House Buying: Why I refuse to risk homelessness

There's a big difference between a house and a home.  And today I realised, that I'd rather lose a house, then ever risk the stability of a home.

But then maybe I'm beung unreasonable?

You may be aware that Hubby and I are trying to buy our first house. We've had our offer accepted.  We've sorted the mortgage. We've had the survey done. Problem is, we haven't handed in our notice on our rented flat, and today we find out that delaying two months may be a deal breaker.

For those who have never been in the buying process,  you don't legally need to buy a house, nor the seller sell you the house until you have exchanged contracts... a position we hoped to be in next week. Once we had things signed and sealed we'd hand in our notice.

Personally, I think this is reasonable.

It might be longer than average gap between exchange and completion but as we live no where near relatives, if we somehow end up with no roof over our heads (which is possible if the sellers pull out and we've given notice prior to exchange), to put it bluntly,  we'd be screwed... Bunking down on Park benches and curling up in our own cars becomes genuine possibilities.

But it's like talking to a wall to get the estate agent to grasp this fact.  I'd rather risk losing the house we're trying to buy, than end up without a home.

On top of that, our first-time-buyer wallets are already stretched to breaking point to reach an agreeable sale price, so moving into the house early and still paying rent on our flat just isn't an option (no matter how many times the estate agent 'strongly recommends' it). 

The thing is, I could almost understand the agents insistence on us moving faster if we hadn't mentioned it before.  But we did. I have 2 separate emails to prove it. And I'm genuinely not sure how much clearer the sentence 'We will not hand our notice in until exchange, and then we have to give 2 months notice' can be... so goodness knows why all of this has come as a surprise.

This whole situation is making me angry as the agent's attempts to smooth things over - not by fully recognising his mistake (oh no, apparently he simply 'misunderstood') - involved asking me if I would negotiate with my landlord to let me out of sone of our notice period.

Brilliant.  You don't want to explain to your client that you mucked up, so instead of taking a deep breath and having an awkward conversation you'd rather send the buyers to do the dirty work.  I'm sorry.  I refuse.

I'm starting to wonder whether this latest debarcle may just end up being the straw that breaks the camel's back... I'm honestly now on the cusp of not caring.

What will be will be...