The Landlady battles bureaucracy
I’m off to Turkey in a couple of days with my good friend Miss T. What I haven’t told her, or anyone else in fact, is that I will be buying a little house while we’re over there. Last time I was there was way back in June and I was introduced to the possibility of buying a perfect little holiday bolt-hole in a tiny village in South West Turkey. It is an old cottage that has been restored with a very good eye for detail and, having looked at other property while I was there, is fairly unique, both in style and location.
My first offer on the property was refused, so I went to one of my mortgage lenders to see how much I could actually borrow and discovered to my horror that they were only prepared to offer me an amount way short of the asking price. I therefore emailed the gentleman who was selling, telling him that I could not offer any more, and in fact could not even afford my previous offer. I told him, in an unusual fit of honesty, how much the bank were prepared to lend me, apologised for wasting his time and wished him all the best with his sale.
A week later, when The Big Daughter and I were in the midst of the disgusting and rather irksome task of decorating The Big Son’s bedroom (a birthday surprise), I received a call from the Turkish Property-seller’s wife. She said that after lengthy discussion, they had decided to accept my lower offer. To be frank, I was surprised, as I hadn’t even technically offered them my lower offer. It seemed too good to be true, so I told them I’d get on with raising the money and, rather stunned, went back to my decorating duties with butterflies in my stomach.
“If a person could shrug heartily down the phone, then that’s what he did”
The next day, I telephoned all my mortgage lenders. I would have preferred to have re-mortgaged on my own house, but the complacent youth on the other end of the phone claimed that they could not accept ‘rental income’ as a form of income. ‘Well, that is my income’, I argued, but to no avail. If a person could shrug heartily down the phone, then that’s what he did. Furthermore, whilst on the phone, I worked out that according to their new criteria, I wouldn’t be able to afford the mortgage I’d already got with them, and have been paying for 16 years, which I pointed out, inducing another hearty phone shrug and possibly a stifled yawn.
My only option was to raise the money on my rental flat in Seven Dials. I called the mortgage lender to be greeted by an answer phone message informing me that they no longer dealt directly with their clients. What is the world of finance coming to?
