After ages and ages of waiting for our building to completed, we tried to sneak into our still under construction flat. Nirzari was all excited and even did the 'Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi' sequence once we entered the half complete flat. I too was very excited as this was going to be our future home, after all. Unfortunately, our happiness was short lived. As soon as I entered the kitchen, my heart broke. It was complete darkness. Even after spending hours to choose the ideal unit, we had chosen the worst possible flat on the brochure. There is little you can do in an under construction property and to some extent its pure luck on how your flat would turn out to be. And boy, were we unlucky?! Just when we thought our ideal home was about to be completed, we were given this shock.
I was in no mood to accept this flat. After all, that brilliant sales man had managed to sell us the worst unit after all promises of "plenty of light and ventilation'. He had very smartly diverted us from the best unit (in terms of light, ventilation, view etc) and restricted our options on the bad ones. We fell for it. Anyway, the damage was done. After this started my long battle to change my unit. The sales team knew that selling this unit again would be very hard. And hence started the excuses like 'we don't change our unit, its not our policy'. After months long of escalation and what not, I finally got approval to change my unit as "an exception". This time magically, we only had option on higher floors in the direction that we wanted (no surprises, another tactic from sales). However, this time I was actually ok with it due to the brilliant view it may provide. But I didn't want to take any chances this time. So, we climbed the staircases. One by one, all the way to 28th floor. By the time we reached, both me and Nirzari were completely exhausted. And was it worth it?
There are some things that just click. We follow this simple rule while buying. If something instantly clicks for both of us, we dont think further. Else, we dont buy. And this was one such case. The moment we entered the flat, I just knew this was mine. The view, the light, the breeze - everything was just perfect and how I wanted my dream house to be. We went back to the office and told that this was the unit of our choice - 13281. The guy promised the change and that price would be only on floor rise. Naive mistake number two from me. I believed him.
For several more months, the process to change the flat happened. Meanwhile, we had started working on our interiors way back - right on the earlier unit. The interior designer was patient enough to wait for all this mess to go and was waiting for the key to our house. It was clear that it's going to be another few months before we can get the flat. Finally, after several more follow ups and escalation, the flat change was done. And then, I got the horror when I was sent the revised agreement copy. They had added HUGE amount in the difference of price of flat. When I contested, they asked for proof of promised difference of amount to be just on floor rise and nothing more. Gotcha! I didn't have any written proof as the sales guy mentioned to me it was a standard process! Well, here began my one more long journey of getting this amount reduced. After a LOT of emails, calls (and call recordings), I proved to them (will skip the details) that the promised price of flat was much lower. And then we finally settled on an amount to close it.
I knew buying a house is painful. However, to actually experience the pain is something else. Not everyone perhaps would go through all the troubles that we went through, but I'm sure everyone has their share. We atleast got a beautiful house of our dreams at the end. Luckily, the interior process was very smooth for us ... till Corona struck!
Only 10 days of work was pending and the apartment decided to disallow all interior works. It's like seeing the finish line from a feet away and stopping there. Now started yet another battle of resuming the interior works. I made a group of owners stuck in similar situation and we fought this battle together. After couple of weeks, the apartment finally gave in and allowed us the works (again will skip details).
Well, just a tiny flash back. Just before the interiors were stopped - finally the day of registration of flat arrived. Everything was smooth, except the next day I was gifted Conjunctivitis. Though I recovered from Conjunctivitis soon, I suffered from dry eyes for quite some time. Till today, I'm not sure if it was normal infection or... you guessed right.
At the end, after all the struggle and financial planning for every stage, I feel not accepting the earlier flat was the best decision ever. Hard earned peace is extremely satisfying after four years of booking the flat :P
Except for one tiny detail. Nirzari and Anika (our 6 month baby) are still stuck in Maharashtra due to COVID. Now the last leg of battle remains - to bring them back safely :-)
