Lesson learnt

It's been such a hassle being overseas.  Yesterday morning I received a call from an unknown number (08) which I thought might be from Westpac.  I emailed my PA P and asked him to call it, but the number was not valid.  Then in the evening I checked my bank account and realised that the bank had paid my builder the final amount.  Although I had got mum to fax the authorisation for final payment, in the documents it said that they would only transfer the money when they had received the building insurance certificate.  So I hadn't expected them to transfer the money until I got back and had done my final inspection and given them the building insurance.

George had emailed me about the landscaping but had not given me a definitive answer, saying that the issues were a result of 2 parties being involved in the landscaping, ie. not claiming responsibility.  So with this unresolved issue and my building inspector having not done his inspection, or I mine, I didn't want to make final payment until I got back.

After realising that the money had been transferred, I had to quickly hurry to the shopping centre, buy an international calling card, come back and hotel guy helped me call.  But it was after business hours so no answer.  My calling card was 100peso card which was equivalent to approx 11mins calling time.  But I was able to get another 100peso calling card last night from one of the Cebuano brethren.

Today woke up early at 7am which was 9am Aus time.  Rang the number, spent 10mins waiting and then found out I'd called the wrong department and they were going to transfer me to the right department.  So credit ran out and I didn't have the correct number.

I emailed P to ask him to call D to so she could go on gchat to call the bank for me.  Explained context to D on gvideo.  She rang bank, and it took ages.  Bank said that because it was 80% complete they didn't need insurance - doesn't make sense as it's final payment.  As money had been already transferred as my builder's account was also Westpac, the only way I could get money back was if I asked the builder if it was okay to get money back.  I emailed George to say bank would be transferring money back, and at the same time, Monika emailed me the receipt for final payment, so I also told her.  D called bank back to say that builder had agreed, they asked who she had spoken to, D said George, and then I told her Monika - couldn't tell the difference between male and female!  They said they would sort it out - not sure if they believed her.. wait and see.

Such a headache!

Moral of the story, don't go overseas when your house is reaching completion.