X-Building in Bahagia #3 - The First Appointment

Alright, so we're all blur and doing this together for the first time - our First Appointment with HDB.

After meeting up with the seller and her agent, the first person we met was a "admin" person whose workstation was one of those in the open-concept cluster. She made sure all our documents were present and photocopies were made. She also made clear to us that we need to submit our copy of marriage cert to a Branch Office within 3 months of completion. At that point, it rendered the letter that we prepared to request for postponing submission of marriage cert, useless.

Together with the seller and her agent, we marched into the Officer's room and signed our lives away to each other. After putting our signatures on a few pieces of paper, and making sure we our earliest 2nd Appointment date is 7 weeks from then, we headed to the 3rd Level to buy our achitectural floor plan.

Unfortunately, the floor plan (to my dismay) is the original one and reflects the layout 35 years ago. The property is 35 years old btw. The floorplan also doesn't reflect the garden and yard area. Alamak, what a useless piece of paper for $5.00. Anyway, the seller and her agent mentioned they might have some updated floorplans to pass us so that we can show our ID or contractors.

Then, we called up our banker to check how we can settle the bank loan paperwork with the lawyer. We realized our lawyer is just on the 9th floor in the same building so we popped by to sign more papers. First, the admin auntie checked our documents and made sure they are relevant. You know how at every valuation report there are photographs attached at the back portion. Ours had one photo of the front gate and porch area. The admin auntie came in and was adamant the valuation report had a mistake and that was a wrong photo! Because the 2 storey terrace photos do not match a HDB!




We had in fact often encountered queries from friends about the misconception of type of housing we're getting. It's a HDB yes, it has 2 storeys yes. No it's not a maisionette flat. It has a mini garden yes. It is on the first level yes. It is a terrace yes. The list goes on, but the HDB terrace of this type is situated at only a few areas in Singapore. Mainly in Jalan Bahagia and Queenstown. Not many know this and I guess I have to repeat the same explanation to every bewildered look when it says it is unable to match a terrace to a HDB. Uh huh, there goes.



After the admin auntie, there's a "paralegal" whom we thought was the lawyer because he asked us to let him know the CPF monthly contribution from each of our account. We also wrote him the biggest cheque I've ever opened in my life. Then the real lawyer came in and explained the meaning of "mortgage" - and to check the spelling of our names and property address alphabet by alphabet - while our eyes followed his pencil trail across the pieces of paper. Cool lawyer with small round sunglasses and purple shirt.

So yep.
The seller.
The seller's agent.
The admin person.
Our case Officer
The Malay lady who sells floorplans at $5.
The admin auntie.
The "paralegal"
The lawyer.

Settled our First HDB Appointment.