Zurich - Boring Admin

Detail of Operahaus

I’ve managed to see Giselle (ballet) at the opera, been out to eat in the beer garden in Kusnacht, and saw Almodovar’s Dolor Y Gloria at the cinema, but somehow, subjectively, my life seems to have been dominated with admin since I’ve got back.

The first thing was to extend my lease on my flat in England. Fortunately, my friend Julie informed me that at some point the law had changed and now, rather than less than 60 years, it’s now less than 80 years remaining on your current lease where charges for extension rise dramatically. It had been something that I thought I’d leave until I was in retirement, but now I only had 7 years left to wait instead of 27 years. I don’t know why it’s not obligatory to inform all leaseholders of such important changes!

Anyway, I wanted to start the process while I’m still earning. As usual, these things somehow explode in scope once you get started. First of all I had to find a solicitor. This wasn’t so difficult. But then to officially hire the solicitor I needed a copy of my lease. I was just going to get them to do it for me, but then it turned out I also needed to appoint a specialist valuer for the lease. In the information they sent me, it turns out that you just have to look on a website to do it yourself. I thought I’d do that, but of course, I couldn’t work out how to find it and had to contact the registry. Maybe I should have just let the solicitor do it for me.

Then my solicitor also wanted a copy of my passport and one utility bill. Because I’m not in the UK, it had to get certified by an English-accredited solicitor. I ended up going back and asking if a notary would be OK (it was). Inconveniently, it seems most notaries close for the entire lunchtime. I looked to see whether there was one near me; there was one in Wallisellen and one in Oerlikon. Someone had given the one in Oerlikon a really bad review saying they’d refused to do their simple notarisation and had been rude and arrogant. I remembered that I’d found them unfriendly and daunting when I used them years ago, so I decided to try the Wallisellen one, which had really good reviews.

I got to Wallisellen and I just couldn’t find the office. In the end, I arrived, sweat running down my face, just as they were shutting their doors at 11.30am for their long mid-afternoon break. Fortunately, they were indeed very kind and made no fuss at all about notarising my documents for me, even though they were supposed to be closed. I thanked them profusely.

All my documents are in Egypt, so even answering questions such as who is your freeholder was quite difficult and I had to turn to my letting agent. I also had to admit to having installed a new door and windows without consulting the freeholder (I hadn’t realized at the time that it was my obligation to do so). I hope this won’t come back and haunt me. And then there was the request of proof of funds (not so difficult, but it always seems a bit personal!).

The second admin thing that’s taken up time is a leak in the flat above my Edinburgh flat wrecking the ceiling and walls in the hallway of my flat. My letting agent advised me to get my insurer onto it. Again, my documents were in Egypt and I couldn’t find my policy number. For most people, phoning up the insurer and asking wouldn’t be a problem, but I’m not the sort of person who likes to be on the phone, so I probably made things difficult for myself.

Anyway, after spending an inordinate amount of time trying to work out how much the call would cost me and then how to top up the phone, I did finally get in touch. However, they couldn’t help me because I had an old policy from a company that they’d acquired and therefore it wasn't on their main system. I had to phone again at an earlier time of day (and top up my phone again).

In the end, I suspect I may have even contacted the wrong company as, after a lot of to-and-fro-ing, I eventually phoned another insurer. And since I was dealing with my lease extension at the same time, I initially gave them the postcode for the wrong property, so no wonder they couldn't find it. It was all too much. Then I discovered that my policy was home insurance rather than landlord insurance (I must have forgotten to change it), but they kindly swapped it over for me (I had to pay extra, but I was relieved that it wasn't totally null and void).

All of this is still ongoing, but it sucks such a lot of time and energy!