Flash, I love you, but we've only got three weeks complete the flat sale

We heard from our estate agent just now that the buyer's solicitor has raised a query with the borough council about contaminated land or something. It seems that due to the previous industrial use of the Isle of Dogs any local search will show up a note regarding "potential risk of contaminated land". For most sales this isn't an issue, but for some sales an overzealous solicitor who doesn't know the area will want to cover his back and so make sure that he can advise his client that there will be no issues with the future resale value. We have one of the latter sort of flat sales. He's also looking into indemnification (if that's even a word) policies regarding the same matter. The problem is the more people who you involve in a property sale the more time stuff sits on people's desks, and usually it's people with no personal investment in the property sale. Given our solicitor seems to want two weeks between exchange and completion to make sure everything can get sorted regarding final mortgage value etc etc (although most solicitors manage to turn that all around in three or four days) we really have to exchange next week. We originally set 13th July as the cut-off date for completion. We're going to be cutting it fine.

On another note, my ex-boss phoned me this morning. Seems he's not going to offer me a job after all. However, he does have a bit of consultancy work to throw my way. He needs a spreadsheet developing and he is confident that what's needed is right up my street. He thinks the idea is mutally beneficial - he gets the job done with no permanent commitment, and I get paid to do something while looking for a job. Sounds ideal to me too. The only sticking point at the moment is that he has to persuade his colleague that he needs the external expertise (which shouldn't be a problem because I know said colleague from his time working here too). Oh that, and coming to sort of agreement about a fee too.