Transoceanic Drivel: The Apartment

Wednesday morning arrived like a long anticipated stone being passed: I knew it was going to be a long day; I knew it was going to hurt; but I knew I would be relieved when it was over. I checked my email and was pleased to find that our legal team had finished their changes to the lease and my company had authorized the local office to do everything in its power to make this happen. This was great news. Everything we could do on our end was done. There was a brief moment of euphoria and then the feeling of utter helplessness as I realized that the fate of my living quarters now rested on the shoulders of the local, outsourced relocation team.

The way it works is that the relocation company is hired by my company to act on behalf on me. They collect a set fee for each client and are supposed to ensure that everything stays above board and moves forward expeditiously. They, in turn, have contract consultants that spend their time in the field liaising between the clients and the local realtors. They set up the appointments, manage the paperwork and look out for the general well-being of the client. As well, they will ensure all services (gas, electric, etc) are hooked up, take you shopping for appliances and furnishings, orient you to the city and even take your wife shopping for appropriate, local clothes if needed (and it is usually needed when foreigners come to India). Mostly, though, the consultant is the overseer of all communications. Every move we make is recorded, signed and sent to a litany of people from both the relocation company and my company.

The final piece of this cryptogram is the realtor. They serve the traditional purpose of a real estate agent - both the good and the bad! In India, agents only show properties which they have listed, so you need a multitude of agents to see all the properties in Delhi. This is not for the weak, as no matter what you tell them you want, they will try to show you their entire listing. The realtor is also the only one who can communicate with the landlord directly as anyone else would surely only be doing so to usurp their commission.

So first thing upon arriving in the office, I started off the most unbelievable paper trail in the history of paper trails. I sent the draft of the lease to my consultant, Amrita, who then forwarded it to all the appropriate people in the communication chain.... including back to me and my HR director from whom I received it in the first place. The relocation company then reviewed the lease and forwarded it to the realtor who also reviewed it. The relator forwarded it to the landlord who does a read-through and makes any changes she feels is appropriate. She, then, sent it back to the realtor and ....... you get the picture. Not Expeditious!

And so it goes, from 9:00am until noon. Finally, a draft that we made is approved by the landlord. The unchanged draft, though, still has to be returned to the drafter who will approve the draft that they originally created - even though no actual changes have been made. Holy Crap!

The highlight (read: most absurd evolution) of the entire process was that every legal document in India needs the father's name on it. Yes, something so simple - yet in India is a major component of every legal proceeding - including getting a visa. Every document, from a lease to enrolling you children in school requires verification of your father's name. My situation really threw them as both my father and I have the same name. This is nonsensical to Indians. What kind of a nut would name their kid the same name? How would you call one and not get both to answer? Even through we have different suffixes, people really struggled with this. I got calls from my HR team, the consultant, the relocation company and the realtor about this. It had to be verified ad re-verified at least 7 times. They could not get past that it was not a typo. Oy Vey!

Once the lease was approved, the realtor had to go to the local certified, stamped paper shop (I am sure there is a technical name for it) and buy stamped paper. This is the legal paper on which all leases must be printed. It basically has an official and registered stamp embedded into the first page. The lease is logged into a journal with the names of the participants and the stamp number. The lease is then printed on this special paper and is ready for signing!

So, we finally got everyone's approvals, the lease was printed on the stamped paper and we were off to the apartment for the lease signing. After a few stops to look at some household appliances (that will require its own blog entry), we arrived at the apartment for the lease signing. It was now 5:30pm. In attendance was the landlord, the realtor, the consultant and myself. There were two copies of the lease which was only about 10 pages. Both the landlord and I had to sign at the bottom of every page and the appropriate signature boxes, while the realtor and consultant had to sign as witnesses. This took all but 2 minutes and we were done.

I had my apartment!

Below are some additional photos of our new place