Finally, Ready to Get The Keys!

4-13-13

Things are moving quickly now to outfit, decorate and occupy our new home. Today, if we can get the key from U-Trust Realty, we will let a technician from a local appliance franchise in to develop an air-conditioning plan and measure the doorways and spaces for the proper refrigerator and washing machine. Sunday morning, Jenny is coming with a home decorator to measure and hopefully show us plans for creating a vestibule at the front door and outfitting the kitchen with longer granite or marble counter and wall cabinets, and redoing our master bedroom. By Monday, our mortgage paperwork can be done and we can be given the keys to the condominium unit. If one has to give a one month notice before breaking a lease, Leona could be calling the owner of our rental in the Beverly to tell them we will be out of here by May 15, our lease starting on the 15^th of the month, otherwise we will have to pay rent here until June 15^th which might not be a bad idea anyway if the technicians and decorators can’t be done with our home improvements in a month. I would love to be able to move in by May 15^th to give us and the cats some time to get used to our new digs before we leave for Brooklyn on June 24^th.

Mortage and Playing Games

4-12-13 6:33am Fri. (1)

      I prefer the cloudy rainy skies of Taichung to the smoggy skies we typically have; at least the air is cleaner. Fewer motor bikes, too. But I don’t like that I can’t ride my bicycle up the Han River. It has been raining or threatening to rain from the day we left Taichung for Kyoto eight days ago. I won’t be able to ride the bike except to American Eagle with my rain suit close at hand. It is cooler, too; 62 going up to 76. But as the weather deteriorated here, it got colder in Kyoto; 35 degrees right now! We were lucky to hit a warm patch while we were there. By last Sunday, the beautiful pink leaves on the sakura trees we saw the first two days were blown away. Already, it is getting warmer in the Northeast US, as warm as it is here.

      Shih-Dong wanted a Harley-Davidson vest from America even before he secured a $30,000us (1,000,000NT) home equity loan for us to help make up the difference between what Cathay Bank will mortgage and what we are required to pay the owner of the condo; 30% down. His loan won’t be ready for another week or two but our payment can’t wait so Leona is also getting a $15,000us (500,000NT) loan from her father until that loan is ready. This whole mess was caused by the man who is acting as our go-between fulfilling the role of a lawyer, such as Arnold Lande was for us at 1210 Ave Y. But this man we have doesn’t know as much as Arnold. He’s the one who said we couldn’t get a loan from a local bank because we had no local income; only my US pension. He suggested we go to HSBC. He was so wrong. HSBC screwed us at the last minute after Leona had gone through the trouble of flying back to the states to wire $80,000us which we were told was more than enough. Now we have to pay 38% down to make up the shortfall in the Cathay mortgage in addition to our monthly $780us rent and utilities at the Beverly. It would have been better to just pay for the $195,000us condo in cash from our home equity loan in TD Bank if we had known. At least our mortgage interest will be a bit lower here; 1.99% to 2.7%. On Wednesday, Leona put her chops on the documents for Cathay.

      Now Shih-Dong is talking about getting him a Harley-Davidson helmet from America, too! It doesn’t matter that he’ll pay for that himself; it will take up too much space. How come he gets to waste money on motorcycles and accessories he doesn’t need but I can’t get myself a fucking AC/DC pinball machine?

Leona's Family To The Rescue!

4-3-13 6:10am Wed. (1)

      Leona’s brother and sister-in-law will take out a home equity loan for 100,000NT ($30,000us) to make up the difference in the lower mortgage amount Cathay Bank will give us, I believe 4.5 million NT. When we go back to Brooklyn June 24^th, we will wire that additional amount to Leona’s Cathay bank account here where her brother and sister-in-law will retrieve their loan repayment. In this way, we will not have to spend all of the $70,000us Leona wired from TD Bank a few weeks ago and will have cash on hand for improvements to our new home. I’m confused about the amounts because I have not seen the paperwork which is in Chinese anyway. Leona has mentioned different numbers in the confusion caused by HSBC’s bait and switch. Now she feels better about going to Japan tomorrow. We will sign the Cathay mortgage agreement either today or Monday when we come back from Japan.

 As soon as we sign the mortgage deal, I will consider calling Mr. Hung about the AC/DC pinball machine and Rowe jukebox. I am going to buy both if they’re under $6,000us whether I have Leona’s blessing or not; she backtracked from my idea of making it my 60^th birthday present. I could buy it; however, the Cathay bank account is in her name. If I want the cash to pay Mr. Hung, I’ll have to ask Leona to get the cash, use my credit card from America (if he’ll accept it) or take out the maximum $670us TD Bank allows (three times a week?) from the ATM here; I could up it to $1,000 if I call and alert them first. Of course, if I have to do it that way, I will be pissed at Leona. I believe she’ll give me the cash from Cathay. Now that her brother is lending us extra money, we have enough cash on hand for my toys, home improvements, and the furniture and appliances. The patio landscaping and outdoor furniture and grill will be last.

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.

Bitching About Everything in Taichung

4-2-13 11:36am Tues. (*2)

This is now the rainy season in Taichung coming after the Lantern Festival. (It rained in Taipei all winter.) Every day this week there has either been rain or the threat of it. I brought my rain suit in my backpack to work but didn’t have to use it. I put the back fender on the bicycle but got a little splashed when an asshole on a motorcycle sped past me in a puddle at the bottom of the railroad underpass.

After HSBC called in the morning to ‘approve’ our mortgage, we went to lunch. After lunch, unsure of the system here, I asked Leona if it was okay, now that we were sure of the mortgage, to call Mr. Hung and discuss the pinball machine and jukebox. Leona doesn’t want to have any part of it. “We don’t have that cash,” she said. “There are more important things to do.” She missed my point. Since all the talk of having a mortgage we wanted approved, ‘no problem’ according to everyone from the real estate agency to HSBC itself, I wanted to know if it was real or still talk. It was real to Leona. She just didn’t think I should get a pinball machine and juke box, especially for six grand, even if it would be an early 6oth birthday present. It’s a good thing I decided to put off negotiating with Mr. Hung until after we get back from Japan.

It is 68 degrees now in Taichung, going up to 83 degrees with heavy rain expected in the evening. In Osaka, it is now 46 going up t0 59, with rain there, too. We will be there in a couple of days. We’ll have to bring our coats and sweaters and scarves and gloves.

 The weather would have been nicer if we went to Tai-dong for the Tomb Sweeping Day vacation this time of year and save Kyoto for a warmer day but, alas, Leona was pre-occupied with the house and neglected to call her friend at the resort just as she forgot to register me for the Matsu Bike Marathon, or go with me to the pinball place in Daya. The worst thing about this condo business is Leona’s distraction from doing nice things for me. She was much nicer to me when she wasn’t concerned with this condo. She’s been distracted since the week before she left for Brooklyn and I’ve felt neglected and in her way. She couldn’t even be bothered inviting some friends or family over for our Passover Seder Saturday night. Last night I was so frustrated I said to forget about the fucking condo and just go on renting. Things were nicer around here when we were just renting.

 

 

Saving Face and Mortgage

Leona just called her sister-in-law about the Cathay mortgage. She told Leona Cathay had agreed to give us even less of a mortgage than HSBC offered. I asked how much less but she didn’t tell me. I asked her if the reason why was the same as HSBC’s reason about too much non-living space. Leona didn’t tell me. The bottom line is her sister-in-law’s face has been saved. We can get the HSBC mortgage without embarrassing her sister-in-law. I told Leona to call HSBC back and tell them we agree to their terms for the mortgage. I’m not sure if Leona is going to do as I said so I will wait a few minutes and ask her again. The point is to get the keys to our new home as soon as possible so we can start decorating the house and install air conditioners and other heavy appliances, beef up the kitchen, and tell Mr. Hung we want to make a deal for the jukebox and maybe pinball.

      The process of saving face in Taiwan is an interesting. Leona’s sister-in-law is an insurance saleswoman who related to Leona what some unknown person in their mortgage department told her, not even showed her on paper. There is no written determination of our mortgage application with Cathay and there might never be, I bet. The mortgage may have even been rejected outright but Leona’s sister-in-law doesn’t have to tell her that. In fact, she could be trying to gain points with Leona by saving her face just in case Leona has a face to lose by having the mortgage application rejected for any reason such as her not having an income in Taiwan or America. In that way the sister-in-law isn’t losing face at all! In that way, Leona’s sister-in-law actually looks like she did Leona a favor by saving her face, too. Wow.

HSBC Approves Mortgage? Cathay?

4-1-13 10:30am Mon. (*2)

      HSBC called Leona a short while ago on the phone to say our mortgage was approved, but only for 5.3 million NT, not the 5.65 million that we applied for. Their reason for doing so was that the size of our patio was too large and shouldn’t be included as a ‘living space.’ They give mortgages for what they call living space value and, living space alone, our new condo unit isn’t worth the 5.65 we agreed to pay; only 5.3 million NT. What that means is we can have the mortgage but have to pay 350,000NT ($11,666us) more out of pocket in addition to the 1,595,000NT ($56,500us) we originally thought we’d have to pay, a total of $68,166us (2,045,000NT) down, a 36.51% down payment, with 1.99% interest.

      Meanwhile, Cathay, who sent an assessor to the condo last Wednesday, hasn’t responded, yet. Leona doubts that we will get a mortgage from them because the application is in her name and she has no regular income in Taiwan or even America any more. The HSBC mortgage, on the other hand, is in my name and I’m ‘choosing’ to take it out for Leona to buy a condo with. I have a current income from my pension; HSBC doesn’t mind that my income is overseas. Later (I don’t know when) Leona will ‘gift’ half of the condo to me and put my name on the deed. Richard Hartzell, when I asked, agreed that was the way to do it. Leona asked her sister-in-law, at whose favor we’re applying for a Cathay mortgage, to find out what her bank has decided. In the event that they will give us the mortgage we asked for, and perhaps even with 20% down, not 30% as HSBC offered (now actually 36% down out of our pocket) we would take the mortgage from them, but Leona doubts they will offer it to us.

      I ripped off what I thought was the hips to a flower we were growing on our balcony. They were actually blossoms. I didn’t know, I didn’t ask Leona beforehand and Leona didn’t show me what she meant when she talked about the plant before. I have a history of killing plants or ripping out useful or nice growing things.

      I was just about to go out bike riding after seeing the forecast on Accuweather on-line. I decided to go upstairs with Sweeney for the second time today and see what developed. When a few raindrops fell, Sweeney headed for the door and we came back down. That’s when it started pouring.