Sloping gardens

I would carry on with your plans!

Snap dragons to be sown in October
I'm also starting some more Penstemons - twizzle and I think firecracker
Also knautia can be autumn sown. As well as Larkspur.

Perfect time to plant in roses, bare roots etc. if by you wanted to add trees or shrubs etc? I wanted a taxus hedge....my plans have changed a bit but the 40 odd taxus bare root Les have put on huge growth this summer - potted them all in MFB.

Everything having gone smoothly for a while, I let myself start to doodle some potential gardening plans. However, now everything seems to be snarled up by some kind of issue with the leasehold... The vendor owns the freehold but it seems there is no official evidence that she also owns the leasehold (which wasn't cancelled when the freehold was purchased). This has only come up because I chased my solicitor on why the draft contracts hadn't been received yet. She didn't appear to have noticed (which I guess is understandable given the way the market is right now). I then asked her to clarify what this meant for my purchase and she sent me an unpunctuated gobbledygook response. It wasn't even legalese, just very badly written. Nice to see what I'm paying her all this money for... As a fellow professional, I would never send a response to a patient or relative that read so poorly, and they aren't even paying for my services (not directly anyway)! Anyway, I'm now flummoxed as to whether this is some kind of purchase ending disaster or just a very minor issue that will be easily sorted out. So, should I be emotionally distancing myself from the property and starting to look for somewhere else, or carrying on trying to work out if I can squeeze in an asparagus bed?

I'm hoping the land registry can clarify things for me (and they are already helping), because there certainly doesn't seem to be any blooming point in asking my solicitor.

We had this same problem, so I sympathise. I still don't fully understand it though, PamH did all the work on our move. Our solicitor didn't help by being diligently uncommunicative throughout the process, but it was something to do with when the previous owners bought the freehold many years ago, that meant they then owned both the freehold and the leasehold. I gather that the leasehold title hadn't been updated in the land registry and this had to be done before the sale went through. But the land registry had a big backlog and it would take them a month or three to get around to it unless expedited. Our solicitor successfully applied to get it expedited once everything else was ready and this was the only thing holding up the chain. Once they agreed to get on with it, the land registry sorted it inside a week.

So we now own both the freehold and the leasehold. I think.

With any luck it'll be a bit easier for you, if indeed you're in exactly the same situation.

Thank you. It seems it is something along those lines, but it's possible the leasehold was never registered in the first place. I'm hoping it can all get sorted quickly, but I'm also having trouble with communication. All I need is for my solicitors to say "The leasehold isn't registered but we have checked that the vendor's conveyancers have applied for this and provided proof that it needs to be expedited. In my experience, this will take a few weeks/6 months/10 years..." With two sentences, she could have explained what was happening and how this would impact on the purchase.

Instead, she has just quoted what the vendor's conveyancers have said about the leasehold not being registered with no further information. When I asked for clarification, she sent me three lines that didn't really make sense and with no attempt at punctuation. When I look at what I'm paying her per hour, particularly compared to my own hourly rate as a professional, I can't understand why she would respond in a manner I find so rude and so uninformative. It's not a WhatsApp chat with a friend, it's a formal email to a paying client!

My solicitor says she has received the draft contracts, so it seems the leasehold issue has been sorted!

I've also received the fixtures and fittings form and the greenhouse and shed are definitely staying for no extra cost

The end is in sight at last. Nothing like a shed and greenhouse to brighten your day.

You'll soon be able to start gardening in your own garden, Pros.

I really hope so. There are various enquiries that have been raised, but hoping those are resolved fairly soon. The biggest wait now is going to be the vendor's new build flat to be completed. I went and looked at the building site five weeks ago and it seemed to be coming along pretty well. Might go and look again around mid-August to see if I can gauge progress. Sadly, lots of new builds are getting delayed lately due to problems with materials and labour post-Brexit plus mid-COVID.

I think it may be over.

My vendor never applied for probate after her husband died. They owned the leasehold jointly, but the freehold was only in his name. My solicitors requested the grant of probate two months ago, but the application still hasn't been made. Apparently, they are making it now, but I think it may take months to be granted in COVID times. If so, my vendor may well lose her new build, and I can't just hang on in the hope that it may all work out some time in 2022. I've asked my solicitor to try and clarify timescales, but I think I am going to need to start looking for other houses.

My solicitor chose to email me about this at a minute to midnight, so there goes my night's sleep. I feel sick to my stomach.

So sorry you’re getting dragged through the red tape mill. Don’t let the Ba$tard$ drag you down. You’ll get there. You have the full power of the G&G good vibes / happy thoughts/ PMA team behind you all the way   .