Published: 11/05/2020 By Patrick Henry
The news is now reporting the tragic effect that Covid-19 is having on our care homes. It really hit home for me during my weekly talk with my dad, when he told me that 13 people had passed away in a local care home due to the pandemic. This tragic news made me think of one of my clients who is currently in a care home in Essex. We agreed the sale of his home back in February and since then it feels as though the whole world has changed. To make things even more complicated, his solicitor had been furloughed by the company that she was working for and the case had been passed on to a partner in the firm. This means that our elderly, partially deaf, care home-resident client has to be re-identified by the new solicitors and additional paperwork must be filled out. Fortunately, where there is a will, there is a way and we were determined to get the sale over the line this week.
All parties were put on notice that we would be aiming to exchange and complete simultaneously, which meant alerting the lenders so that the funds would be available on the day and getting all of the signed contracts and associated paperwork to the solicitors and last but not least, finding a way to get a telephone to my client so that he could give his solicitors instructions on the day.
I am very happy to say that we were successful! Compromises were made on all sides and thanks to the unusual levels of patience and persistence (which would probably have been unheard of pre-pandemic) everybody got what they needed to brighten up their 4th week of lockdown.