Missed out again! Why I don't trust estate agents.

Last Saturday, I was booked in to view a first floor flat in East Finchley. However, the agent informed me by email that he would shortly be getting the keys to another one round the corner, which had a garden, so I told him that, as I live 25 miles away and it takes me two hours to get there by public transport, he should let me know as soon as he got the keys and I could then view both on the same day.

"I'll make sure you're first through the door," he promised.

It is now Thursday and I hadn't heard from him, so I emailed ten minutes ago, only to be told, "The vendor has changed his mind about selling and is going to rent it out instead."

So much for being first through the door! With steam puffing out of my ears, I zapped an email straight back asking if I could still come and see the original flat, only to be told that unless I could get there tomorrow, it would be too late as he had had lots of viewings since Saturday and people had said they were going to put in offers by the end of the week.

I am at a funeral tomorrow so I can't go. I have missed out again and all because of being misled by a damned estate agent. I am furious. How does anyone ever get to see a property, let alone buy one, in the present cut-throat market? Is there any agent anywhere in London prepared to help this desperate damsel who couldn't even vote in the referendum as she was of no fixed abode?

I truly am The Desperate Housebuyer.

The loo that turned into a kitchen

Property No, 9

The aftershocks of the terrorist atrocities of 2001 affected the global economy in many ways, property being one small element. I spotted a private ad for a Victorian cottage on the outskirts of Highgate. The owner had just lost her buyer, who had pulled out due to worries about tumbling property prices following 9/11 and was desperate not to lose the cheaper property she wanted to buy. If her sale did not go through, her mortgage company would foreclose on her, so I came along at the right time.

She needed a cash buyer who could do the whole deal in two weeks. It was sheer bad luck that I was about to depart for a two-week holiday in Turkey. As I attempted to relax on my sun lounger by the pool in Ovacik, my mobile phone beeped incessantly, with ever more hysterical calls from my vendor who appeared to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

After three days of constant beeps and jangles, I and my mobile were banished from the poolside by the hotel owner, who had receives numerous complaints from other guests, moaning that they couldn't relax and that I was spoiling their holiday. Fair enough, I thought, as I moped wanly in my small room with its white curtains that let in every bit of daylight, and the tree outside that was a haunt of chattering sparrows by day and monotonously hooting Scops owls by night. My holiday was being spoiled, too.

None of the solicitors I had approached were willing to get the deal done in a mere two weeks, so once more my BF came to the rescue. He knew a young solicitor who he had helped train (the BF is a retired lawyer, amongst many other things) and I think he must have stood over him with a stick, beating him if he so much as dared stop to blow his nose.

One odd thing came to light in the searches, which was that, although the cottages in this particular street had all been taken over years ago by the local council, they had originally been built by the church and each one had a statute attached which permitted the church, at any time, to raise a tithe towards church repairs. None of the householders had ever been asked to stump up, but the solicitor warned me that it could happen. However, I was willing to take the chance.

By the time I returned from Turkey, sans suntan due to having spent so many days in my room and with a giant phone bill running into several hundreds, the house was mine, my BF having signed the paperwork on my behalf. I say 'house': it was more like a hobbit home. It wasn't even two up, two down; it was two up, one down!

Originally, it had been a 3-bed house with an outside toilet and I assume bathing was done in a tin bath in front of the fire in the small living room. Through the lounge, there was a very small kitchen, the size of a large cupboard and the garden had a view of tall trees beyond which were allotments. The outside loo still existed, only some idiot had poured concrete down it so it was no longer usable.

It was a real writer's nest and I was in heaven for about an hour after I moved in. Then it started. Bang, bang, bang, for seven solid hours, as a gang of unruly boys booted a football against the wooden doors of a garage right opposite my house. I was shaking. My heart was racing. I couldn't believe that I had made yet another property mistake. How could one tranquillity-loving person have such relentless bad luck? I knew I would never be able to write a word in that house, yet I worked as a freelance writer. How on earth would I manage? I went to the pub with a friend, to drown my sorrows.

In the two years that I owned it, I did a lot to that house. I borrowed cash from a family member to build a conservatory and the BF built a terrace with steps down to the sloping, rather soggy garden. The long-suffering BF also removed the outside loo and somehow incorporated the space into the tiny kitchen, so that I had an alcove in which to place a small table and two chairs. It made a tremendous difference. I also had tons of gravel delivered, and gravelled over the ragged clumps of grass, put down some paving slabs and bought a nice stone bird bath. I hung those Moroccan lanterns in the trees and suddenly, the garden had a touch of magic.

The noise situation gradually improved, too, as I learned to adapt. I had several quiet hours during the day while the kids were at school. It was weekends and school holidays that were the worst. I spoke to the people next door and they had gone through exactly the same reaction as me, the day they had moved in and discovered the football gang. Then one day, I shall never know why, the boys vanished. Either they had found somewhere better to kick their ball, or they had given up football altogether. But peace descended!

External peace, anyway. Internally, all hell had broken loose as a routine eye test had revealed that I had the start of macular degeneration. I looked it up and found I was eventually going to go blind. This coincided with the cancellation of my only regular freelance contract. Then, to cap it all, the person who had lent me the money for the conservatory suddenly needed it back. I couldn't add another £10k to my mortgage as I had just lost my major client. There was only one thing I could do - sell up.