The plan was simple enough. Move the remains of our possessions to the new home on Friday. On Saturday, arrange for various rejected items to be loaded onto a truck to be sent to the relatives. On Sunday, arrange for the condo to be cleaned. One day next week, go to the land office and transfer the condo. A lot to do, but manageable. Then the new owners called on Thursday and asked “can we do the transfer tomorrow?”
Not wanting to turn down the chance of having everything settled early, we agreed. The transport to the North was rescheduled to Friday afternoon and she who must be obeyed and her visiting mother were tasked with emptying the condo and tidying up as best they could. My job was to go to the land office. Oh joy.
Fortunately my wife arranged for one of friends, who works in the property business, to accompany me and try and reduce the normal all-day process. The contact was fed various pieces of information to check and pre-prepare the necessary mountain of paperwork, and an appointment was set for 0915, with the aspiration that we would be out within the hour. That was not to be.
For a start, our file was dropped to the bottom of a pile and by 1100 we had done very little except sit and grumble. As the buyer had to leave before 1200 to attend a top-level meeting, we got our fixer to raise the grumble level and eventually Spike Towers was on the table. With a bit of luck we would be finished by lunchtime. That was not to be.
One of the pre-prepared items was the calculation of the very substantial taxes due on transfer. The amount due was calculated by the land office and I arranged for a cashier’s cheque for the exact amount which was duly presented with a flourish and a small sigh (it was a lot of money). After a period of checking, I was called to the desk. The transfer tax amount was wrong….
For complex reasons I will not bother to try to explain, the had fucked it up (although it was presented as “doing me a favour” for which extra tea money was expected); and the actual amount due was more than 100,000 baht less than the previously calculated amount. Which means my carefully prepared cashier’s cheque was useless. Bugger. A crisis meeting was called and it was agreed that we would sign all the necessary papers, the buyer would go to his top level appintment, and I would return in the afternoon to pay the correct amount and collect all the finalised transfer documents.
So into the car and off to my bank at Central, where the manager was less than pleased to have to raise all the paperwork necessary to cancel the cheque they had charged me the exorbitant sum of twenty baht to prepare the previous day. Partly because I did not want to antagonise the bank any further by requesting another cheque, and partly because I couldn’t cope with another cheque related fiasco; I collected several hundred thousand baht in cash and dashed off for a quick lunch before returning to the land office to await the next disappointment. I was not to wait for long.
It is an established rule of foreigner condo purchase that the buyer must prove that the money to buy it came from overseas. This is done by way of a form called a Tor Tor 3; and my buyer had one. But when it was offered up in the morning it was waved away, possibly because the officer was too busy internally processing the fact that she had got the taxes incorrect. But in the afternoon, after I had handed over my cash, the whole mess of paperwork was sent to someone else to check before finalisation; and they noticed there was no Tor Tor 3; which by this time was in the briefcase of the buyer somewhere in Pattaya; and I didn’t have his phone number. Bugger.
So I called my wife, who was up to her ears in moving issues and a neurotic cat, and I asked her to call the buyer’s wife and try and contact the man with the form. Ten minutes later she set up a call between me and the buyer. I don’t know how she managed it; but she saved the day and the buyer was soon on his way to the land office with the required paper. At last we could seal the deal. But as you may have guessed, that was not to be.
The Tor Tor 3 was presented and the land office took little time in pointing it out that it was a copy; and that it had not been completed correctly, and that the transfer could not be finalised before an original, correct form was submitted. Given that the issuing bank was in Bangkok, we appeared to be completely screwed until next week. So near and yet so far; and the complete waste of most of a day.
But then my wife’s friend went into action, and in an Oscar-worthy performance which included extensive pleading and what looked like tears, she persuaded the head honcho to proceed with the registration. Which meant that the buyer got a copy of the land deed showing that he now owned the condo (and would get the original when he returned with the correct form). This in turn meant that I could drive back to the condo, give him the keys to a unit which my wife and an army of workers had only recently emptied; and in return I got a cashier’s cheque of my own.
So then it was back into town and to the bank where the manager became much more friendly when she saw the size of the cheque I was depositing. Tough luck bitch, I shall spend it all on toys.
Finally I could go home where I found a similarly exhausted wife and mother in law, a traumatised cat, and a mountain of boxes. But we had done it. Something short of three months after selling the condo, we had found a house, re-furbished a house and moved into a house. A small matter of sorting out all the boxes of crap remains; but for last night we opened a bottle of Prosecco and just slumped on the sofa.
I would like to report that I slept very well; but at 0300 I was up and about trying to comfort a distressed cat. In spite of that, I can feel the stress gradually lifting. Migration complete!
Comments 🔗
2014-08-24| Barry saysWhen we moved from Bangkok to Nakon Nowhere my sister-in-law said it would take us six months to unpack all the boxes. I said rubbish, it’ll be done in a week. I was wrong. She was right. Just warning you.
2014-08-24| Chang Noi saysHappy migration! You did win the battle but not yet the war of the next few months finding all things you thought you had in your old mansion.
2014-08-24| Parry saysNever own more stuff than you can get in a large duffel bag and two camera bags.
2014-08-24| Spike saysAlready can’t find stuff I definitely packed but can’t remember which box…
2014-08-24| Spike saysIf by “large” you mean “as big as a shipping container”; then I am there.
2014-08-24| Spike saysGood progress is being made. I suspect we may get stuck on boxes upon which my wife has written things like “assorted crap”.
2014-08-26| Grant saysEmpathy. Have just moved to a six car garage with attached double bedroom. Did I label the boxes? Well of course not. I mean, I know what’s in them, right…?