Ok so all that fretting asking ourselves, "have they even started yet?" was a waste of energy (as per usual); it turns out our amazing man Alan Oakley received all the necessary paperwork yesterday from the sellers solicitors and turned it round in an afternoon and put it back in the post to be waiting on the doorstep for us when we got home; plans, contract, land registry (TP1), previous grant applications and access road covenants. Very happy bunny. The covenants are to our liking too - can't use for motorsports, clay pigeon shooting or as a commercial campsite, nor can we put up signboards or be a general nuisance to the neighbours - all these things of course will apply to the people who purchase the plot next door too - so more than happy with that.
It's a lot to go through and we have some long legal phrases to translate, but on the whole there are no surprises and everything we expected. We have a few questions to ask tomorrow and, subject to satisfactory answers, we are happy to sign.
The vendors (Woodlands.co.uk or more accurately Forests.co.uk) thankfully got the seller to complete a "frequently asked questions" table too which is useful as most of the questions we already had noted down were answered on there. There are a couple of key ones missing though;
- How much has been spent in recent years on the access road? is there anything outstanding to pay? We need to establish what might be the likely charges for us in the coming years as we will have to pay a share of its upkeep as it is a private road and not public highway.
- Which boundaries are we responsible for maintaining and to what standard? etc.
The East-West track, marked on the plan, is a little misleading too as it's non-existent and unless you fancy hacking your way through the overgrowth, there's no way you will ever recreate it! The streams are also drawn a fair while ago and have now created new and multiple paths through the trees - which is much better than shown.
Yet again, too excited to sleep and now that I have completely depleted 12 AA Duracell ultras by putting the wildlife trigger-cam on the wrong settings, I will have to wait until the borrowed rechargeable batteries have some juice before I can attempt it again!
