possession is 9/10 of lahore

Ohh the argy. Ohh the bargy. I feel like I've been an unwitting extra in an episode of the new reality TV series, “When Lawyers go bad...”. This process has involved repeated discussions with our solicitor, who has been talking the vendor's unreasonable solicitor, multiple contacts with the City Council, and much frustration. I have been feeling particularly stressed, between this and everything else going on. (Bronwyn has handled it better, this one.) Finally Wednesday night I faxed a long letter to our Solicitor, instructing them to demand possession of the property, and attaching for the vendor a copy of the Code of Compliance Certificate I'd managed to obtain—a certificate they had claimed for two weeks did not exist. (In the normal course of events, they'd have been supplying the certificate to us.) Also that night my parents emailed some of their contacts and got some people actively praying for a breakthrough.

Thursday afternoon we emerged triumphant. We have the keys!

We even surprised our Solicitor, who 30 minutes earlier had finally told me over the phone that despite having a watertight legal right to possession, it looked like the vendor wasn't going to budge until at least Friday. In the morning she'd suggested I should got to the Real Estate Agent's office (I did) and simply refuse to leave utill they gave me the keys. The agent had even received instructions from the vendor's solicitor to release the keys, but that had then been withdrawn again, just before I arrived. Time passed, phone calls on both sides, and our solicitor finally said she felt that we would probably have to wait until Friday, and see what occurred. We rung off. But I waited a little longer. Something changed—we still don't really know what occurred finally—and suddenly, the keys were handed over. Relief.

Settlement, and when the vendor actually gets paid for the house, could be some time off—whenever the authorities issue the new title from the subdivision. Our solicitor holds the settlement funds until that time. And in the meantime, we have possession. And as they say, possession is nine tenths of...

We move in today, at last. For all my pushing and agitating over the last fortnight that possession was delayed, we hadn't got far. Finally on Wednesday Bronwyn helped me consider perhaps I couldn't do this on my own. Many people I know wouldn't understand this perspective, but we're feeling the man upstairs helped us out on this one...