How to raise £48k in 2 weeks!

First off, apologies for the lack of recent updates but the last month has been a particularly stressful one!

One of my readers said he looked forward to hearing stories from me of "how not to do it" as much as "how to do it" and, sure enough, I have such an experience to recant!

I agreed to purchase a flat for 40k on 30th March. Due to a miscommunication with my solicitors, I was legally bound to buy the place on the 30th even though I didn't have a firm mortgage offer in place. The lender for the buy-to-let mortgage insisted on mortgage statements for my own home for the last 12 months. I contacted the lender (who shall remain nameless but it begins with B and ends in ritannia) for the mortgage on my own home, who after 3 attempts to send them out, finally sent them over 3 weeks later. By this point, it became clear that the buy-to-let mortgage wouldn't be ready in time for the 30th.

So, I had to find 48k (I also had another mortgage due to complete on the 30th so needed 8k for the 15% deposit) to buy the place cash whilst the mortgage was going through. I had 2 weeks to do it or face interest penalties or - if I couldn't complete within 2 weeks of the 30th - potentially up to 6k in fees! I pulled in money from wherever I could - selling shares, cashing in saving accounts, drawing cash from my business, drawing cash from credit cards and even borrowing money from a friend. And I did it - I raised 49k (leaving 1k to spare!) within 2 weeks so that I could complete on time. There were other options open to me for raising the finance quickly including bridging finance, personal loans.

So what did I learn from this:

• It's important to be clear in your communication with solicitors!
• It's possible to raise large sums of money within a short period of time by being creative
  
• Pressure brings out the best in me!