Foiled by 302
Gaahhh, those damn estate agents and their confusion with numbers!! It has cost us a home and I'll never forget it. If only if it wasn't for you meddling kids and that imbecile dog...whoops! Sorry,, I just had a bit of a Scooby Doo flash back there.
Hmm, well, my last post told of the good news about our wonderful new apartment in Nakameguro, how lucky we were and how quickly we'd found it. I knew it was too good to be true.
We went to sign all the remaining documents and pay the wedge of 10,000 Yen notes to the agent last Sunday, so that we could finalize the contract and move-in on the 18th August. we'd already booked a moving company and I'd contacted work etc to change our address.
So, after the paperwork and our pockets had been significantly lightened, the agent drove us to meet the landlady so that we could get our keys. She turned out to be a jolly cheerful woman, and things were looking pinky.
The agent then suggested we check out the apartment to make sure everything was in order, which we thought was a spiffin idea. We skipped up the steps of the "mansion" building (how the Japanese rather endearingly call apartment blocks), beaming away and taking in our new surroundings. When we came to the 3rd floor, we turned right to apartment number 301, the one which we had gone to view. The agent, however, turned left to number 302. Hold on a minute, I thought, what's going on here then?
I made a polite cough, thinking he'd made a mistake, and suggested maybe the heat had made him forget which apartment it was. He looked confused, and then opened the door to 302, saying there had been no confusion. Oh, hell!
Miyu and I were speechless. Something was very, very wrong.
We followed the agent into a much smaller apartment, or rather a room with a kitchen attached. The place we'd seen had three rooms and a bigger kitchen and robot toilet! This one didn't. We were in shock, and from our gaping mouths and slightly shellshocked demenour, the agent twigged something was up (a sharp one, he was).
"Is everything OK?" he asked rather nervously.
"Erm, this isn't the place we saw." we said and then proceeded to tell him what had happened last week when we came to view the place by ourselves.
Another agent had drawn us a map and had written the number of the apartment as 301. As it happened, both 301 and 302 were empty, but 301 had already been rented out, and was been cleaned for the new tenent, hence it been open. The cock-up rested firmly with the agent, and luckily the one in the room with us admitted this and apologised, saying it was no problem. We could cancel everything and we'd get a full refund.
Well, too right! I thought, but didn't actually say this as I was still in shock. We then marched down to the landlady, explained what had happened, gave her back the keys, drove back to the agency, ripped up a whole forest of contracts and then got our money back.
In retrospect we should have made a bigger stink about it, but due to the sudden swing in events, didn't really feel up for a big confrontation.
I suppose I have to believe there was a reason for this, and that it actually means there's a better place out there, just waiting for us to discover - which we will hopefully do when we venture out today.
Wish us luck!
Hmm, well, my last post told of the good news about our wonderful new apartment in Nakameguro, how lucky we were and how quickly we'd found it. I knew it was too good to be true.
We went to sign all the remaining documents and pay the wedge of 10,000 Yen notes to the agent last Sunday, so that we could finalize the contract and move-in on the 18th August. we'd already booked a moving company and I'd contacted work etc to change our address.
So, after the paperwork and our pockets had been significantly lightened, the agent drove us to meet the landlady so that we could get our keys. She turned out to be a jolly cheerful woman, and things were looking pinky.
The agent then suggested we check out the apartment to make sure everything was in order, which we thought was a spiffin idea. We skipped up the steps of the "mansion" building (how the Japanese rather endearingly call apartment blocks), beaming away and taking in our new surroundings. When we came to the 3rd floor, we turned right to apartment number 301, the one which we had gone to view. The agent, however, turned left to number 302. Hold on a minute, I thought, what's going on here then?
I made a polite cough, thinking he'd made a mistake, and suggested maybe the heat had made him forget which apartment it was. He looked confused, and then opened the door to 302, saying there had been no confusion. Oh, hell!
Miyu and I were speechless. Something was very, very wrong.
We followed the agent into a much smaller apartment, or rather a room with a kitchen attached. The place we'd seen had three rooms and a bigger kitchen and robot toilet! This one didn't. We were in shock, and from our gaping mouths and slightly shellshocked demenour, the agent twigged something was up (a sharp one, he was).
"Is everything OK?" he asked rather nervously.
"Erm, this isn't the place we saw." we said and then proceeded to tell him what had happened last week when we came to view the place by ourselves.
Another agent had drawn us a map and had written the number of the apartment as 301. As it happened, both 301 and 302 were empty, but 301 had already been rented out, and was been cleaned for the new tenent, hence it been open. The cock-up rested firmly with the agent, and luckily the one in the room with us admitted this and apologised, saying it was no problem. We could cancel everything and we'd get a full refund.
Well, too right! I thought, but didn't actually say this as I was still in shock. We then marched down to the landlady, explained what had happened, gave her back the keys, drove back to the agency, ripped up a whole forest of contracts and then got our money back.
In retrospect we should have made a bigger stink about it, but due to the sudden swing in events, didn't really feel up for a big confrontation.
I suppose I have to believe there was a reason for this, and that it actually means there's a better place out there, just waiting for us to discover - which we will hopefully do when we venture out today.
Wish us luck!
posted by TOK at 9:59 am
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home