Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Buying a House in Turkey Part 7

It's Monday.

Start of a new work week, so off we go to the Tax Office to get our Tax ID numbers. We need these in order to open a bank account. It was a little bit crazy in the tax office, I would have hated to get this organized by myself, but luckily we had our property broker to help us. She got us in and out in no time. Then we went across the road to the HSBC to open a bank account.... well 4 actually - one for each currency -- dollars, pounds, euro and Turkish lira. I felt like some kind of international money launderer! Again we had our brokers help, but the bank lady was really helpful and spoke good English. Good enough to offer us credit cards and a mortgage -- both of which we declined.

But speaking of mortgages, it was time to find an internet cafe to check whether our mortgage application in Holland had been approved. We'd started the process quite a few months ago, and it had taken ages to get the forms filled out. The broker assured us that the best country to get a mortgage in for Turkey, was Holland, and we were in the process of getting pre approved. Hadn't heard from the broker or bank since we'd been in Turkey -- but we weren't going to let that stop the house hunting experience.

In the afternoon we went with our property broker to the solicitor, who explained the contract process, and the power of attorney process. Then off to the Notary (in a very smelly, hot office) to get our passports translated into Turkish for the Military Approval process.

What a busy day! Had to go home for a nap, and then at night, we went out for quite a posh Italian meal. Bitten to death by mozzies. We went on the hunt for a bar down the back streets near our hotel, and we came across a funky place with a pool table, and friendly bar folks.

On the way home, we stopped off at the internet cafe again to check on the mortgage... still not update.

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