So, finally after lots of hurdles and issues, this afternoon I received a joyous email from my solicitor that my "contract has been concluded" for my new home in Scalloway!!!
Completion day is Thursday 18th January, just over a week before my birthday – so exciting, I can't quite believe its happening! I can't remember if I have said anything about it on the blog before or not, but I only got this property because its a private sale and no one else knows about it! I've probably paid a bit more than what its actually worth, but then I would have probably had to pay the same in a bidding war, so it doesn't really matter at the end of the day. I'm not giving any more details away until the day I move in! I would have probably had to pay another £150k plus had this property been in Norfolk.
The property I'm buying was a self-catering place, which I found, fell in love with, cheekily phoned the owners up and asked if they wanted to sell. They did! They showed me round the same evening and I completely fell in love with this little cottage. A price was agreed and I would have been in before Christmas had there not been a legal hurdle to sort out re parking (long story and all sorted now), plus the seller's solicitor has been insanely slow. Home reports here are not worth the paper they are written on, so instead, I paid a builder (recommended to me by someone I trust 100%) to check it all out, he found something and this has been sorted.
Its a 2-bed, one level property, which is unique and has a fascinating history – more on that when I move in! Its smaller than my 3-bed house in King's Lynn, so good job I halved my possessions! Storage heaters and a multi-burn stove. The garden is also smaller, but more than big enough for my old age! There is enough room to put all my late mother's potted plants in and dig in the ones that are desperate to go in the ground. Basically the garden is all in the front and there is of course enough room for bird feeders and drinking pools! The back garden is basically a concrete area/patio and two sheds. My house immediately overlooks lots of large sycamores and firs with the harbour below the hill, where Orcas are seen occasionally! Behind my house (I'm on a very steep hill) is a huge hill with sheep, burns, trees and looks awesome for rarity finding. I can just sit in my deckchair in my old age, watch the birds and I won't even need to leave the garden! 5.7 miles and 10 minutes from work in Lerwick! The stunning Meal Beach on Burra is only 4.9 miles away too!
I will now be insanely busy again with changing all the utilities AGAIN, I've not really recovered from doing those back in April. How some of these people cope with doing this regularly because they like moving every couple of years, I'll never know. This will be my final move! I discovered today, that my current insurance company won't insure my house because of the type of roof it has, but after alot of work putting in a ton of details into a comparison site, I have found one that will. My TalkTalk emails will cease from my moving date as well, as TalkTalk ONLY operate in Lerwick, so I will have to create a Gmail account – that in itself is going to create no end of problems with everyone who emails me currently, but nothing I can do about it. Probably going with "Plusnet", which is what the new house is already set up for. So many things to do!
The owners are the loveliest of people and only live a few doors away, so it will be good to keep in touch with them and an elderly birdwatcher and his wife live next door to me! Sadly, though there is not enough room to have hens, which is what I had planned. Maybe I will get a cat or maybe two – far less maintenance than a man! 😹
This is why I haven't returned to Norfolk to visit my sisters yet, as didn't want to lose out to the right house coming up. I will probably visit in March.
https://scalloway.net/
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