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Spot the difference

April 30, 2014 in Moving to Canada | 4 comments

Set_differenceThose who have chanced upon these humble marginalia may well have done so in search of information pertaining to (or – mayhap – to elicit shared experience concerning…) applications for Permanent Residency for Canada. Should that be the case then you might also have happened upon this earlier post which documented the problematic process by which I obtained the requisite medical certificate the first time I started an application some two years ago – shortly before the whole exercise had to be aborted for reasons that have been well documented elsewhere in this journal.

Now – as posted only recently – the whole shebang has been kickstarted again and thus far (fingers firmly crossed!) things are going a sight better than they did previously.

What a difference!

On Saturday I went to get a new set of photos of the requisite size and format – as specified by Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC). I must have been at the photographers for all of five minutes. The technology is now so sophisticated that the subject’s participation in having his or her picture taken is momentary and almost incidental. Before I knew it I was out of the door, clutching in my hot little hand an envelope containing an acceptably (to my mind – which is a tough ask!) accurate facsimile of my visage!

First thing on Monday morning I posted off the application forms for yet another police certificate. Nothing much had changed regarding this part of the process but then – this was one of the bits that worked properly last time round.

Then – on my way home from the School – I visited once again the CIC designated clinic to submit myself to the required medical examination. The contrast with my previous appointment there could not have been more palpable. Having arrived a little early – nervous of getting trapped in the exodus from the capital – it was immediately clear that this time round my request for an ‘upfront’ medical would present no predicament. The whole process had – in the intervening period – been updated, streamlined and given a fresh veneer of modern technology. I was whisked through the necessary procedures (X-rays – urine samples – blood tests – weights and measures) so quickly that there wasn’t even time for a coffee in the commodious lounge.

The ensuing interview with the doctor was brief and to the point. Having looked me over cursorily he dismissed me in short order:

“You’re fine. Get out!”

Well – I exaggerate slightly – but you get my drift. Not only was I processed in a fraction of the time that it had taken previously, but the clinic further forewent – on this occasion – charging me an extra whack for additional tests. Achieving my sixth decade has clearly not yet had a significantly detrimental effect on my well-being.

Naturally I take all of this as a particularly good omen.

As you would expect of me…

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Déjà vu (all over again!)…

April 22, 2014 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

deja-vue-all-over-again-yogi-berraTwo years ago to this very day – on April 22nd 2012 – I posted this entry to my then still fledgeling journal. The jist of the epistle was that we had just placed our Buckinghamshire apartment on the market (for the second time) and that – though the market was as flat as a flat thing – we were nonetheless optimistic that we would eventually find a buyer. As it turned out – of course – those optimistic inclinations proved to be somewhat – er – optimistic!

As can be discerned from this only slightly later post I was at that time also contemplating the start of the process by which I would achieve Permanent Residency status for Canada, prior to my intended retirement to BC last summer. Regular readers will know that that process was aborted at the last moment when the Kickass Canada Girl’s job in Victoria evaporated in a puff of smoke and we had to reconcile ourselves to a slightly longer domicile in the UK than had originally been planned.

Well – here we are – two years down the line and we find ourselves right back where we started!

Last week our apartment in Buckinghamshire went back onto the market. Third time lucky and all that – but it has to be said that the omens do appear somewhat more propitious this time round, with the UK property market – particularly in the south east – doing its level best to inflate itself into an even bigger bubble than before. Anyway – let’s not startle the horses… so ’nuff said!

I am also kick-starting my PR application again. Modifying the paperwork to reflect the fact that two years have passed is not difficult. Much has changed (the Girl now lives and works in the UK – we have been married for twice as long as we had in 2012 – I am now a pensioner!) – and the forms need to be re-written to reflect that.

What will take time and effort – however – are the elements that must be re-done from scratch. I will have to apply for a fresh Police Certificate and I will need to take another medical. I will also need to acquire another set of visa application photographs. Some of the previous set vanished into the process – never to be seen again – and I am in any case now sporting a facial embellishment that was not previously extant.

Revisiting the application has been interesting. I can see now that I misinterpreted several of the questions the first time round and it is good to get those sorted out. I also notice that some elements of the process itself have been improved. You may recall the trouble that I had persuading my chosen clinic to carry out the medical without prior submission of my PR application? Well – the documentation on all sides now makes it clear that the medical can be carried out ‘upfront’ in family sponsorship cases – and indeed that so to do can help to accelerate the process.

I will – of course – let you know how it all goes…

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Baby steps

March 21, 2014 in Life in England, Moving to Canada | 2 comments

Baby_feetBob:    I can’t do that. It’s too big!
Dr. Leo:    Baby steps Bob. Baby steps.

From the movie: “What about Bob?”
Written by Tom Shulman
Directed by Frank Oz

The illation of this post from January of this year – wherein I pondered the next steps in our glacially slow progress towards a new life in British Columbia – was that all depended on our being able to sell our property in Buckinghamshire… which objective would – in consequence – be our main focus over the coming months. The first landmark along this route was to be the date in March on which the tenants currently occupying our apartment could be given notice to quit –  after which we could move to bring the property once again to market.

On Wednesday this week such notice was duly served.

We are currently in discussion with several local estate agents with a view to establishing a fair and reasonable price for the property – subsequent to which we will stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood, take a deep breath and return to the affray! Fingers – and much else – firmly crossed…

Now – because selling a property in the UK is such a big, grown-up, scary prospect we have decided – instead of taking the risk of biting off more than we can reasonably chew – to sell the apartment bit by bit!

Well – no… of course we haven’t really – though just at the moment that might appear to be the case!

I’m being cryptic! I will stop at once…

We are in the final stages of selling a brick built bin store that is located behind the main house. There are four such stores – assigned to four of the seven apartments into which the original residence was divided – in a row abutting the rear wall of the estate. The roofs of these stores had – of late – fallen into such a state of disrepair that urgent remedial works were required. Naturally the Kickass Canada Girl and I were reluctant to invest further monies into a feature of the property that adds little or no financial value to the apartment as a whole, so a deal was done with one of our neighbours. She will pay the costs of the roof repairs in return for the transfer into her name of the store itself. She can use the space – we can do without the expense!

It would – of course – be really good if the rest of the sale were to proceed as expeditiously and smoothly as this. Let us be optimistic and assume that this will indeed be so.

 

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Residency revisited – revisited!

February 13, 2014 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Image by Merlin2525 on OpenClipArtAt the culmination of my last post – imaginatively titled ‘Residency revisited‘ – I wound up my deliberation on the requirement for the Kickass Canada Girl and I to ‘prove’ that we do indeed intend to reside in Canada should permanent residency be granted with the observation that further research was needed – and said that I would ‘get back to you’ with the results thereof.

I’m back!

It is a testament to the power of the InterWebNet that simply ‘Googling’ – “Proof that you intend to live in Canada with your spouse” – turns up the answer almost immediately, in the form of a reference to a document entitled “IP 2 Processing Applications to Sponsor Members of the Family Class“. This tract – previously unknown to me and hidden well away on an obscure branch of the CIC website – contains the following section:

13.3.      Sponsorship by Canadian citizens living abroad

The following applies to Canadian citizens living abroad:

  • Canadian citizens who reside abroad may sponsor only their spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner or a dependent child who does not have dependent children of their own;
  • they must submit their sponsorship application package and fees to the CPC-M in Canada and not to the visa office;
  • Canadian citizens who are tourists in a foreign country, even for extended periods, are still residents of Canada;
  • Canadian citizens who are long-term workers or students in another country are generally considered residents of that country;
  • Canadians who have spent little or no time in Canada may also seek to sponsor. If they have never worked in Canada and do not have the educational or language skills to find employment in Canada, refusal under A39 may be appropriate if arrangements for the care and support of the sponsored person are not satisfactory;
  • sponsors must provide evidence that they will reside in Canada after the sponsored persons and their family members become permanent residents.

Evidence that sponsors will reside in Canada may include one or more of the following:

  • letter from an employer;
  • letter of acceptance to a Canadian educational institution;
  • proof of having rented/bought a dwelling in Canada;
  • reasonable plans for re-establishing in Canada or severing ties to the other country.

Of this suggested evidence the first three bullet-points are pretty much covered by the surmisings in my last post and would – for us – be no simple matter with which to comply. That leaves the ‘reasonable plan‘ of the final point. I guess that we must make a case thereon which would incorporate the following mitigating factors:

  • the Girl has a dependent in Victoria
  • we have a number of bank accounts in Canada, which contain pretty much all of our savings
  • the Girl has Canadian pensions
  • by the time we submit our PR application our property in the UK should be on the market
  • we can call on the testimony of Canadian family and friends

Failing all else I might simply refer CIC to this blog! That should do the trick…

 

In the course of my researches I discovered a most useful forum that goes by the appellation ‘Road to Canada’. Amongst other topics upon which the site offers valuable discourse was one concerning the process to be followed once permanent residency has been approved. I had – somewhat naively – assumed that it was simply a matter of being furnished with the relevant documentation and then being able to rock up at the Canadian border at some point during the succeeding years to be greeted with open arms.

Not so…

What actually happens is that once residency is approved a temporary visa is granted and one must then cross the Canadian border at some point before that visa expires. On so doing permanent residency commences and the immigrant is then subject to the requirement of being resident in Canada for two out of any five years. In practice this means that – whereas one needn’t actually move to Canada until up to three years after permanent residency has been taken up – one must visit before the temporary visa expires. This expiration date is apparently the anniversary of the required medical certificate, which – given the length of time that it takes to process PR applications nowadays – is normally somewhere between a fortnight and sixty days.

All of which means that the timing of the application is critical and must be considered most carefully.

More anon…

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Residency revisited

February 11, 2014 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

cicThe Citizenship and Immigration Canada website has been re-designed… and jolly nice it looks too. Whether it will be any easier to navigate than the old version remains to be seen. It is early days yet and – mindful of the morass of information that doubtless still lies behind the impressive new facade – I wouldn’t want to count any chickens.

Time – however – to get started…

My original post on the subject of Family Sponsorship for Permanent Residency outlines the basic application procedure that we must needs follow and the first thing to do now is to identify how this might differ as a result of both of the applications (the Kickass Canada Girl’s as sponsor and mine as the sponsored) originating from outside Canada.

Revisiting the online guides to glean further information I see that this new condition has been added since I last studied the detail:

Effective October 25, 2012, sponsored spouses or partners must now live together in a legitimate relationship with their sponsor for two years from the day they receive permanent residence status in Canada.

If you are a spouse or partner being sponsored to come to Canada, this applies to you if:

  • You are being sponsored by a permanent resident or Canadian citizen
  • You have been in a relationship for two years or less with your sponsor
  • You have no children in common
  • Your application was received on or after October 25, 2012

Fortunately, since the Girl and I have been married for more than three years already this condition will not affect us. Moving on…

Hunting further through the the CIC website (no mean feat, for it is a complex beast!) I (re)discover:

“Guide 3900 – Sponsorship of a spouse, common-law partner, conjugal partner or dependent child living outside Canada“.

In the depths of this document I find that which I seek:

If I live outside Canada, may I sponsor?

If you are a Canadian citizen, you may sponsor a spouse, a common-law partner or conjugal partner, or a dependent child who has no children of his or her own. However, you must demonstrate that you will live in Canada when the sponsored person becomes a permanent resident.

Note: Permanent residents residing abroad may not sponsor from outside of Canada. Canadian citizens travelling (sic) as tourists are not considered to be residing abroad.

At this point a small alarm bell sounds… I take a look at the sponsor’s document checklist:

doc

…and see that it includes this item:

proof

“Proof that you intend to live in Canada with your spouse…?” How on earth is one supposed to prove that?

It is difficult – off the top of my head – to imagine what sort of documentary evidence we could possibly provide that would satisfy this requirement. If the Girl had a job offer from Canada – mayhap – I guess that would count, but what if we are both intending to retire? Perhaps if we had already purchased a property in BC – but again – would we be likely so to do if there were still doubt concerning our right to reside in Canada?

Hmmm!

Further research is clearly required. I will report back with my findings.

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What to do… and how to do it.

February 1, 2014 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

Image by Damián Navas on Flickr

If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could then better judge what to do, and how to do it.

Abraham Lincoln

 

January is just about done. It is the time of year to put aside retrospection and to engage instead in a little gentle anticipation. Time to make a plan…

Our approach in this instance will be subtly different to that which we previously pursued. On that occasion our grand strategy was launched with due ceremony.  ‘Full steam ahead’ was the command and away we sailed – all guns blazing – only to founder on the ragged rocks of an unfriendly shore and to slip slowly beneath the waves – lost with all hands.

This time – with the memory of running-before-we-could-walk fresh in our minds – we are taking things one step at a time.

Step one: Sell the apartment in Buckinghamshire. Until this has been accomplished nothing else can be done – thus nothing else need currently concern us.

The good news on this front is that the market has picked up appreciably. The UK economy has now enjoyed four consecutive quarters of growth and a considerable number of new jobs have been created – many of them in the corridor between the M4 and M40 motorways to the west of London. Our humble apartment is located slap-bang in the middle of this area.

Even better – we hear through the grapevine that one of our ex-neighbours is also selling her apartment, which happens to be the one immediately below ours. As far as we can tell it was only introduced to the market around Christmas time, but it is already under offer and the asking price – which I imagine has pretty much been achieved – was considerable. We can’t put our apartment on the market until the point that we are able to give our tenants notice (toward the end of March) but we are – naturally – now eager to get things moving.

Further on the positive news front… the good old Pound Sterling has itself also been doing jolly well of late against the Canadian dollar. When I started tracking the exchange rate around two years ago it was hovering around the 1.55 mark. It is now slightly above 1.8 and is – apparently – slowly but surely still rising… as are house prices in the south east of England! I am not going to excogitate this scenario further for fear of jinxing the whole kit and caboodle but – as you might imagine – we now have fingers, arms, legs, eyes and everything else crossed. We must look pretty damned funny!

 

There is actually one other thing that we do need to get on with at this point. Regular readers may experience a strong sense of deja vu as I revisit the subject of my application for Canadian Permanent Residency. You might recall that the whole process ground to a halt when the Kickass Canada Girl returned to the UK the Christmas before last. Well – figuring that our delayed move is now likely to take place within the next two years it is essential that we re-ignite the process. Otherwise I might find myself in British Columbia but unable to stay there.

The process will – of course – be somewhat different now that the Girl is based in the UK rather than in Canada. I will update my previous musings on the subject (here, here and all points west!) so that those lighting upon this post in search of useful information regarding permanent residency will be able to get the complete picture.

 

“So we beat on…” – though unlike Fitzgerald’s protagonist we are in this case carried onward toward the future…

…and our motto for the day shall be “Softly, softly, catchee monkey!”

 

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Playing catch-up

December 9, 2013 in Moving to Canada | Permalink

cup-and-ballAs we rush headlong towards the end of what must be quite the most frantically busy year that either of us can recall – scrabbling desperately to finish all that must be accomplished before we head to BC in a little over a week’s time – it seems an apposite moment to try to put the events of the last two years into some sort of perspective – hopefully in the process providing some degree of clarity to any recent arrivals who are doubtless completely confused by the whole dashed business.

As I write my sixtieth birthday is exactly one month away. Any notions that I might have had about slowing down in the run up to retirement are clearly pipe-dreams – and wouldn’t it be good to have the time to dream just now?! This diminutive planet is a tough place to be in these days, though – I must at once declare – we are actually fantastically fortunate… many have it considerably tougher than do we. It is – regardless – still sometimes difficult to see the path ahead through the murk.

When I started to write this blog – not quite two years ago – my infinitely better half – the Kickass Canada Girl – was shortly to leave for Victoria to take up the post that was to see her through to retirement. I was – sad to say – to remain in England for somewhere between 18 months and two and a half years until such time as I could also retire – at which point I would emigrate to Canada to join her there.

Regular readers will be well aware that a variety of things went amiss with this strategem. First, we picked a bad time to try to sell our apartment in the UK and – having already moved into rented accomodation ourselves – were forced to take a tenant. Secondly – and of considerably greater import – the Girl’s job in BC failed to live up to expectations and she was forced to return to the UK to take another job here. My retirement – which had looked at one point to be on the cards for the summer of this year – had, for the time being, to be postponed.

So – where are we now?

Well – we have another plan – by which we will both be moving to Canada either in the summer of 2015 or in the spring of 2016… always assuming that we have the energy to keep going that long. At the moment this seems frankly implausible!

The housing market in the UK is picking up. Our newly installed third tenant (the second was – thankfully – a considerable improvement on the first) will be given notice in the spring that we intend to put the apartment in Buckinghamshire back on the market and – once sold – we will look increasingly hard at purchasing in Victoria whilst the market there is still favourable (hopefully also whilst the pound is still weak against the Canadian dollar!). Fingers (and legs and eyes) firmly crossed!

We are off to Canada next week to celebrate what will be my first Christmas and New Year there. I can’t wait! We will also be celebrating – at the Wickaninnish Inn near Long Beach outside Tofino – my sixtieth birthday.

Now – that will be a milestone…

 

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Hang on a minute, lads…

September 15, 2013 in Moving to Canada | 2 comments

Photo by Ged Carroll on Flickr…”I’ve got a great idea.”

At the fag end of January 2013 I wrote – in my second ever post on this blog:

“About this time last year Kickass Canada Girl and I came up with a plan. It was a good plan. In fact, we were so impressed with it that we thought it might be The plan!”

That post was entitled “…gang aft a-gley” – a reference, of course, to the immortal Rabbie Burns’s poem “To a Mouse, on Turning Her Up in Her Nest with the Plough”. For those – should there conceivably be such – not acquainted with that timeless ode,  the verse in question runs thus:

“But Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain:
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!”

I wound up my post with the observation:

“I’m sure you know the Woody Allen quip: ‘If you want to make god laugh, tell him about your plans’…”

At the time of writing I was – naturally – merely referring to our initial unforseen departure from the script – which arose both from our unexpected inability to sell our Buckinghamshire apartment and, thereafter, from the Kickass Canada Girl’s accelerated appointment to her much anticipated post in Victoria – considerably in advance of the migration date that we had originally intended. As it turned out my sentiments on that occasion proved prescient – and then some! I could have re-used the title for any number of subsequent posts as the edifice that was our beautiful strategy was systematically reduced to rubble – stone by stone. No mere chuckles for this god – he/she was definitely rolling on the floor laughing his/her a*se off!

Soooooo! You would doubtless expect us to have learned from our experiences? Ho, ho! Not us! We are such stuff as… should you slam the door in our faces, when you open it again we will still be standing there – smiling at you…

Yes – we thought that it was time once again to formulate a plan. This time – however – we are going to be a little more devious – to see if we can’t outwit the gods. Foolish we may be – but you have to give us marks for perseverance.

Here’s how it goes:

  • We have set a window. At the near end of the scale I retire at the end of the academic year in 2015 and we move to BC in the summer of that same year.
  • At the far end of the scale we aim to move to Victoria in May 2016. Under this strategy I would probably retire at Christmas 2015 – but could stay on until Easter 2016 if it were to appear advantageous so to do.
  • Either way we will look to re-market the apartment within the next 6 months – probably next spring. The housing market seems to have picked up considerably and – mindful of the UK government’s latest scheme to guarantee mortgage deposits as a way to encourage another housing bubble – it would be madness not to jump aboard the bandwagon (mixing metaphors furiously as we go) with the aim of launching into the market at a relatively high point.

That is the plan, in any case – and as we all know by now…

The title for this post comes – as you are doubtless aware – from the celebrated final scene of that classic of UK 60s cinema – ‘The Italian Job’. Michael Caine announces his ‘great idea’ lying on the floor of a coach which is balanced teeteringly on the very edge of an Alpine precipice.

Let’s hope that is not an omen!

 

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Bush telegraph

January 29, 2013 in Life in England, Moving to Canada | 2 comments

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidA few weeks ago I celebrated my birthday. Actually – ‘celebrated’ is probably somewhat too strong a word as I am of the persuasion that regards birthdays as mere nodding acquaintances rather than as seldom-seen long-lost friends. Actually – that isn’t entirely true either, because once a decade – on the occasion of what is melodramatically known as ‘the big one’ – I do let my hair down (what  remains thereof) and go – metaphorically at least – to town!

Needless to say – this was not ‘the big one’! That is still a year away.

When that festival does come around I had intended celebrating the event on the west coast of Vancouver Island. That may still turn out to possible, but the notion was predicated on the assumption that the Kickass Canada Girl and I would – by then – actually be living on the island. As that is no longer the case we may now need to re-consider. But then again…

The passing of this particular milestone has in any case not been without interest. I have now entered my sixtieth year on the planet and this is of itself food for thought. There is something about the ultimate season before a ‘major’ event that feels quite different. It is as though the hard yards have been gained, the finishing post is in sight and one can relax a little in the knowledge that the job has been well done. The feeling is somewhat akin to the endurance of the long distance flight. At the onset all is about settling in, getting comfortable and trying to moderate the chronometer of anticipation. The preponderance of the subsequent peregrination is spent asleep or in being fed, watered(!) and/or entertained. Finally – as one stirs, bleary eyed, from one’s semi-slumber to find that touchdown is less than an hour hence – an unreasonable sense of achievement pervades, as though to have survived the passage thus far were somehow note-worthy… a hangover perhaps from the days when travel really was an arduous undertaking.

At one point last summer I found myself experiencing a very similar feeling about having entered my final year at work before retirement. I had already commenced composition of a post on the subject for this blog at the point at which that hope was snatched away by the fickle hand of fate. Unfortunately, in my enthusiasm for this newly acquired state of pending retirement I had clearly mentioned my intentions to one or two too many others at the School. Such rumours have a habit of spreading like wildfire – as is the way in all such contained environments – and I now find myself somewhat embarrassed at having to disabuse eager well-wishers of the notion that I am shortly to disappear.

Now of course, when I do finally announce my impending retirement – at whatever point that happens – no-one will believe me!

 

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The reluctant landlord

January 16, 2013 in Life in England, Moving to Canada | Permalink

Photo by Andy Dawson ReidReaders may recall – and those who do not may refresh their memories here should they so wish – that the Kickass Canada Girl and my very first scheme for moving to British Columbia – even before she was offered the job there – involved us moving out of our home in Buckinghamshire into rented accommodation, selling our apartment, purchasing a property in Victoria, letting it and then using the income to cover our rent in the UK until such time as we could move to Canada. The chief purpose of this little scheme was to enable us to leave the UK quickly when the time came and to have a property ready and waiting in BC on our arrival there.

As will be clear by now neither this nor any of our subsequent schemes worked out at all as planned. When it became apparent that we were not to be able to sell our apartment in short order we had to re-think. Rather than move back to Buckinghamshire we decided to seek a tenant to occupy the property and thus to cover our rental costs until such time as we were able to find a buyer. This was, after all, exactly what we were planning to do in Victoria – so where was the difference?

Well! All I can say is that the experience of our first year as landlords (or more properly as landlord and landlady) may well have put us off the whole notion for life! Nor does it does take much research on the InterWebNet or elsewhere to establish that anyone who lets property for any length of time ineluctably accrues their own horror stories. We just have to hope that our inchoate experience was anomalous and that our next time round will prove more propitious.

We seem to have suffered a particularly infelicitous run of bad luck when it comes to expenses. The Girl and I had spent a considerable amount renovating the apartment over the previous few years, which enterprise had included the installation of a complete new kitchen designed to a high standard by my brother – who makes his living thus. He is not cheap but he is very good!

Imagine my consternation, therefore, when – over the course of the year – I was obliged to:

  • replace the fridge/freezer
  • spend a considerable amount on oven repairs
  • call an engineer on several occasions to fix the washer/dryer
  • purchase a new control module for a gas fire
  • arrange for the ailing heating system to be looked at on more than one occasion.

This latter culminated in the eventual failure of the boiler (‘furnace’ – for Canadian readers!) requiring a complete – and expensive – replacement.

As though all of this were not enough our initiatory tenant proved to be a total nightmare. Quite apart from demanding a rent rebate whenever the slightest thing went amiss, this lessee eventually seemed to absent himself entirely from the property, only to be replaced (according to reports from our erstwhile neighbours) by a friend of his to whom he was ‘lending’ the apartment (the lease prohibiting him from sub-letting it). Our former home was thus now being lived in by someone of whom we had no knowledge or information at all, and who proceeded to upset the neighbours with noisy late night comings and goings and – ignoring our blandishments to the contrary – by smoking out of the windows. Matters eventually reached the point at which we were obliged to give the appropriate notice and the tenant – and his friend – finally moved out just before Christmas.

That was not – sad to say – the end of the matter. The tenant – whom we believed to be a very ‘house-proud’ fellow – had on taking up the lease enquired as to whether he could redecorate some of the rooms in neutral tones. We had no objection to this and at the end of the year were expecting to get the apartment back in good order. We were, therefore, upon receiving the check-out report from our management company, stunned to discover that the tenant had – without any consultation! – replaced a perfectly good neutral toned carpet in one of the bedrooms… with a black one!

Astonishing!! What sort of behaviour is that?!

As I write there are decorators and carpet-layers in the apartment restoring everything to a sensible state with a view to attracting fresh tenants. The cost of all this will hopefully – following the usual haggling, horse-trading and possibly arbitration – be recovered from the tenant’s deposit. I have no doubt that he will fight every inch of the way – because that is just the sort of unreasonable man that he is.

It takes – clearly – all sorts!

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