'Gazanging’ rises as home sellers get last-minute cold feet

 

54,000 buyers were “gazanged” in the first six months of this year – with buyers now more likely to be gazanged, where they are left hanging, than gazumped, where a rival buyer’s higher offer is accepted, or to gazunder, where they lower their offer having already had it accepted. A survey suggests one in four sellers changed their mind because they could not find a suitable property to move to, while others got cold feet because of concerns about the state of the housing market. The number of people pulling out has risen by 20 per cent since last year. One in six said they pulled out because they were fed up with legal complications. It means thousands of buyers who have spent money on surveys and solicitors’ fees are left out of pocket. Phil Spencer, a broadcaster and property expert, said: “Gazanging is something that’s on the up. The seller accepts an offer, but then decides to pull out and stay put, leaving a very unhappy buyer and a broken property chain. In such a volatile market, it’s not that surprising that many more sellers are changing their minds at the last minute, especially when there are so few suitable homes available. “There are lots of reasons why gazanging has started to happen. One of the biggest frustrations is the drawn out conveyancing process and in particular the bad service often experienced. Ask the vast majority of buyers what it was like and they will tell you conveyancing took longer than expected, cost more than they planned and that they felt confused. “There are far fewer houses on the market and this means that people are finding it more difficult to find their dream home, so much so that some sellers eventually decide to stay put.” More than a quarter of sellers who opted to stay put said they could not find a suitable property to buy. The overall number of transactions declined by a quarter in the past 12 months. Figures from the Land Registry and Council of Mortgage Lenders show sales fell from 62,705 in June 2010 to 46,700 in June this year. Spencer added: “Limited access to credit means that many more people struggle to secure a mortgage, leaving them high and dry when it comes to buying their next home. And uncertainty about what is happening with house prices can also make sellers reassess their plans.”

Cheryl Cole | Cheryl Cole Flies To Afghanistan To Boost Troops' Morale

 

British singer Cheryl Cole has flown to Afghanistan to visit U.K. troops serving in the war-torn country. The Girls Aloud star made her way to the country's Helmand Province on Tuesday night (13Sep11) to surprise servicemen and women. Cole underwent special training to prepare for the hostile environment she will tour during her visit, which marks 10 years of British operations in the country. Her morale-boosting trip is being filmed as part of the annual Pride of Britain Awards, which will air on U.K. TV next month (Oct11). A source tells Britain's Daily Mirror, "Cheryl's amazed by the courage of all those serving our country. When she was invited to go out to see them in Afghanistan, she immediately said 'yes'. "She thinks it's such a great cause and they deserve all the recognition they get." Cole has largely been out of the public eye since she was fired from the U.S. version of The X Factor earlier this year (11).

Rapper Aggro Santos charged with raping two women

 

Brazilian-born rapper and former contestant on I'm a Celebrity has been charged with raping two women. Aggro Santos, 22, of Bickersteth Road, London, is accused of raping a woman in Chichester, West Sussex, on 7 May. He is also accused of raping another in Yeovil, Somerset, between 25 and 26 September last year. Another man, Tyrelle Ritchie, 21, of Vauxhall Road, London, has been charged with one count of rape in Chichester on the same date, Sussex Police said. Mr Santos, whose real first name is Yuri, and Mr Ritchie have been bailed to appear at Chichester Magistrates' Court on 19 September. Mr Santos's debut single, Candy, featuring former Pussycat Dolls singer Kimberly Wyatt, shot to number five in the UK charts last year. But he became more popularly known through his appearance in last year's series of ITV's reality game show I'm A Celebrity... Get Me Out of Here! in which he reached the last six.

Millions of Hotmail users cut off by Microsoft 'cloud' failure

 

As well as Hotmail, the outage affected Office 365 and the Skydrive online storage service. Microsoft said the cause appeared to be related to the Domain Name System, the computer network that ensures that web addresses are connected to websites. “Preliminary root cause suggests a DNS issue,” the firm said on its office 365 Twitter feed. The problems lasted for at least two-and-a-half hours, beginning at around 4AM British Summer Time. On a company blog, Microsoft said it had fixed the problem at 5.45AM, but the repairs took some time to “propagate” through the DNS network.  "We are working on propagating the DNS configuration changes and so it will take some time to restore service to everyone. Again we appreciate your patience," the firm said. For Office 365, Microsoft’s subscription-only competitor to Google Apps, which went live earlier this year, it was the second major technical failure in less than a month. Such incidents are likely to give pause to organisations considering migration to online “cloud” services, whereby software is delivered from vast data centres, over the internet.

Johnny Depp hands Keith Richards writer of the year gong

 

Hollywood star Johnny Depp presented a gong to Keith Richards, the rocker who famously inspired his Pirates of the Caribbean performance, at an awards ceremony tonight. The actor, Captain Jack Sparrow in the films, awarded Rolling Stone guitarist Richards, who recently wrote a warts-and-all account of his life as a hellraiser in his autobiography, writer of the year at the ceremony. The GQ Men of the Year awards, at London's Royal Opera House, also saw Chancellor George Osborne expected to attend to win politician of the year. Advertisement >> The BBC's political editor, Nick Robinson, was due to present the award at the ceremony, also attended by actresses Charlize Theron and Emma Watson, Top Gear presenter Jeremy Clarkson, singer Kylie Minogue, and comedian and Britain's Got Talent judge Michael McIntyre. Doctor Who star Matt Smith wins the most stylish man award at the event, while Professor Brian Cox is getting TV personality of the year. Sherlock star Benedict Cumberbatch wins best actor, Tinie Tempah gets the solo artist gong, actor Bradley Cooper is named international man and Duran Duran get the lifetime achievement gong. Other winners at the event, hosted at London's Royal Opera House in Covent Garden by David Mitchell, include woman of the year for Lara Stone - whose husband David Walliams is currently swimming the Thames. Lord Sebastian Coe is getting the man of next year award, presented by Boris Johnson.

Amy Winehouse leaves £2 million fortune behind,, a source close to Winehouse claimed that she had spent thousands of pounds on drink and drugs.

 

Amy Winehouse's fortune was worth just over £2 million when she died. Although the late singer made The Sunday Times Rich List in 2008 with an estimated fortune of £10 million, the accounts for two companies she owned that were published yesterday suggested her financial value had decreased in the last several years. The figures showed that Winehouse’s Cherry Westfield company was worth £2,004,963 at the end of last November, which is £20,000 less than it was valued at in 2009. Her CW Touring company, meanwhile, dropped in value from £142,012 to £8,032 during the same period.  Amy Winehouse’s ‘Back To Black’ becomes UK’s biggest-selling album of the 21st centuryMark Ronson toasts Amy Winehouse at his weddingDrug overdose ruled out as cause of Amy Winehouse's death According to The Daily Star, a source close to Winehouse claimed that she had spent thousands of pounds on drink and drugs. They said: Even though Amy spent thousands on drink, drugs and hangers-on, she was still a rich young woman. Had she beaten her issues with drink, she would almost certainly have lived a worry-free and comfortable life. It is sad that having beaten drugs, she never got a chance to enjoy the money she worked so hard to produce.

Members of the gang themselves called police, posing as residents to complain that bikers were roaring around the streets, disturbing the neighborhood, and requested that a patrol car be sent to the neighborhood.

Six members of the Nishiarai biker gang, aged between 15 and 18, were arrested in Tokyo’s Adachi Ward on Tuesday for violation of the Road Traffic Act. Members of the gang themselves called police, posing as residents to complain that bikers were roaring around the streets, disturbing the neighborhood, and requested that a patrol car be sent to the neighborhood.

After a police car arrived, the gang began playing what they call a “PC Game,” which comes from the initials of patrol ca’ and refers to the Japanese biker gang habit of taunting and baiting police cars.

Police eventually arrested the youths and learned that they were the same gang involved in an incident that occurred on Nov 12 last year at around 11:50 p.m. when bikers rode along streets, ignoring red lights for roughly one kilometer while being filmed by video cameras.

One gang member was quoted by police as saying, “We did it to feel the thrill of a police chase. I’ve done it two or three times before.”