The house saga continues. Yesterday evening, the estate agent called to ask me to change the plan (which I'd explained to them on 22nd December). The plan had been to exchange contracts and complete as quickly as possible in the new year. This, I felt, would get the quickest conclusion to the deal, which is best for everyone. Yesterday evening, the estate agent asked me to rush through the exchange of contracts for today.

Given that exchanging contracts requires an agreed completion date and pretty much all of the money that I'm going to dole out over this house-purchase, it's quite a tall order to ask someone to do this at 6pm on one day when their solicitor only returns after the Christmas break the following morning. I've spoken to my solicitor and they'll be onto it right away, however, the realistic target for doing this is tomorrow.

Now the estate agent is telling me that they fear that the vendor will react badly to this news and maybe even pull out to offer it to someone else. As far as I'm concerned, this is a ridiculous situation and I'm not certain that I want to get drawn into it. I've spent a fair amount of money on this house. I've invested time and effort and even have contractors booked to do the work that the existing owners so long neglected to do. To have them back out for want of a couple of business hours' extra time is just ludicrous.

So, either I'll hear that we have until tomorrow, or I'll hear that they've decided to go with a cash offer from someone foolhardy enough to either buy a house immediately with none of the usual searches/legal mumbo-jumbo, or foolhardy enough to get all the conveyancing done "just in case" lest they can beat me in a war of time.

I'm not going to play nice about this. I've been as proactive as I can be in getting this deal completed and if some numbskull is unclear about how long it takes to buy a house, perhaps they shouldn't be selling one.