Non-returnable deposits? It seems all's fair in love, war and property

I enquired about a flat in North London today. It was an online estate agency. I emailed an question about the lease length and a man rang me back.

"Did you know it's an online auction?" he said.

"No, I didn't," I replied, puzzled, as the property ad on Rightmove made it look like an ordinary sale.
"What do you mean, exactly?"

"We are accepting sealed bids and if yours is successful, you must pay a £3000 non-returnable deposit."

The last time I had been asked to put cash upfront was in 2001, when the property market was booming and would-be buyers were fighting each other off by making higher and higher bids. I refused to play ball, so I couldn't net a very nice house in my chosen area. Grrr.

I probed a bit. "What would happen if the survey showed up a defect and I wanted to pull out of the sale? Would I be able to get my three grand back?"

"If it showed something serious, then yes," said the man with the Mancunian accent, "but not otherwise."

So if it showed subsidence or dry rot, I could get my money back, but if it needed £4k spending on it for a new boiler or rewiring, or if I was hit by a bus and whisked off to Stoke Mandeville to be rebuilt, I would be £3k poorer.

I can see why a buyer would want to do this - especially if he or she had been let down before. I have had buyers pull out just as contracts were due to be signed. I have also (*winces*) done it myself.

When I was buying my very first property, I was just about to exchange on it when the love of my life (at the time) asked me to move in with him. With lovelight sparkling in my eyes, I airily rang the poor vendors, never putting myself in their shoes for a moment as I was so busy walking on air, and told them I was pulling out. I even told them the reason.

There was a loud gulp at the other end of the line, then a heroic, strangulated voice said, "I hope you will be very happy." I still feel guilty about that - especially as the relationship didn't work out as the boyfriend in question suddenly decided to have a sex change!

On the second occasion, everything had been chugging along with my purchase when I suddenly had a letter to say that a hysterectomy operation that had been postponed several times could take place the following week. I was so wiped out afterwards and in so much pain that I couldn't think straight. I felt much too weak to do the final pieces of paperwork and couldn't even contemplate packing up and moving, so I rang the agent and explained.

Next think I knew, the vendor was on the phone. "How dare you?" she said viciously. "I hope you get cancer and die." Yes, those were her actual words - and she was a doctor! I was shell-shocked. I could understand her being upset, but surely she could have sympathised, even a little bit? After all, when a buyer pulled out on me because her husband had had to go into hospital and was given a terminal diagnosis, I was incredibly sympathetic and even sent her flowers.

There is an expression, 'all's fair in love and war.' It should be, 'all's fair in love, war and property transactions.' I was once driven almost to a nervous breakdown when, in mid purchase, there was a communication breakdown between my solicitor and the vendor's. Mine tried for seven weeks to get answers from theirs, to no avail. Deciding - understandably, surely? - that the deal was off, I started looking at other properties.

Suddenly, I received an email from the estate agent that rivalled that doctor's remark in sheer, unmitigated viciousness. The agent accused me of being a cheat and a liar because I had 'gone behind her back and looked at other properties.'

I reeled as I read it. Not only was it slanderous, it was grossly unfair. I had only been protecting myself, trying to find a back-up in case this purchase didn't happen. Then she sent me another email telling me that if I didn't exchange the following Friday, the deal was off. This was after almost two months of not hearing anything. There was paperwork still to be completed, questions unanswered. Also, I told her, my solicitor was Jewish and didn't work on Fridays so exchange would have to be after the weekend.

A few days of silence followed, then I had another email repeating the message of the previous week: exchange on Friday or else! Not surprisingly, I said 'enough is enough' and pulled out.

On another occasion, I pulled out because my survey had revealed that softwood props had been used for the loft conversion instead of hardwood ones, and the roof was likely to cave in. Again, it was a female agent (I have since met some nice ones, thank goodness) and, just like the other one, she was incredibly nasty and said that the agency she worked would never deal with me again.

"But it wasn't my fault!" I protested. "The survey showed something serious!"

She wouldn't have it. But I had the last laugh. Three months later, I happened to walk down the street the flat was in and I saw that the house was encased in scaffolding and the roof was half-demolished. Ha-bloody-ha!

Will I be putting down a non-returnable deposit? No fecking way! And so my search continues. Does anyone have worse property luck than me? Surely the home of my dreams is out there somewhere...?

Ask a simple question: Estate agents who don't know the facts

I don't mean to be constantly whining about estate agents, I have met some really patient and helpful ones in my time - and boy, you need to be patient if dealing with me! But twice recently I have had my viewing plans foiled by agents who not only cannot answer a simple question, but seemingly can't be bothered to find out.

The question was the same in each case. It was a simple one: "Who lives upstairs?" I've explained that I have a cat and need a garden, but I also write books and need a reasonable amount of peace and quiet, so have no desire to live beneath a family with noisy kids thumping around, or teenagers playing loud computer games at 3 am.

The first time I posed the question, the agent simply didn't bother answering my email. The flat is still for sale and tempting me on the internet, but I don't want to make a two hour journey each way, only to find out that either there is a family with kids upstairs, or else the upstairs neighbour is on shift work and will be up and about just when I am trying to go to sleep. I want to live beneath a normal person or couple, who keep normal hours.

The second time I asked my all-important question was yesterday. The reply was, "A family." "Oh no," I wailed. "That's just what I don't want."

A nervous giggle sounded down the phone line. "I don't know for sure that it's a family. I was just guessing," said the idiot from the estate agency.

"What do you mean, 'guessing'? Don't you know?"

"No."

"Then please can you ask the vendor and get back to me."

What's the betting I never hear from him again?

It's as if properties in London are so easy to sell these days that the agents think they can just sit there on their backsides and wait for the perfect buyer who asks no questions at all and just plonks half a million in cash on their desk. Honestly!

I feel sure that anyone considering buying a downstairs flat would want to know who is living above them. So please, agents, find out the answer to this simple question before you start marketing the property and don't react as if I am some kind of eccentric for wanting to know!

Wow! A mortgage with no age restrictions

Owing to my Methuselah-like age, the only mortgage I had been offered to date was an equity release one which didn't seem like a good idea as if I wanted to move house, they exacted a penalty of anything between £12,000 and £25,000. As I am serial mover, ready to bolt at the faintest squeak of a footstep upstairs or EastEnders on too loud on next-door's telly, that seemed a punishment too far. Surely there had to be something else out there?

I popped into my bank on Monday (Barclays, since you ask) and enquired about the possibility of a mortgage. I was ushered upstairs and granted an appointment with a 'community banker' who seemed to be a Jill-of-all-trades. After hearing how much cash I had and how much I'd like to borrow, she hammered her computer, which said no. I was too old, their age limit for paying back a mortgage was 70. I am 73.

Downcast, I prepared to shamble off when she said, "I'll just go and ask one of our mortgage advisers." I sat down again.

A few minutes later she was back, beaming. "I've just been told that we have lifted our age restrictions so finding you a mortgage won't be a problem," she said. I could have hugged her.

She made me another appointment for today, when I had to take in ID (hardly necessary, I would have thought; I've only banked there for 50 years!) plus proof of my pension income. Then I was sent away to have a coffee for 15 minutes till the mortgage adviser was free.

I slipped off, got a refund on an ill-advised pair of shoes that I'd bought on Sunday, exchanged an even more ill-advised dress, that hung on me like a tepee on a tent-pole, for a long, wafty cardigan) and returned, expecting to be ushered in to see the adviser.

To my surprise. I was greeted by the same community banker - we were best buddies by now - and informed that, as I only needed a small loan to value, I had been approved for a £75,000 mortgage and could have it over 17 years.

Three cheers, hang out the flags and crack open the bubbly! And somebody hug that lovely lady for me.

PROPERTY PRICE REDUCTIONS - HURRAH!

I look at Rightmove twice a day to see if anything new has come up for sale in my preferred areas and price bracket. Over the last couple of months, that welcome word 'reduced' has started appearing more frequently.

One of the properties I had been stalking on Rightmove had the price slashed from £475,000 to £440,000 so I went to view it on Wednesday. It was on a road in London NW5 where, 20 years ago, I owned a flat on two floors with three bedrooms, two bathrooms and two roof terraces. It is probably worth over a million now.

The one I went to see was one bedroom (small), one bathroom (enormous), one living room which sounded large on the details but was small in real life as the size and shape were compromised by doors and a staircase, a small kitchen, an understairs cupboard and a garden which seemed subterranean as the fences and greenery bordering it were so high. Gloomy ivy crawled everywhere like a mountaineer with depression and wonky legs, and upstairs had a roof terrace over the bedroom.

I left with the feeling of 'how are the mighty fallen'. Why did I ever leave North London for a spot in Hillingdon three miles from the nearest station? *bangs head on computer desk*

Almost a house..

A couple of months ago, I found the perfect house. It wasn't in my chosen area but in every other way it exceeded my wildest dreams. Two big bedrooms, through-lounge, fabulous garden, great kitchen and private parking round the back.

Even better, the owners wanted a quick sale! I put in an offer, had to up it by £10,000 owing to competition, and had my offer accepted because I was a cash buyer.

And then my dream came crashing down. I tried the walk to the station and it involved having to go through an underpass. Well, I don't care how well lit it is, I am NOT going through a creepy, stinky underpass in the daytime, let alone at night! In the day, I have been known to walk half a mile out of my way to find a way of crossing a major road above ground.

With my heart in my boots, and feeling dreadful at having to let the vendors down, I withdrew my offer.

Since then, there hasn't been anything I have remotely liked. BUT... prices are coming down a little, and there seems to be a sudden influx of ex-Buy To Let properties onto the market. Many of them are ex-Local Authority flats, which are a big no-no, owing to the risk of getting a sudden huge repairs bill dumped on you, which the council tenants wouldn't have to pay. A friend of mine was landed with a bill of £49,000. He handed the keys in to his mortgage company and walked away.

I wonder if there is any form of insurance you can take out which would protect owners of ex-LA properties against large bills? Hmm... must look into it.

House hunting by proxy

It's two months since my last post and in all those weeks, I have achieved sweet FA. But there are green shoots of hope on the horizon in the form of a good friend of 40 - yes, incredible, isn't it? - years standing, who has come into an inheritance and wants to invest in a property with me, so I can get back into the still overheated London property market.

Nationwide Building Society reports that London property is still increasing, but I have noticed a certain stalling... properties first listed in March that are still unsold... the 'reduced'[ word appearing on listings. All to the good as far as I am concerned!

Today, in 30 degrees F heat, my good and loyal friend trekked a long way (the bus had been diverted owing to roadworks) to view two flats for me in East Finchley. One was a big upper maisonette  with a nice garden, but had a vertiginous staircase leading to a loft room, and my bete noir, kiddiwinkies, living downstairs. So that is out. How can I write the Great Novel when ankle biters are screaming on the climbing frame and trampoline in their garden, which borders mine?

The other was a ground floor flat, much smaller, with a succession of tenants upstairs and a tiny garden that backs onto garages. No, and again  no.

Perhaps my check list is too long. Perhaps I have been spoiled. But really, at the age of 72, I deserve peace and quiet, a nice garden and proximity to transport, as I don't drive. After all, at my age, it might be the last home I ever buy!

Still no luck finding a home

Prices where I currently live (house share with my boyfriend) have literally doubled in eighteen months. Two years ago, I was going to buy the house next door for £336,000, but backed out as it needed loads of work and had an illegal loft conversion. The house on the other side - done up, but a lot smaller and with a garden a quarter of the size - has just gone on the market for £700,000.

This price hike is staggering... unbelievable.

Since I last posted, I have seen four properties. Two were in my favourite spot, Highgate, London N6. One had a kitchen with no windows. It was sandwiched between the living room and the bedroom, which was on the front of the house, not ideal if you're a light sleeper like me.

One was quite nice but too small - nowhere to put my office desk, filing cabinets, etc. And no outside space.

One was on the fourth floor with a Juliet balcony and I got vertigo when I looked out. The kitchen was built into a corner with sloping ceilings, so there was little cupboard space. Nowhere to put breadmaker, microwave, juicer, smoothie-maker, mixer and all the other tools of DIY cook's trade.

Then there was the one with a front bedroom onto a very noisy main road. Not only that, but the vendor confessed that the tenant upstairs was an insomniac who paced the floor at 3 am and turned on her computer. Above the bedroom, of course.

Finally, I had a call from a gentleman whose flat I had viewed three years ago, only to have him withdraw it from the market because he couldn't find anywhere to move to. Now he has decided to move out of London so he offered me first dibs, obvious forgetting he had told me about the wooden floors upstairs and lack of soundproofing, and the freeholder who grabbed £2,000 a year and did no repairs.

But I have been offered a helping hand, should I want to take it. It goes against the grain to accept a cash injection from a friend, but a good mate has come into a goodly inheritance and prefers to invest it in a property with me rather than make 0.1% to stash it in the building society.

This means I can up my budget.... but there is STILL hardly anything on the market, even in my larger price bracket. Anyone got a tent for sale?