The Auction

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Kendal Town Hall

I chickened out!

We had been looking for a property for almost two years. The day of the auction had arrived, we had the particulars, we had viewed South Low Farm (Colin Park showed us around as a special concession just before the auction), I had taken the Friday off work and we went to the Town Hall in Kendal.

But I lost my nerve. I couldn’t face going to the auction; although to be fare (to myself!) I did think that it would be go for more than we were prepared to pay. We had been to an auction the previous week, a property on the edge of the Pennines just south of Sedbergh, and the bidding ended up with just me and A N Other. I thought we had won the auction as everything stopped with a bid from me when the auction reached just below my top price. But the bidder was acting on behalf of a client and was on the phone. The bidding started again and I carried on bidding until I was bidding significantly above what I had originally intended as my ceiling. I stopped. Colin Thomlinson, the auctioneer, who by now we seemed to know fairly well, –

“Come on sir you have been here lots of times and still not bought a property. Your wife is nodding her head.”

Me “No she’s not she’s shaking it and I’ve run out of money”

Another auction was just too stressful! So we did a tour of the estate agents (yet again) and visited one or two properties returning later to Kendal to see how much South Low Farm had fetched. It then went roughly as follows.

Girl behind the desk - “It didn’t reach it's reserve price sir”

Me “What was the reserve?”

She told me – I didn’t think she should have!

Me, pretending to be casual “I’ll pay that for it!”

Girl behind the desk “I’ll just speak to Mr Thomlinson.” – a brief telephone conversation.

Girl behind desk “Mr Thomlinson thinks that the vendor would accept your offer. Would you like to come through to his office to discuss things with him”

Me “I had better tell my wife!”

Me to Jean “I’ve just bought it”

Jean “What -  without discussing it with me!!!”. Jean was a bit miffed.

Anyway we’re here.

Click on the picture to the left for a copy of the sales particulars (.pdf file). The fields, by the way, were all sold separately.