Dutch Dream Residence

Today it became official. The house is truly ours now. All the documents where signed at the Notary office so 1b is my official address now. I still can’t believe it and I’m wondering how long we will keep calling it “Ome” Jan’s House.

The signing of the contracts was pretty much the way I expected it to be. We where all there Ome Jan, Tini, My Parents and Sabine and me. The Notary explained the contents of the forms we where about to sign and he did that in plain understandable language. So we didn’t receive the cure against insomnia, which some notaries sometimes give their clients. Of course we had already seen the documents so we already knew what was in it but it’s always good to hear it once more before actually signing it. This is by far the biggest financial responsibility I have ever taken on and it feels good.

Today we also found out that it’s way easer to get a house in your name then it is to deal with the local government. There are more forms needed to get a permit to build a little addition to the house then there are needed to get a mortgage. One word: Insane. The fun part is: you don’t need a permit if the addition is 2.5 meters. Since ours is 3, we need a permit. All that paperwork and bureaucracy for half a meter. Only the government can come up with something like that. But I’ve had a good laugh about it. These government clerks really believe in those rules the follow while the rest of the world recognizes the stupidity of it all. The permit will take 6 weeks to be approved and then when it is approved the will have a look at the plans. Then the will look if they actually can approve the plans. This will take another 4 to 6 weeks. You should have seen the look on the girls face when I expressed my surprise: “You actually need 12 weeks to approve half a meter?”