Wake up to a 2 y.o. standing next to your bed saying ‘Yucky* mommy, yucky’, holding out a fistful of the contents of the cats litter tray.

I half-heartedly instructed him to ‘go and put it back’, but the silence that ensued his departure from the room didn’t leave me convinced that this is what he was doing. Nap over.

This is said 2 y.o. enjoying the jumping castle we hired for him (and the kid in me that didn’t get enough jumping castle time when I was young) at our house warming this past weekend.

Once he’d gotten over the initial fear of a castle complete with dragon in his back yard:

Much enjoyment was had ☺

“I see you”

“Aidan Upsa down!”

I can’t describe how this little man has changed my world. I’m quite sad that he only has 6 weeks left of being an only child.

*Actually he said “Ga ga”, South African slang for yuck or the like. But the SA slang that doesn’t sound like ‘lady gaga’, but rather with a hard G, that makes a sound akin to coughing up a furball. But if I’d given this explanation in-line it’d have lost it’s punchline.

On Thursday 8th April this year, Hunny and I went to look at a house. We hadn’t been looking, but we were running out of space in our current house, and we spotted this one for sale in a complex that we’d expressed a liking for previously. We went back to look again on the 10th of April and  put an offer in that afternoon. Our offer was accepted, finance approved, and whoohoo! We were on our way to becoming new home owners.

The owner had already bought another house that was standing empty, so would want to move out as soon as possible. So we chatted about moving dates. The seller would have liked us to move in 1 June, and pay occupational rent until the house registered in our name, but we were on holiday at that time, so we optimistically discussed 1 July. If we were lucky, the house would be registered by then, but probably latest 1 August.

It’s now  25 August.

When we made the offer, back on April 10th, we immediately put our current house on the market, and sold within two. To a cash buyer. Our house registered in the new owners name on the 13th August. We are tenants in our own (old) home.

The transfer of our new house has stalled, this is it’s story…

The transfer agent phoned us around the beginning of June, to let us know that the seller had an outstanding amount on his bond. Quite a substantial amount. I don’t know what it’s for or how it happened, I haven’t asked. But he promised to settle mid July. I began to get concerned. This could potentially hold up the process by 6 weeks. The transfer agent told us that if our current house registered before the new one, we could always move in to the new house, and pay occupational rent until registration. The situation made me feel a bit uneasy, but I stayed calm.

 A month later the story had changed. The seller would pay amount that was just less than half the outstanding amount on the 25 July, and the rest by mid August. The transfer agent spoke to his bank and brought the amount owed down 20%. Come 26 July the seller paid less than the promised amount, but due to the revised settlement figures, still more than half what was outstanding. But, now he said that he would only pay the remainder on the 25th August.

I flipped my lid. I cried, I fought with Hunny for not being angry enough about this, I cried because of that, I sent emails to the transfer agents asking what we could do, if we could back out. I assured her we would most definitely NOT be moving in before registration, we would NOT pay occupational rent. I felt we couldn’t trust the seller to keep the process moving if we were paying him occupational rent every month. We had already agreed with the buyer of our current house that we would stay and pay occupational rent to him for August. We extended that to September also. And then I calmed down, and started the patient wait for 25 August for the next update.

Well. He paid 2 days early, but still 9K short of the revalued amount.

Deflated. That’s how I feel. I don’t have any anger or indignation left.

I have 108 days left till Wiggle makes her arrival. Just under 3.5 months. Registration, from submission date (which can only take place after the seller has paid his dues) will take roughly a month, provided it hits no more snags. So far the process has already taken the best part of 4 months.

I don’t know what we do next.