He would ask me why they ( the organisation showing interest to buy his house ) are on a dialogue with the Bank at this stage ? " What is their great advantage to plead with the Bank to soften the rate of interest to around 11% and the stretch the borrowing period from 7 to 10 years? Why won't they understand that I was growing older by the day and getting sick?" he would say. I would appreciate that as I knew he was growing older and sick by the day and a bit more impatient. "I must buy an apartment soon and move in within a month. For this, I need an assurance letter that the buyer must give me within a fortnight --- a letter of assurance to buy my house and give an advance of 50% of the negotiated price-- that is 90 lakhs of rupees. What is their problem ? Why can't they do it? They are a big financing organisation. After I move to an apartment, let them take over my house and use it till they completed the sale transaction," he would say.
After I initiated a negotiation on his behalf to sell his only immovable property and zeroed in on an organisation which was in great need to buy a clean property in the city, he has been speaking to me on these lines and I listen to him patiently everyday; on some days, even more than once. He conveys the same anxiety, the same apprehension and the same sense of resignation. My wife keeps reading my face while he speaks to me over phone and signals patience the moment my face shows a any sign of fatigue. After all he has been a friend for decades and now eager to live his last days in peace. The house he had built about four decades ago where all her three talented children were born, grew and got married is now scaring him. The big compound, the coconut and mango trees and fruits; his spacious puja room, the wide varandas -- both in front and back-- no more hold out charm for him. He wants to convert the asset to cash, share it among his children, move to a compact apartment and live in peace.
My Smartcity, unfortunately, is not yet smart where I could organise a dozen genuine buyers within days who would rush in for a clean property in the heart of the city for only two hundred lakh rupees--- all white. Here one plays with jackals and wolves and the negotiation remains open ended. The pervading mindset seems to be to keep an issue dangling; and they see virtue in it.. Surely the city could be disaster as a smartcity.
I see no early solution to my friend's woe. The buyer, I am banking upon, has to have a housing loan from a Bank to buy this property. And the buyer's dialogue with the Bank goes on at its own pace. I can no longer add speed to it even though I know the buyer for years. I have raised my hands up. My friend's problem is now in the Court of the Divine.
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