We’ve agreed a date for the move. We plan to land in SF on 1st july. Just in time for Janis’s “anti American independence day parade”.

We received this in a sort of “oh, by the way…”

She and us both. Uhhh, all three.

No one would have believed in the last few months mortgage was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences greater than man’s and yet as mortal as his own; that as Janis and Jerry busied themselves about their various bank accounts, they were scrutinised and studied, perhaps almost as narrowly as a man with a microscope might scrutinise the transient creatures that swarm and multiply in a drop of water. With infinite complacency Janis and Jerry went to and fro over this Kyiv about their little affairs, serene in their assurance of their empire over housing and finances. It is possible that the infusoria under the microscope do the same. No one gave a thought to the older worlds of Tiki as sources of financing, or thought of them only to dismiss the idea of a mortgage from him as impossible or improbable. It is curious to recall some of the mental habits of those departed days. At most terrestrial men fancied there might be other mortgages from Riki or Cort, perhaps inferior to Tiki and ready to welcome a missionary enterprise. Then across the gulf of the atlantic, minds that are to our minds as ours are to those of the beasts that perish, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic, regarded our deposit with envious eyes, and slowly and surely draw their cheques against us. And early on Friday evening, just lat week came the great notification.

“Your Mortgage is approved”

The loan is approved. Or it would be if we could produce three documents that don’t exist:
- Bank statements (we get them online)
- Record of a transfer that hasn’t happened yet
- A contemporary account of the birth and death of Christ.

I’ve been spending the past few evenings on mail, IM and the phone to various mortgage lenders and realtors. Realtor 1 is pretty bad at communication. she needs prodding and poking to give any information out. By comparison to Mortgage Lender 2 though, she is the fount of all knowledge, wisdom and a little bit gushy.

Mortgage lender 1 has dropped out of the race so we’re left with ML2. I’m going to start using his real name (Rick) because it helps with what passes for humor these days. Rick remains confident of the loan and but seems to have ever more crazy requirements for proof of assets, income and so on. The requests are so frequent that he’s put me onto his assistant (Tiki) to procees them. I’m waiting for Tiki’s assistant (Davey) to come out of the woodwork and start asking for even more ridiculous documents (RickiTikiDavey! geddit?)

Whatever, the end is in sight. Rick phoned the long suffering Jason last night and had him sign some mysterious documents. He then told Jason that the loan would be approved today one way or the other. Note that he told Jason, not me. Luckily Jason has his own eMail account and so we can keep up to date on our mortgage through the grapevine.

Here’s a picture of Jason to keep you amused.

[30 March - edited for gibberish]

All we got in the mail overnight was a mail from Mortgage Lender #1 (strictly he is actually ML#2 and ML#2 is ML#3 but let’s leave it as it is) saying he will have an answer on Monday. This is progress because previously he’s said “no”.

Nothing from “confident” ML#2 (AKA ML#3) or Realtor #1.

Maureen insists that despite the fact that he won’t speak to us, Mortgage Lender #2 is going to come good. She said she’d call with the good news in ten minutes… 20 minutes ago.

At this stage I can’t share her enthusiasm. Despite a run of good fortune in the last 24 hours* things are just running too late. It seems unlikely that we’ll get the mortgage today - the last day required by the sellers after trying for the last 4 weeks.

* Visa approved in 1/8 of estimated time, bank transfer of deposit to US in a mind numbingly short 6 hours, visit to US embassy for power of attorney over in 30 minutes, UPS Ukraine announce new 1 day service to US just as we need a document there on Monday

Mortgage lender 1: I have good news
Mortgage lender 2: <silence>
Realtor: I have spoken to Mortgage lender 1, his good news has gone away.
Jerry: Dear Mortgage lender 1, what is happening
Janis: Mortgage lender 1 has gone sour
Mortgage lender 2: <silence>
Mortgage lender 1: You are not residents, you do not have enough assets to compensate for the risk
Jerry: <fume>
Realtor: Mortgage lender 2 will come good
Jerry: Whatever
Realtor: Did I tell you the deposit is probably forfeit if you don’t get the mortgage by tomorrow
Jerry: <fume>
Mortgage lender 2: <silence>
Realtor: Morgtage lender 2 just needs to confirm your employment
Jerry: <types> HR person, please sign this letter and fax it it Mortgage lender 2.
HR Person: OK
Jerry: Thanks
HR Person: Congratulations on the visa by the way!
Jerry: ?
HR Person: Yeah, I just got a mail…
Jerry: My mail is broken, please forward to this other account.
Jerry: Dear mortgage lender 1, does this make a difference?
Mortgage lender 1: cool dude!
Mortgage lender 2: <silence>

All this, and TheCompanyThatDareNotSpeakItsName is launching, and Mishka is on heat.

This feels like the saga of the Vanuatu registration but I’ve not had time to keep you all amused at my idiocy sorry.
We’ve now burnt our way through three mortgage lenders trying to buy this damn house. The first one went all weird on us. He started by asking if we had a friend with US residency who would co-sign the mortgage for us. It ended up with the friend being asked to be sole signer on the mortgage and sign the lease. We trust Jase absolutely but it just felt wrong. There was also the problem that Uncle Sam (or at least Uncle San Francisco County Hall) would want some tax blood when Jase gave us the house back.

We ditched that idiot. Trouble is, we’d only made the offer based on what he’d said he could lend us.

Now we have Cort (gender unclear, we never meet these guys) and Steve/Chris/Mike (we can never remember their names). Both claim they can get us a mortgage but…. but… and there’s the rub. We’re a fistfull of dollars short of the full price. We made the ridiculous offer based on what mortgage guy 1 said and we fell in love with the house. Now we can’t quite afford it and house prices in SF have risen about fifty zillion percent.

so, at the ripe old age of 40 I went and asked my mum for extra pocket money to buy that new toy before next month came around. She said yes. What a star. I feel a bit crap but the house is still on.

side 2, track 3.

Everyone knows that when you try to order any food in America you get a zillion supplemental questions. A mortgage is no different.

The questions and extra steps we’re having to take are getting slightly out of hand. Our problem is that we’re not US citizens and don’t (as yet) have the right to reside in the US (visa application in process). This meant that we need a US resident to co-sign the mortgage and guarantee us. Luckily we have a friend (who we’ll call Jason because that’s his name) who agreed to do this.

Over time, “co-sign the application” has become “become a named holder on all our bank accounts, be the main signatory on the mortgage and co-owner of the house”. Jase is happy to do this - which speak a lot of his trust of us. We’re not so happy because it assumes a lot of him and, there seem to be some legal problems - can he just give us his half of the house when we have a residency? Will that involve a huge tax payment?

The upshot is that we’ve found another mortgage lender and we’re starting from the beginning again - but keeping the first guy ambling along so as to keep the vendors happy.