Marching Orders part 4

The Pub Next Door had sold. The sale had been brokered by a leading Hotel Broker on behalf of an absentee mortgagee.

The price paid by the buyer was 10% less than Mine Host's cash offer, leaving a very sour taste in Mine Host's mouth. The broker was Cain & Abel Pty Ltd, one of the state's leading Hotel Brokers, with a supposedly impeccable reputation.

The vendor was a Melbourne loan shark, as mortgagee-in-possession. The loan shark had engaged a Melbourne real estate agent to handle the sale. The Melbourne real estate agent, lacking local or industry knowledge, had in turn engaged Cain & Abel hotel brokers, at the time supposedly one of Qld's leading hotel brokerage firms.

Mine Host, being next door in the Wayside Tavern, and on the hunt for another pub, should have been considered a "hot" prospective purchaser, and immediately been targeted by Cain & Abel.

Mr Cain (of Cain & Abel) revealed the upcoming sale to Mine Host only when Mine Host phoned on another matter. Thus alerted to the sale, Mine Host immediately requested an inspection.

It was to be another Two months before an inspection could be arranged. Even then it was by accident (receptionist was out & Mr. Cain had answered the phone himself)
Soured from Two months of unreturned phone call exasperation, Mine Host took this window of opportunity to arrange an immediate inspection.

That night Mr. Cain phoned and to say that unless an unconditional offer (above a certain amount) was made by midday the following day, Mine Host was "out". (This is not normal procedure for commerical transactions)

Three working hours to arrange an unconditional cash bid for the neighboring property?

Mine Host met this ultimatum. Mr. Cain then manufactured a disagreement over the size of the deposit. Mine Host's intended deposit was $100,000 Cain & Abel demanded $150,000 or Mine Host was "out".

The lawyer handling this matter for Mine Host was not the usual partner at Golf, Racing & Gladhanding, but an offsider. A migrant lady with a very strong accent. The amount of hotel sale work done by G.R. & G. meant their relationship to the Cain & Abel was a tad too close for Mine Host's comfort.

There were many meetings between Cain & Abel and G.R. & G's foreign-accented Associate, all on other matters, at which they occassionally took the opportunity to cover the minutia of Mine Host's attempted transaction. Mine Host was none too comfortable at the reverent tone adopted by the foreign-accented Associate when referring to the firm of Golf, Racing & Gladhanding.

Disagreement over the deposit amount would have been brief, lasting only a few hours. Cain & Abel needed only this briefest possible time to get a contract to the preferred buyer, thus making the sale a fait accompli.

In subsequent discussion with the very heavily foreign-accented Associate, Mine Host wryly observed that the firm of Cain & Abel had acquitted themselves with neither honour nor decency, that indisputably they had not acted in the best interests of their client.

The heavily foreign-accented Associate took umbrage at this slight on the (reverently referred to) firm of Cain & Abel and proceeded to give Mine Host a thorough dressing down.

The dressing down wasn't a direct one, but a "commerical transactions for dummies" lecture.

Taking quite a bit of offence - at recieving a lecture on commericial etiquette from one whose commercial experience was purely vicarious, and at the strident siding with the (indispuably unethical) opposition, by someone who is supposedly acting for him - Mine Host immediately dismissed the law firm of Golf, Racing & Gladhanding.