The End Pt2

What we had not realised was that the laws on purchasing property were much different in Scotland. The dream place had what is known as a closing date, which was the next day.
What this meant was that potential purchaser's had to inform the sellers solicitor through their own solicitor of the offer they would be prepared to pay basically in the sealed envelope scenario. The sellers would then be given the details of all offers at mid-day the next day and chose which one they wanted to proceed with. Great for vendors, a disaster for us. We didn't have a solicitor, we couldn't get a survey done in less than 24 hrs, hadn't contacted our mortgage lenders, and our house wasn't even on the market.
The other main problem was that if your offer was accepted you had to pay 10% deposit within seven days and the remainder within 28days if you didn't you were liable to a lot of penalties plus bye- bye to the deposit. From everything being perfect we were faced with a minefield of uncertainty. At some point I remember thinking I will put the offer in I am sure it will all work out. Common sense prevailed as the thought of bankrupting ourselves became a very real outcome.
Next day came 12o'clock passed. Stupidly I phoned the agents to ask if it had been sold and of course it had, although I could not be told for how much I like to think it was for more than we would have offered. This didn't ease the pain and as far as I was concerned that was it I gave up looking for anymore properties, resigned to the fact that our lifestyle would never change we would just have to get used to it.
The stress of the job I was doing got worse, I seemed to be addressing problems that were not of my making it didn't matter how hard I tried something always needed my attention, added to this a situation occurred which highlighted to me exactly how I was viewed by my superiors even though I was performing really well.
Summer came and I was determined to have some time with Debbie and the kids so took the first two weeks of the holidays and ensured that I was not to be contacted. It was during one of these days that one of the other residents of the site came over to show us the details of the property she was after in Montrose. All the feelings came back and the yearning for a better life.
I went home soon after and searched the sites I had used previously and took the details of suitable properties back to Debbie at the caravan. We travelled back to Aberdeenshire twice over the next couple of weeks but none of the properties seemed to evoke the feelings we had in March.
Travelling round trip in a day was exhausting for all of us, and after the last viewing we travelled back again resigning ourselves to never finding that dream place.
By chance when we got home property details for a croft had arrived as we were on several mailing lists. It looked good but we had been disappointed so many times by properties that looked good on paper. So we forgot about it.
Next day Monday morning I couldn't get the property out of my mind so phoned Debbie. We decided to go back up and take a look at that one plus two others we had not seen.
The weekend came and we did the same routine travelled on Friday went to visit on Saturday morning. The drive up was fantastic again the sun shone the property appeared ideal it had no land but we could rent some, the kids seemed happy playing in the small woods and tree house, I liked the two barns which appeared in good condition.
By the time we left to view the other two properties I was in love with this place. I wasn't much bothered about viewing the other two properties and when we couldn't find one of them it didn't worry me because we had found the place we could live out our dream. Or so I thought!