Quick Sale

We think we may have bought a house. I say “may” only because I don’t want to tempt fate, but it does seem as though we’re going to acquire a detached bungalow one street back from the beach in a village about twenty minutes drive north from Coffs. You can see it here Ti-Tree Road, at least until the agents change their site.

Compared to buying or selling in the UK, it’s happened with frightening speed, less than two weeks elapsing between agreeing a price, organising searches and inspections, exchanging contracts and including a five-day cooling-off period - we’re in the cooling-off period at present. Taking Christmas into account, the completion and moving date is January 31. Considering that it took more than two months to sort out the deal on our flat in Penarth, even though we weren’t buying anywhere else and our buyers weren’t selling anything, and for most of that time we had nothing resembling a completion date and languished in a legal and financial limbo, it seems quite remarkable.

It’s strange because the elements of both systems are much the same, the only difference being that everyone here - banks, solicitors, surveyors - seems to agree that it can be done, and done quickly. We did have to put down a 10pc deposit on exchange of contracts, which does concentrate the mind, and gives the seller some security. The deposit is returnable if you pull out with good cause in the cooling off period, otherwise it stays in trust until completion. You could still get gazzumped in the cooling-off period but, in theory, everyone knows where they stand.

There’s little in Sandy Beach itself, apart from a hairdressers and a shop selling papers, milk, canned goods and fishing tackle and bait. And the beach, of course. It looks and feels like a seaside community. Woolgoolga, just up the highway, or at the end of the next beach, depending how you look at it, has a fine Sikh temple and shops and restaurants. Otherwise, one scoots down the highway to Coffs. In eighteen months, there will be another option - a cycle-way along the coast which will make a fine ride.

Fingers crossed……