Skip to main content Skip to navigation

To move or not to move? That was the question...

Carol Felton

Open Door - November 2005 page 8-9

Me

I am single and have had MS for 12 years. I walk badly with a stick. My disability has only become apparent in the last five years. Before, I was fine with two hits of optic neuritis to start with. Now stiff, tired, the usual. Ugh.

Decision

Having worked 33 years and led an active life I found myself in 2003, retired, living in Putney under the flight path into Heathrow. OK, but existing. Time to move. I procrastinated about the area until January 2005, my 55th birthday. I took stock: what would the future hold? If I didn't do it then I never would.

Buying

I had made a list of what I wanted in a house/bungalow and I had spent hours on the computer looking at estate agents' dreadful websites to find it. No luck.

Then I got the local weekly newspaper of the area in Dorset I was interested in and at last I struck gold. One wet Saturday last January I went down to Dorset, saw two properties and knew in about ten minutes I had found my next home. OK it's got stairs but at present I can manage, BUT it also has a downstairs loo and a double garage, faces south, has gas central heating and is level. After about 10 days my offer was accepted.

Write yourself a wish list of things you want in your new home

  • Can you afford to run your new house?
  • Will your furniture fit?
  • Make sure your new home is manageable including the garden (this one looks ancient but is in fact 5 years old)
  • Understand the buying/selling process and jargon
  • Out of interest, bungalows seem at least £30K more
  • Find a good surveyor
  • Find yourself a good lawyer who recognises what a timetable is (mine looked after both buying and selling for me. OK I did hassle him a bit, but shucks, I was the customer)
  • Have you friends in the area?
  • Is there MS back-up in the area?
  • Shops/post office/post box/pub?
  • Public transport? If not for you, for your visitors

Selling

To begin with I went with a 'nice' estate agent. We started marketing in early February. Six weeks in, lots of views, we dropped the price some £25K to a sensible figure (£1 into the lower bracket for the website) and got more hits. No confidence in the agent, so I decided to ditch them and put the house on with four estate agents at the same time! All required different fees but the element of competition was there - healthy. After 31 views and lots of stress, I got an offer from a cash buyer early May and completed 27 May.

  • Estate agents are rogues. They will overprice your house and then you'll waste time having to reduce the price to get people through the door. Do your homework; get the right asking figure and the right assertive agent who is working for YOU.
  • Do not try and sell your house in winter - aim for April onwards.
  • Chuck stuff away before you decide to sell and chuck more stuff before you move. Buyers don't like clutter.
  • TV programmes have ruined selling one's home: it should be white, nothing in it, chrome and twigs, 22nd century kitchen etc all for under £250K. Mine wasn't.
  • Make the best of the property for sale. Mine looked its best empty!
  • Adopt a siege mentality at home, each view you'll have to tidy up. Chuck the drying washing back in the machine, stuff things in cupboards. It's hell!
  • Don't underestimate your tiredness. One Sunday afternoon I was bending over collecting things on the floor. I stood up and overbalanced backwards, hit my head on the desk and promptly bled all over the carpet. My only worry was the carpet: people were coming to view the house the next day...

Moving

Whenever anyone came over I asked them to do a small job: move the ladder; take down a picture. Eventually everything was where it needed to be for the move.

  • Be organised with lots of lists, write things down
  • Choose a good removal firm - THEY did everything, packed and unpacked
  • Label everything
  • Will the curtains fit? If not chuck and get new ones/blinds
  • Decide where you want things to go - do a floor plan for each room
  • Separate security items/documents - either you look after them or some trustworthy person
  • Take lots of passport sized photos of yourself - basically the State thinks you are a villain. Your passport is your identity!
  • Change of address - begin your list early - it's difficult to remember everyone, including Post Office/NHS/driving licence/ tax/ National Insurance/bank/card/ pension/ utilities/insurances/car registration documents/work/oh, and of course friends and family!
  • Start/close the utilities etc
  • Have your mobile phone with you at all times during the move: there is one point when you are between homes
outside the new house

Settling in

The new house was odd to begin with. It took me time to work out my patterns for living. For instance, my garage area is covered with small stones - lethal to walk on, so I have to take it slowly.

It was odd seeing all my stuff in a new place. BUT I was here so I could take time to arrange things properly (two weeks actually but still no pics on the walls). And my routine of (normal) exercising has gone out of the window. Three months in and I am beginning it again. My garden is slightly bigger. It is level, I am learning how to get around it with one hand free to do jobs, eg I prune sitting down...

  • Familiarise yourself with the new layout and work out how you are going to move around.
  • Change the locks.
  • Get a list of tradesmen from neighbours and from the local post office. Budget for them to do jobs that may need doing.

Findings:

  • I underestimated the stress, fatigue and commotion moving would entail.
  • It requires careful consideration and detailed planning. Can you afford to move? Do your sums.

Worth it?

Yup. It is a gentle and peaceful way of life in a good, clean environment. As my MS goes on, I'll probably have to move again. But for now it is just perfect ...

Return