Maybe a better title for this blog should be "the end of a nightmare." This is the end of a 10 month process to get a construction loan. I must pick up the story at this point because I feel that if I started at the beginning it would take too long to narrate all that we have been through: the copies we have had to make, the trips to the US Embassy, documents notarized, legal documents that have had to be drawn in the city, copies of builder chronology of construction, copies of house plans, letters that we have had to obtain from many sources for different reasons, more copies and more letters, and more legal documents, life insurance, insurance to cover builder and his employees and construction site, new insurance which is a bond required of builders so that they will not walk away and leave construction unfinished, more copies, permits, and more permits, more notaized documents.....well I imagine you get the picture.
The loan was approved three months ago. Now it has been a question of the bank and their lawyers making a series of mistakes that have caused unnecessary delays. We cannot believe it has taken this long to get our first disbursement and we have come to the conclusion that things are going to move as fast as the bank wants them to move, and that means SLOW. As it has been our custom to macro-manage this process, last Thursday I called the bank to find out if there were any news. I was told that we should be receiving our first disbursement in our savings account today. The loan manager also added that I should call my builder and make sure he is ready to start immediately because once the money gets disbursed - the six month countdown begins today.
No sooner we were up and about this morning, we received a phone call from the bank just after 8:00am. "Please come down soon this morning and get your check to give to your builder so he can get started immediately," the loan manager told me. At this point, how long can it take to get a check? Down we went and inquired about the necessary steps to obtain a cashier's or certified check. We sat down and were given several forms we had to fill out. By now we are not amazed at being told we have to fill out multiple forms. One was to provide all the pertinent information from the check, the other was to transfer funds from the savings to the checking account because funds could not be withdrawn from the savings for that transaction. After completing those my husband is told he did not sign it exactly as the passport signature, i.e., needs a middle initial not the entire middle name written out. So we had to fill out all the forms again. Then one last look and we were told that his signature, the second time around, does not look exactly like the passport signature and he needs to sign again IN A NEW SET OF FORMS. I have to admit I was about ready to give up on this entire process. They took advantage of this opportunity to remind us that even though we might get older and our hand just does not cooperate with us as when we were younger, we must sign the signature identical to what it looks like on the passport and there will be no exceptions to that rule.
On the way out the loan officer caught our attention and asked us if we could stop and wait for her to provide us with copies of all the official bank papers, i.e., a copy of the deed and a copy of a letter that informs us the amounts of the construction payments for the next six months. We are only required to pay interest only but the amount changes monthly. The she proceeded to explain to us all the different ways we could consider paying: cash in person directly with her, by automatic withdrawal if we prefer. Then she suggested that perhaps we should pay monthly but could pay every two months but monthly would definitely be so much better. After she printed the letter she informed us that she had decided to make the payments every two months. I hope you are just as confused reading this as we were trying to figure out what she was doing. Was she trying to make it easier on us by paying monthly? Your take is as good as ours.
Just about three hours later what I thought would be a quick stop seemed like an eternity. I have learned through this experience that nothing in the bank takes less than 15 minutes, but I surely thought this would not take three hours.
From there we went next door to the Municipality to pay for our contruction permit. Turned in our paper indicating the amount of our payment and were told that we needed to go upstairs to the "treasury" window, pay and bring back a receipt in return for the permit. Off we went upstairs in what seemed to us a pretty run down building, in bad need of repair, paint or maybe a complete overhaul. For the amount of money they charge for permits they could at least give the building a paint job! When we walked into the "treasury" it was an area with enought room for maybe three people to stand in front of glass windows where payments would be made. Could not see the person on the other side of the smoked glass but we did see a hand waving under the little opening above the counter. As she is giving us a receipt I glanced at a sign that says "No shorts allowed in this office" and hoped that nobody would realize that Ronnie was wearing shorts. I had forgotten that we had run into this situation in La Chorrera when we had gone to leave plans to process the first part of the construction permit. Ronnie had been chastised at the time but because he was with a very well known and respected architect from that same town they had "overlooked it" that time.
Once back home we made the call to our builder and informed him we had the "goods" and he needed to get going as soon as possible. Just as I was getting ready to get in the car to go and meet him he drove up our driveway. We were able to sit down and discuss some preliminary issues and he promises to start immediately. We will wait with excitement for work to start in our lot.
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