*Paul*

Feb 2 2008, 12:26 AM

Wise words.

But listen to this horror story that relates to what happened to my parents when they came out here.

Visas were granted and the house, after a few years of neglect, was attacked to put into some sort of order for sale purposes. Time passed and the house was slowly coming together - it was an old place built in the 1870s or 1890s, I can't quite remember, but old enough to need a few vital repairs.

Well time went on and the repairs were completed. But by then the housing market had started to decline. The house would not sell. The price was dropped. Still the house would not sell. The closing date for visa entry was fast approaching. The price was dropped. An offer made and accepted. With days left before their visa expired they left the country and a house sale in the hands of their solicitor....

What happened next is a bit of a blur. The contract was sent, signed and returned, that much I remember. It was posted to Australia. It should have been sent by airmail. It wasn't...

There were a few problems in eastern Europe. President Gorbachev was in some sort of trouble for a while and the money markets went into a spin. The rate my parents were expecting from the Nat West. Bank was amount X and with no sale contract in sight after a couple of weeks the rate it looked like they were going to get was in fact Y, where X is far greater than Y.

Phonecalls to the solicitor amounted to little - after all they'd posted the contract so it must have just gone missing. With the help of a solicitor this end the contract was faxed, witnessed signed and returned. Yes, I know, why not use this method in the first place? Anyway, my point is that the UK solicitors stuffed up. They didn't admit that they'd neglected to leave off a simple airmail sticker or pay the extra pence above the normal shipping postage rate. It was only when the contract turned up some two months later that it became clear what had happened. You can imagine the anger that day.

I'm not sure how much my parents lost due to the solicitor's negligence, but it ran into many thousands. Money they could well have done with, as it turns out. Sure, they opted to sue the pants of the solicitor but financially they had stretched themselves in Australia and after initial solicitor costs this end, to fire letters back and forth, the case just seemed to run out of steam. My parents would have to return to the UK to fight the case and air-flights in the very early '90s were a tad expensive.

Yes, by all means leave it with your solicitor. Just make sure they know what they're doing!

P.