The scariest thing about buying a new home is the keys. I mean, you tend to only start off with one set. You’d want to go and get more made, but that requires you to find where the key making person is, because it’s not something you use on a regular basis. Let’s face it, when most of us get holes in our shoes, we go and get new shoes. Get what I mean? So, you’ve been through the whole process of Conveyancing, Carnegie has some new residents (or rather, it does in our case). The house has been conveyed into your name, as it were. Such is the way of conveyancing. But then they give you the keys, and that’s when things get stressful.
In Carnegie, as it turns out, there was only one place that did replacement keys. Of course, they were down a side-alley, so it took us a good week to find them. I spent that whole week in fits, because I just knew one of us was going to lose our keys. The conveyancers did such a great job of presenting them to us, even tagged with little yellow tags so that they’d be easy to spot. But we’re such a clumsy family, and all of us are out a lot of the time. I kept having visions of being locked out in the rain, and I’m knocking politely on the door and people just won’t let me in because there’s nobody in there. So I just keep knocking, until maybe four hours later Mum comes home, and then we can’t find her handbag keys in the rain, so we move under the carport shelter but then find that she’s left them at work, and so on. Do the conveyancers or real estate agents hold onto copies? I’m they could be convinced to make an exception in our case.
It’s a bit sad, because handing over the keys is supposed to be that joyous event, the one that clinches your ownership. Most Conveyancing solicitors around here are probably used to seeing expressions of joy at that moment, rather than a sudden, family-wide panic attack. That’s just how we are.