We successfully passed the document screening,
and the date for our interview with coop board members was finally set.
For the first time in a long time, I put on my jacket and high heels and
I thought we would see people wearing suits in a formal meeting room,
but...a cheerful man wearing a polo shirt and short pants with a wine glass
in his hand appears saying “Hi!” and another gentleman and a woman
welcome us into a beautiful living room.
The interview was finished after 40 minutes of pleasant chat.
At the end of the interview, a man said,
“We have something for you,” and he returned our three thick files to us.
I expected that one of them should be kept in a locker of the management office,
but the board members said they don’t need all the files.
Hmmm…Is this good or bad?
It was a little puzzling to me, but our agent called us the next day saying,
“Congratulations! You’ve passed it!”
Now buying our home was finally more likely.
For the last stage, closing (surrender of a house),
we waited for the mortgage bank to approve our loan.
After a week, the bank said, “Under examination.”
We counted the days on our fingers, and the mortgage banker kept saying,
“Still under examination.
” We started to feel anxious about his lazy, vague attitude.
The documents were about to expire.
If they did, , we would need to start over from the beginning.
We pushed every day for three weeks and got an answer from the bank:
“ No” !!!!!
No way….we couldn't get a mortgage…
My mind went blank.
My husband turned pale.
All our efforts came to nothing.
We had to give up.But the matter had to go on.
We had already signed a contract with a seller.
We found for the first time, in the contract, that if we gave up,
we would be fined.
We hadn’t read it thoroughly.
The penalty was not several million dollars.
It is 10 percent of the purchase price.
My husband was like a statue.
I was like “The Scream” by Munch.
What should we do?
This was our first big crisis in our life in America.
Was it too unreasonable to buy a home in a foreign country?
How could we overcome this pinch?
When my husband called the mortgage broker and pursued the reason,
we learned something we didn't expect:
The bankers counted our current one-year lease as 30 years’ debt.
It’s impossible.We asked them to correct the information,
and we paid off the lease in advance to prove we were really leaving
the apartment.
And we asked them to do a re-examination immediately.
However, I still could not believe such a famous national bank had made
this kind of basic error.
To my surprised, the banker said this was not the bank’s fault,
but OUR fault because we didn’t tell them properly.
Unbelievable!
But we never told the banker we did not own the current apartment.
If it wasn’t not clear, he should have doublechecked.
Did he have no common sense?
Sigh…in a foreign country this “common sense” is not our common sense.
We nervously awaited the results of the re-examination for two weeks.
On the day before, when seller couldn’t wait anymore,
the mortgage approval was finally confirmed.
Yes, we could buy a home.
It finally closed for real!
My husband didn’t have any energy to be glad,
but after an exhausting negotiation with the bank, he was relieved.
Now, as I think back, this month before the closing feels like walking
on thin ice, but what would have happened if we had given up and not asked
for the re-examination?I’m so terrified.
I know that in America, if we don’t take action, no one helps,
and we have to be assertive, but I really realized.
I only watched as my husband seemed to be shaken on a roller coaster.
But I surely learned a lesson through this experience.
For instance, if our daughter cannot enter the school we hope,
we must never give up easily. We must keep calling the school and negotiate.
Actually, I heard that parents can send their child to their choice of school
when it has a vacancy.
In this country, if I really want to get something.
we must not give up easily!
I need to learn the facts myself and take action; this is the only way.
