Rebecca A Withey: Looking for a new house (and being deaf!)

In April 2021, my husband and I began house hunting. We decided to launch a search for our ‘forever home’ or at least ‘the house we will live in until the kids fly the nest!’ Our current home was lovely but it was never going to be our permanent residence for several reasons.

We duly got ourselves signed onto Rightmove and began looking. At first our wish list was rather long. The house had to be in THAT location, with THAT sort of drive and THAT size garden. We soon realised that house hunting nowadays requires a certain amount of compromise. So we adjusted our wish list and selected some houses to view.

When registering our interest to view houses we liked the look of, I made a note to request estate agents contact us only by email and not telephone. I’d say 80% of estate agents emailed and the rest continued to leave missed calls, voicemails and messages that said “I tried ringing you earlier, can you ring us back…”

And then of course, we had the challenge of lipreading either the estate agent or the seller when we went along to the viewings. I usually get by with lipreading so I’m comfortable going to new places as long as the hearing person can slow down their lip pattern a bit for me.

However, I can honestly say that from April last year until September (when we found THE house) I have lost count of the amount of times I had to introduce myself  – and my deafness.

Occasionally the owners already knew we were deaf, as the estate agent had let them know in advance. This was incredibly helpful. I can even recall how one seller had made the extra effort of typing up all the information he wanted to tell us and letting us read the details from his iPad as we browsed the house. We had never felt so relaxed and accommodated for during a viewing!

At other times, the owners hadn’t been informed at all and so meeting us – a signing couple – on their doorstep was a surprise for them, to say the least!

I also tend to find that with couples who are deaf, one person tends to adopt the role of ‘interpreter’ more than the other one. In our case, that’s me.  Admittedly I’m perhaps the better lipreader out of the two of us, but being more socially introverted than my hubby it was always a conscious effort for me to gather up the confidence to knock on a strangers door with a smile and declare;

‘HELLO! I’m Rebecca and I’m deaf! This my husband and he’s deaf too!’

Then there were the times when the seller showing us around had an accent. One guy was from Newcastle (or at least I think that’s what he said) and I found myself telling my husband to ‘just nod’ after I asked the seller to repeat himself three times and still didn’t know what he was on about…

Another lady had an Eastern European accent I found it tricky to understand so I tried to avoid having any questions directed at me and decided to direct the conversation so I’d at least have some idea of what she said…

Some days I’d feel too tired to lipread so my husband would take the lead and we’d get by somehow. We were asked by a couple of friends why we didn’t just take a hearing relative to communicate for us. To that, there are a couple of reasons;

1. The viewings only permitted two adults to enter the sellers home – due to the pandemic restrictions.
2. Our hearing relatives have full time jobs so couldn’t pop out of work to make some of the viewing times.

My favourite house viewings were the ones where the estate agent would simply say

‘Go in by yourselves, have a look around, then just let me know if you have any questions.’

WONDERFUL! I loved viewing empty houses and asking the agent questions afterwards. This meant no awkward following the seller round each room and missing out on seeing house details because I was trying to figure out what they were waffling about their boiler/neighbours/loft extension.

After six months of searching, we finally found the one we wanted! We acted quick.

An estate agent who knew us emailed to ask if we wanted to preview a house before it got put on the market. We emailed back immediately and saw the house that afternoon. The following day we made an offer. Two days later it was accepted and the rest as they say, is history!

The estate agent we dealt with was absolutely brilliant at corresponding via emails and she even WhatsApped me towards the end of our transaction. We loved the ease and speed at which we could communicate with her.

Our solicitor also went above and beyond for us. When we appointed our conveyancer they sent us several links to videos that explained the conveyancing process and described in detail how their service worked. Upon realising we were deaf and seeing that their videos were not captioned, they quickly hired a team to add subtitles to all of their videos and website resources too. I loved that we didn’t even have to ask!

The person we bought the house from was very accommodating too. He is a very polite gentleman who speaks in a ‘Hugh Grant’ manner whereby his lips hardly move… So when I explained I couldn’t lipread everything he said accurately he decided to make written notes for us to read regarding appliances and all sorts of things in the house. His texts and emails were very much appreciated!

We moved into our new house last week and now have the fun(!) of updating all of our documents and informing services and so on of our change of address. For most things, changes can be made online or via email with only a handful of companies requesting telephone calls or (groans) in person appointments.

What I’ve realised over the course of the last 10 months is that although being deaf and moving house has had its challenges, on the whole I would say it’s been a very positive experience. The people we encountered were generally always eager to do what they could to ensure we could understand, and attitudes towards us were usually welcoming too.

There have been some incredibly funny moments – like the time a seller provided us with full PPE to wear; face mask, visor, shoe covers, gloves and we ended up communicating with each other in an hilariously visual way.

And there were some frustrating times like the occasions we missed viewing a house we liked because the agent would only respond to phone calls (not emails!) yet they’d keep hanging up every time a text relay service got through to them.

But, you know what – we did it. It did take a bit of extra time to understand the jargon and legal talk during the purchase but I’d say that’s the same for anyone who doesn’t come across this sort of language everyday.

We found that by keeping our sense of humour and being open about our communication needs, we could ensure the process went as smoothly as possible. We sure had some funny times, but now as we sit in our new home with dreams of the future and a cuppa in hand, we can at least look back and laugh.

Here’s to our new chapter!

P.S. Sending huge thanks to the lovely friends who helped us out on moving day and kicked off an impromptu housewarming deaf-party style!

I’m also pleased to report our new neighbours have announced they’re going to learn BSL for us too. Watch this space!

Rebecca Anne Withey is a freelance writer with a background in Performing Arts & Holistic health. She is also profoundly deaf, a sign language user and pretty great lipreader. She writes on varied topics close to her heart in the hope that they may serve to inspire others.