HOUSE TRANSACTION, JAPANESE STYLE

Three days ago, we showed up at the real estate agent to formalize the preliminary transaction...

There was no lawyer as in Malaysia, only the boss and four employees...

After some small talk, the boss laid out a bunch of documents in front of us.

There were just huge pages upon pages of blue prints of the house... in minute details that cover everything from the louver windowpanes to the wastewater drainage system...

He then dished out his real estate agent 'license' and said that it is required by law to explicitly show this document to the customer before the transaction.

He went on to explain in great detail on the land rights, the house designs, and the roads...

I found out that we would be co-owners of the adjacent roads as well...

Half an hour later, the owner's wife, Mrs. M, came...

Prior to meeting her, I had suggested that we do not want to 'inherit' any of the loose stuff from the house... stuff such as furniture, crockery, futons, and so on...

Of course, we do not want the old air cons, the washing machine, the TV, the over-sized water boiler...

But after meeting her and seeing that she is the age of my mother, I volunteered to assist in the clearing of the stuff...

The real estate agent however, advised us to take the stuff because those are 'un-common' stuff that you cannot get from the ordinary market...

There is a pretty nice pottery there, and I suppose the ceramic wares are nice too...

Oh, I didn't mention that there is a dedicated Japanese tearoom in the house?

Mrs. M is a practitioner of the Japanese tea ceremony and they probably had this tearoom specially designed...

We spent about two sleepy hours listening to the explanations while breathing the exhaust fumes from their cigarettes... arrrggghhh...

After which, we stamped our hanko many times on several copies of the contract...

We paid a deposit and agreed to discuss with Dr. and Mrs. M. on how to deal with the stuff in the house.

I could not allow myself to ask these two senior folks to move the fridge, the ancient, huge TV, or the old washing machine.

But let's see...

We are set to pay the balance of the sale price on 29th July and the title will change hands three or four days thereafter.

Renovations are of course, to be followed...