New apartment

Completion of our new apartment purchase has just taken place! In case you are not familiar with Hong Kong property law, this is how the sale of a second-hand apartment usually goes: once you and the vendor have agreed on the sale price of a flat, you sign a "preliminary sale and purchase agreement" and pay a 3% deposit. In the course of the next 10 days or so, you will need to pay another 7% deposit and sign a formal sale and purchase agreement. Completion takes place about 30-45 days after the signing of the formal S&P agreement, during such time you have to come up with enough money to pay the remaining 90% balance (borrow from your parents/friends/boss, rob a bank, win the lottery, whatever suits you).

Anyway we completed our purchase today, and from tomorrow onwards the decorators will come into the flat and start stripping the place. It's an 18-year-old building so the plumbing and wiring is quite old already, plus the previous owners' taste for interior design is not really our cup of tea, so the whole place needs to be gutted and renovated.

The next three months will be painful (oh the mess! oh the weekly inspection and meeting with decorators! oh another invoice!) yet sweet (oh a new place! oh a custom-designed kitchen! oh a bigger study!).

I am so excited.