Bob buys in BsAs

My next break is in August. After talking to the agents, it apears that we can complete this time, time alone will tell.

The air fares are astronomical, and there is no way I can afford for us both to travel this time. A coworker has kindly agreed to swap breaks with me, this will save me about £2,000, I simply cannot say how greatful I am. Now I fly end of august and stay untill mid september.

I have emailed all my friends to tell of my iminent arrival, and also Dino,who has a girlfriend in Argentina, who will be there at the same time.I am expecting a thoroughly exiting time, with much socialising.

Back to the property: I mailed the builders and they have informed my how much I will need for the escritura. Despite many mails I cannot get any information on where I should send the final payment, this is causing me concern, as the amount is more than I am legally allowed to carry. My next move is to contact Alhec Group directly and see what they say.

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As I write I have reached the decesion not to fly out to Buenos Aires this break. Luba has done a sterling job rousting the builders, but they do not have the paperwork ready. I will have to go out again later in the year to complete and cannot afford two more trips this year.

I have written to Luba to tell her not to rush them with the gas, as I will not be there to use it. I must write to thank her for all her help.

The estate agents have told me that they will give me enough time to arrange the flights when the papers are ready, but I do not think that they appreciate that my breaks are fixed. I have told them repeatedly, I just do not think people who work in offices understand how a fixed rota works.

I must now stay home and work on domestic issues, yearning all the time to be back in Argentina.

On the bright side there will be a Tango weekend in Wilmslow whilst I am off, it will be nice to meet up with some old friends again.My Tango is already getting rusty, the only Tango I get these days is on a Monday and have had to work the last two Monday nights, a weekend of saturation is just what I need.

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Luba is like a dog with a bone, I am starting to feel sorry for the builders.

The shower head, it appears was stolen, they have promised to replace it.  The toilet seat apparently is not included, that was before Luba got to the builders, now they will supply one.

The wardrobe doors, skirting and locks have now all been fitted, not apparently to Luba’s satisfaction. I think she will not succeed in getting the skirting replaced, but the damaged plaster will be repaired, I am not sure about the poorly sliding doors.

The return in June is now looking more likely, I am just waiting to hear from the agents.

Things are still crazy on the banking front: HSBC seem well able to cope with my international affairs, I just have problems now at home. It took a month more than planned to get all the information from Natwest causing a slight overdraft. I cleared this up and the next month they again took the money from my account for the loan. This caused another overdraft.

When I went in to check they said that their loan can only be paid from that account and it must stay open until the loan is finished. Fair enough, I just wish that they had told me. I now have another standing order to my own bank account.

While I was in the bank I found that they had cancelled my cards, nobody seemed to know why, and if the account must stay open then I need a card to access it. Now they tell me the new card is in the post. I just wait and see if they will charge me for the overdraft.

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We have booked into a hotel close to our apartment, the logic being that we can move everything in from there.

The walk to the apartment is only four or five blocks, so when suitably rested we decide to look at the finished item. I cannot begin to describe my feelings on seeing the block, the boards on the front are still up, the groudd floor area is still a tip, but at least the lift works.

First glance looks good,the kitchen looks complete, but the bathroom still has no toilet seat or shower head, still how long can that take? The bedroom was another matter: the promissed carpet is not there instead there is laminate. No real complaints there as it will keep cleaner. The problem is that there is no skirtings, the fitted wardrode is still not (fitted) and the door lock is broken and on the floor.

We have a meeting arranged with the builders and estate agents at four the next day, so we lunch  and arrange to meet Bert and Brigitte. We had planned to try and walk to Viejo Correo but have got quite used to changing plans.

The following day we meet and everything seems cordial. We are told we can have a key tomorrow, the front door will be finished next week, and that everything will be finished for the next time we come.Haven't I heard that before?

The following day we went to the apartment to pick up a key. As usual there were people about but no sign of the main men. We mooched about and after a while saw Ignacio outside just getting into his pickup. Fortunately he saw us on the balcony, so he came up and took akey from the ring so that we could get into the flat.

We have no hot water, we cannot have a shower, and there is absolutely no way we can use the bedroom, ( the builders say not to put anything in there as the floor is not finished). So we phone Juan and ask him to let us into Luba's house on Thursday. The hotel is fine but at nearly double the cost we can use the money better.

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I have finally changed my bank, only time will tell if I have made the best move. At least I can get my currency from my branch now.

The problems continue with my flat. I now believe that I can use it when I am there, but at the moment I can have no gas. This is a problem with the permissions and until I get the escritura I cannot apply for utilities. I am told that I can use the general building electric and I presume I can have water, but not hot water.

As the escritura is delayed now so we cannot complete this journey. I have asked if Pericles could complete for me but it seems that he is away on holiday at the time.

I have discussed this with the estate agent and he is happy to delay further until I am off again. The costs of flights is getting to the point where they could bankrupt me. So Viv has given me permission to go on my own next time.

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So we are now preparing for our next trip. After a lot of wrangling I have managed to swap some more shifts, this means I have a whole month off over Easter. I may end up working every day for the rest of the year to make up for my long vacations, but it was worth it.

Now I must contact everyone to arrange the trip. Air France have a wonderful website and arranging the flight was a breaze, you can even choose quickly which is the cheapest day to fly. I now also have a frequent flyer number so I can amass loads of points.

Now I have dates, I have written to the estate agents and a local hotel just waiting for replies.

A week and a half later no replies. I can live with not having a reservation, I can always call when in BsAs, but I really need info on where to send my money in good time, just see previous entries to find out why.

I reposted my mail to the estate agents in spanish and sent a copy to Pericles. I had a reply soon after from Gabriel saying he had been on holiday.

Now it seems that the apartment will not be ready. The paperwok cannot be completed and without this we can have no gas or electric. On top of this Gabriel said that he would have to speak to the builders about giving us access to deliver furniture. I had thought the whole point of me paying the extra $1200 was to allow me to use the flat.

I  must now try to arrange some accomodation for our stay, and work out how we are going to complete on the flat. Percles, bless him, has said he will do the deal for us and as I write he is also looking for somewhere to stay, as I have already told Luba we want to stay closer to the flat.

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The money has finally arrived in my builders account. So where is the problem you may ask? Well the bank have taken my charges out of the money that should have gone into his account. It was quite clear on the form that any charges should be taken out before the final ammount was calculated.

Yet again I am saved by the help given me in Buenos Aires. Even though the money is short they are relying on my honesty to pay them when I arrive. So much of this deal has gone on trust, and been saved by the agents and builders, I just could not see this happening in the UK.

I think that this is one more nail in the NatWest coffin. I will explore the transfer facilities at HSBC before the next time, this just cannot go on.

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As I left things on Friday I expected everything to go ahead (how nieve) I checked my account on line and there is no sign of the money moving. My wife kept telling me to be patient, but on Wednesday I finally cracked.

I phoned the bank and asked them what was happening. I was left on hold for the duration of two full sets of annoying hold music. Eventually the girl came back and told me that the money would go out of my account today. I was not happy with this and so I asked what had happened between Friday and Wednesday, perhaps I sound stupid over the phone, but I was not accepting that a normal transfer takes four days. I patiently explained for the benefit of a Bank emplyee, who should know better that the four days is after the money is taken from my account, not four days to sit on the application before they do anything. After a further two sets of hold music I was put onto the foriegn help desk.He explained that some of the information was not clear and the application had to go back to branch.

This was getting tedious so I went through the whole story of how they had done the same transfer in July with the same information to the same Bank, the only difference was the girl at branch. More hold Music. Again he was sorry but could give me no more information, nor could he send me a copy of the final form to use next time.

Well at least the money is on the way now. I look forward to sending the next payment, no doubt they will require something different then, I shall have to start early.                         

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My dream one day is to have someone from the bank ask me to do a job for them, then perhaps they would realise how dificult it is to operate in somebody else's world,when I tell them they must supply all the gear and no I cannot tell them what to get (more than me jobs worth). Rant over. To the Story:

I rushed to the Bank on Tuesday, a day that should have been spent in bed preparing for my nightshifts, and as usual asked for Gemma. Gemma it seems is on the sick (probably stress from being the only person at branch who knows what they are doing). Now I knew I was going to have problems.

This time the fault was all mine, I had forgotted my glasses. I could not see the boxes never mind fill them in. So I thought I would take the form home and fill it in. On cheking my records, I had not filled the form in last time, Gemma had faxed a letter to the foriegn department to ask them to send the money, still I had all the same info how difficult could it be. There were far more boxes than I had numbrs to fill them, so back to the branch.

Wednesday, suffering from lack of sleep, I returned to the branch. Gemma was still on the sick. I asked the lady at the information desk if she could help me fill in the form, she flatly refused. She said she could not fill in the form for me, I said I do not want you to fill in the form, just tell me what goes where "no". I asked to speak to a manager, she phoned somebody, saying I did not have all the figures, and that request was refused. Now getting angry I said I had all the same information that I had for the last transfer, and all I wanted was someone to help me put it in the right boxes. Still refusing to help she tried staring me out, so I did what I always do and lost it, I ranted that I had beem with this bank for more than thirty years and if they could not give me five minutes to fill in a form it was time to move on.

Outside the bank still fuming I called the complaints line, where after stating my case I lost the signal on my phone, time to go home for a coffee. Back at home it seems that someone was listening because when I called again the lady on the complaints line had already been informed of my call. She was very helpful, but to her credit, she could only do so much as She did not have the forms in front of her. She contacted the foriegn desk and got some of the details of my last transaction, which helped me enormously. After putting down the phone I then recieved a call from the branch asking if I could come in and speak to someone else, now I had another name.

Thursday, my third trip to the bank. I queued up and got another transfer form and asked to speak to the lady from the phone, She went through the form with me, but again was unable to tell me which number went where and told me I must have the address of the Bank in US and the benifactors address. I said I did not need them last time, but I was past arguing.

I emailed the contact I have from the builder asking for more info. In truth apart from the address of the bank he sent me no more than I already had, but the order made a bit more sense, and with the info from the compaints department, I was able to alocate the numbers to what I thought were the right boxes.

Friday, I still did not have the beneficiaries address, but I thought with the rest of the from filled in, if there are no other poblems I may get there this time. By the way the addresses are not marked as mandatory fields, so I was prepared to argue this point.

So I got to the front of the queue, and tried to look like I knew what I was doing. It worked a nice young lady took my form, my passport and my card and set off to do my transfer.(no mention of the address). If there was anything glaringly wrong with the form she had not seen it. It always seems to be the young attreactive women in Banks who know what they are doing, this I find strange as my first thoughts would be to go to an older more experienced teller.

Anyway I now wait to see if my money acctually arrives in New York, or if it goes with all the lost baggage to Geneva. And Natwest are on notice.

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