HSBC Fucks Everything Up

4-1-13 8:56pm Mon. (*3)

      According to Leona, at 5:15pm, Kelly Li from HSBC called her back to say she had made a mistake. Leona said Kelly said she thought our property was on the west side of Beitun Road. Since it is on the east side of Beitun Road, HSBC could not offer us the 5.3 million 20 year mortgage; instead they could only offer us a 3.5 million 11 year mortgage.

      Leona said she contacted Jenny, her friend at U-Trust Realty, who, according to Leona was very upset, too and, forgive me if I get the transactions wrong, the lawyer who represented the seller was upset, too and had never heard anything like this before. No one seems to have heard anything like this before. From Jenny on down, everyone said there would be no problem for us to get a mortgage from a great international bank like HSBC; it was just a matter of going through the steps.

      I liked Leona’s idea of getting a mortgage here instead of using our home equity loan. The interest rate is lower here; 1.99% here as opposed to 2.7% at TD Bank. We took out about $100,000 of our $200,000 home equity loan to pay up our 1210 Ave Y mortgage and have $70,000us here to pay the down payment; that’s what Leona was told to get when she went to Brooklyn a few weeks ago. Now Leona says we have to shop around for another bank to give us a better mortgage. The Cathay mortgage of 4.2 million for 20 years (was that the amount?) doesn’t seem so bad after all.

      This occurrence of this mess-up so late in the ballgame, after we thought we were set with the terms HSBC seemed to agree to in the afternoon, is highly irregular.

      Leona got on the phone soon after I came home. At the end of the call, she told me she was talking with her brother; he had heard from his wife what had happened. He told Leona so that she should have brought more money from New York. I tend to agree with him at this point. I told Leona, in my first words since I came home, that if she really loved the condo she should go back to America and transfer the rest of the money; let’s just pay cash. I don’t think she’s going to do that. She will let Jenny and the team at U-Trust Realty get another bank loan for us.

 

4-2-13 5:52am Tues. (1)

      I sent an e-mail back to Jim after he wrote that he missed me. “One thing I can say about America, when an institution makes a decision they don't change their mind. Unlike in Taiwan where there gave me a drivers license a month ago and took it back a month later or, more recently, HSBC Bank approved our mortgage and called back three hours later to change their minds. It really happened, yesterday. How simple to be in dire straits in Newington. Here it's like a Chinese fire drill! Leona and I are upset but we'll look for another bank. The pinball machine, jukebox, and refrigerator will have to wait. At least we'll celebrate our 22nd Anniversary in style, in Kyoto, Japan. Sayonara, Taiwan.”

      I was a little angry and cynical at Taiwan last evening, but it may have sounded like I was aiming it at Leona. I told her that I was sacrificing letting her buy a condo in Taiwan knowing that, whatever protection there might seem to be for me as a foreign spouse, the law, if there is any such un-shifting thing, will be on her side. I resign myself to letting the chips fall where they may and not question any of the bullshit that goes on around here. As Pop said, “The fish stinks from the head.” The KMT is a fascist organization and thrives on loopholes. Banks may be slippery in the states but here, their rules are invisible and in flux. I wasn’t joking when I suggested Leona go back to Brooklyn and take out the rest of the home equity loan to pay $195,000 cash for the condo instead of dealing with a bank here. She told me to hold on and wait until tomorrow when other banks would be contacted.