Daniel Lewis

XTech Day One: Unrelated Problems

May 6th, 2008 by daniel

Arg!!!

Three problems I have at the moment:
* Banks
* Letting Agents
* Inconvenient timings

My tenancy in my new flat in Bristol is due to start tomorrow (7th May), but I plan to pick up the keys on the 12th and move in fully by the 17th.

The problem with the bank

Apparently they couldn’t recognise my signature on the documentation that the letting agents sent to the bank. I received notification of this on the Saturday 2nd May, after the banks had closed. Apparently I need to go to a branch (I can’t do this over the phone), and it was a Bank Holiday yesterday! Highly annoying because the bank needed to send back a reference to the letting agents before the tenancy starts. Whats weird is that I have never changed my signature ever since I invented it in my early teens, in fact its identical to the one in my passport PLUS I’ve never had this issue in the past!

Inconvenient timings

Not only did this bank situation happen, but it happened just as I needed to go to Dublin (where I am at the moment), for a conference where I am speaking on behalf of the company that I am working for (OpenLink Software). I arrived in Dublin yesterday, and won’t get back to Oxford until late on Friday.

Apparently there is a branch of my Bank in Dublin… and it is looking like I might have to go there in a minute to see if they can fix this problem for me.

Also it is a bit annoying that I can’t seem to connect to the wireless in the hotel which the conference is in, it needs a special code which the conference organisers have to buy. I’ll try to find out if they do have a code in a moment, they should have bought one as this is a conference about the web. (plus the hotel which I am staying in doesn’t have wifi, I have to rely on a dodgy connection to another wifi spot which is unsecured.

Letting agents

Because of this issue with my signature, and the fact that I can’t sign the tenancy papers before the actual tenancy starts (i.e. tomorrow!) they are threatening to “put the property back on the market”… even though I am definitely sure that I did mention that I was going to be picking up the keys on the 12th May due to this conference, but clearly we didn’t get this down formally in writing. I currently await a phone call from the agents about if the landlord is not unhappy to everything that is happening (fingers crossed). I really do apologise to the letting agents about this, and I said that on the phone to them. I seriously do apologise to them, as this is all out of my c