I originally put something about this down in another thread 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, though not a repossesion (yet) so you'd think there would be some urgency in selling. 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 (understandable on a property built in 1896)but it was not that was 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 There was nothing intrinsically wrong with it!

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 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 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 our solicitor as to what is 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.

Fortunately, we have still 4 weeks left renting this place and I wish I'd asked where shall we live whilst you sort this out.

There are other bits to all this and believe me - it's some saga. What really irks more than anything else - from start to (nearly) finish we've trusted "The Professionals" and every turn we've been let down. I've bought houses in the past and there was never too much of this mess. It seems like this country is full of bumbling incompetents! Freelander 1 TD4 HSE - gone, 2 weeks after the Cat.Converter!
Freelander 2 TD4 SE Auto MY08 - Santorini black