Still Homeless

Despite having lost track of how many homes I have looked at, you have no idea how much I wish I could say that we have found a home.

 As we are finding out, first hand, the laws for selling and renting a home are a little "different" here in the UK than what we are used to.

My opinion, through personal experience, is that it would appear the laws favour being the seller, or, the landlord. And the tenant, or the purchaser, bears a lot of risk and expense.

The system is set up that a verbal agreement is made between the tenant and landlord. The tenant then gives a substantial deposit to the landlord to show their good faith and intent to rent the property. The tenant must then complete an extensive and expensive number of checks, i.e. gas compliance certificate, mortgage compliance, etc and paperwork to complete the transaction.

Meanwhile, the landlord takes the deposit cheque, does not sign any papers, but SHOULD remove the property from the market while the tenant completes the necessary checks.

Generally this takes 10 - 14 days to close the transaction and to be able to move in.


Some landlords choose to list their property with numerous estate agents in order to create a competitive environment. Some landlords choose not to let the other estate agents know when they have accepted an offer from another office. Hence the other agents continue to market the property. Some landlords choose to use this opportunity to wait until the last minute to notify the tenants that they want more money in order to close the transaction.

And the laws are set up that this is okay. They even have a term for this - called "GADZUMPING". It is a unique and "acceptable" situation in the UK.

That happened to us 3 weeks after finding a home, and just a day and a half before our supposed move date. We were not prepared to deal with a landlord like that so we walked away.

I had suspected something was wrong and was already implementing Plan B.

The next day after being GADZUMPED  I put an offer on another, better, home. The following day we were informed that someone else had put in a higher offer.  Another dead end. At least that only wasted a couple of days.

So then I started pounding the streets, again, on foot, looking for another home. I averaged 10km (6 miles) a day looking for a home.

After another week I found another home and we put an offer on it.


The (future) landlord was in the process of purchasing the home and we would be his first tenants once his purchase transaction was completed. The timing for us to move was as quickly as possible.

Wellllll...... his purchase transaction could not be completed as promised because of a problem with the purchase survey and compliance issues. So, another dead end

I had another backup home in mind. But that landlord has decided he doesn't want to rent the house out anymore. WHAT!?!?!? Why advertise and show it? Another dead end.

Soooooo........ after close to 7 weeks of living here, and after finding 4 homes, we are still homeless. And we have no clue when I will find us another home, if we will be able to close on it, and when we will be able to move into it.

Can you sense my frustration?

So, in answer to the enthusiastic questions "Do you love living in London?", "Are you having fun?", "Have you found a home?", etc., my polite answer is "No, not exactly, not yet."

If it weren't for Bad Luck, we'd have No Luck.

If we are still having this same conversation at Christmas, I will also have no sense of humour.