Malcolm and Elaine Wilde had owned the top flat of a building in a smart part of London for 10 years before they decided to move albeit not very far away. The apartment had three bedrooms and was only really used by the kids or when we came back from Asia where I was working at the time says Malcolm. So when we moved back to the UK permanently, we felt somewhere with fewer but larger rooms, and preferably not on the third floor, would suit us better.Fortuitously, the couple were chatting the owners of the ground floor flat. They were a lovely French couple who had a buyer for their place, but told us that the sale was a bit rocky. When the vendor later suggested that if we could match the previous offer and exchange quickly he would sell it to us, we agreed without hesitation.