The Rats Nest

The whole house-buying thing here in Holland has turned into a bit of a challenge for us. Before we jumped into this little adventure we checked with our bank and got pre-approved for the mortgage. “No problem” they told us. “Go buy a house.” So we did.

Timing and Karma are everything.

Last year when we received our residency permits here in Holland, Beth was working for a different business under a two year contract. They would only issue the permits for 1 year because our passports were due to expire this July (2006). They told us when we got our new passports to come back in and they would extend our residency permits. However, because I am “dependant” upon Beth (I hate saying that) my residency permit was set to expire 6 months before hers. On November 26, 2005.

Ok, so I was a bit late getting the paperwork in. I think that I sent it on December 8. I had an excuse. Remember the hellish trip back to The States over Thanksgiving to close down the house for winter? Plus, the US consulate was late delivering my new passport anyhow. In my mind, it was close enough.

What does this have to do with buying a house you ask? I’m getting there…

The letter that I received back from the Immigration and Naturalization Service on February 27 made it painfully clear that I was not anywhere even remotely close to submitting my paperwork on time. 1 day late is just as bad as 100 days late and unless I had a DAMNED good excuse that could be fully documented, with each page marked with Dossiernummer 0409-02-0086, within the next 5 working days they would reject my application for extension of my residency permit. I’d have to have my butt back on the first plane out of here. Oh, and by the way, here is the paperwork for your wife. Please fill it in and submit it with your completed application thank you very much.

So I spent the next three days assembling my excuse for tardiness to submit to the Dutch INS. The package included letters from our renters back in Maryland, plane tickets to America, flight cancellation notices and rebookings on flights to Canada, and numerous lost luggage vouchers. I bundled it all up with the weepiest sob story that I could compose in Dutch and returned it to the INS offices in Zwolle for their evaluation.

Still nothing about the house….patience…..

Beth was traveling in Singapore the week that I had to submit the new documentation. She had not yet renewed her passport and of course had her old passport with her in Asia. So, my paperwork for Beth’s renewal was not complete. I wrote an additional letter in Dutch to the INS dude and included copies of her flight itineraries marked with Dossiernummer 0409-02-0086 to explain that she was out of the country and that her new passport was forthcoming (try THAT in Dutch).


As soon as she got back from Singapore we had to scramble with photographs and applications for her new passport. The US Consulate advised us that everything would be ready by March 20, 2006, so I had included that as the target date in my first letter to the INS.

On March 20, I composed another letter to the INS saying that the US Consulate was behind in processing passports and that it would be at least another week to send him a copy of her new passport. I included the receipt for the new passport, marked with Dossiernummer 0409-02-0086, as evidence that we had actually applied for the new passport.

House? I was talking about a house?

Last week we started getting into some of the finer details of the loan with the bank. Things like interest rate, payment terms, etc. This is where the rats-nest started to reveal itself. The bank was not happy. When Beth took her new job at SAP, she was hired under a manager from the States who is based out of New York. Her agreement with him was for full time employment. No problem. But we had forgotten that because she was a US national that the Dutch work contract that she signed was explicitly for 1 year. It had not yet been renewed. According to the INS, she would no longer be employed on April 16. This was a problem for them and they didn’t want to renew her permit.

Inexplicably, no residency permit and no job was also a problem for the bank. They didn’t want to loan us any money.

We were lucky that the foundation had been laid with all the other correspondences to the INS and that I already had an active Dossiernummer. All it took was one phone call to her boss. The new unlimited contract was in our mailbox the next morning. I wrote several more letters, including copies of the new contract, and sent them to the bank and INS. It appears that things are starting to fall back into some semblance of normality. I got a bill from the INS today. I take this as a good sign that we have been renewed for residency. The bank also called and is willing to loan us 85% of the money for the house. I guess that we didn’t fully convince them, but what the heck, right?

It is still a bit shaky, but we are hoping that the rats nest continues to unravel and everything will eventually fall into place. I guess the point of this little diatribe is to let you know why I haven’t posted any pictures of the new house. I think that I’ll wait until we get the keys.