The Landlady searches for a holiday home
Due to the fact that my mortgage lender has now decided that it no longer wishes to deal directly with its customers, I had to find a financial advisor with whom to re-mortgage my rental property in order to buy my little cottage in Turkey. Memories of its idyllic location, giant fig tree and burgeoning vine and bougainvillea made me steely in my determination to purchase my holiday home.
Although my criteria for finding a financial advisor was not altogether the most competent – I went for the one nearest to my house – I was really lucky to find a lovely lady with whom I got on like a house on fire. During my initial interview, we chatted so much about everything other than mortgages that I forgot to sign two important documents and had to go back the following day in order to do so. The initial outlook didn’t look promising, or, as my financial advisor put it, I am ‘box-untickable’ these days. In the old days, banks would almost catapult money into my account without even bothering to ask what it was for. These days, my credit-worthiness appears to be worse than Kerry Katona’s, in spite of the fact that I’ve never missed a mortgage payment.
Although the survey of my rental flat went well, short of calling a short-term loan lender, I thought that my Turkish dream was over, but my miracle-working Financial Fairy Godmother called me four weeks later to assure me that the money was on its way. Indeed, the day after I arrived in Turkey for my holiday with Miss T, the money magically appeared in my bank account. It has to be added that after planning an early night after our arrival in Turkey, Miss T and I were so hung-over the following morning that I could barely open my laptop, let alone read the figures on my internet account.
I will describe the weird – when you’re used to the British system – Turkish property-buying methods in a later column, as I will also describe what happened on mine and Miss T’s subsequently planned ‘early nights’.
“The keys to my Turkish cottage are in my pocket”
Suffice it to say, we are flying back to the UK feeling far more exhausted and in need of a holiday than we were before we came on holiday. We are sitting in the reception of an all-inclusive hotel in Greece (another story), where we refused, point blank, to wear the wrist bands and smuggled in our own vodka, as the ‘local’ one is probably also used to power motor launches. I swear that Jesus himself is working behind the bar, turning the wine back into water before inflicting it on the unsuspecting guests. Bad flesh, topped by criminal dental negligence abounds, as does indefensible fashion sense and bad karaoke. On a high note (which the karaoke participants would struggle to reach), we’ve met a Telly Savalas lookalike and, more importantly, the keys to my Turkish cottage are in my pocket.
