I felt confident for a roof over our heads.

Every step of the way through this sorry mees we have been compliant and (I think) very pleasant people but we're now at our wits end. It would seem "The Professionals" are just bumbling incompetent idiots. No wonder the UK is going to the dogs. Just need something to give us a bit of confidence in human nature again. Freelander 1 TD4 HSE - gone, 2 weeks after the Cat.Converter!
Freelander 2 TD4 SE Auto MY08 - Santorini black