I wanted to write and tell you all that I am officially a homeowner, but that would be too easy and I am dealing with Ghana drama so I am almost a homeowner.

After 3 years and a lot of sacrifice (living at home with smother is no joke), I finally saved enough money to pay off my mortgage yay. However, just like when I was trying to get the mortgage there is a lot of back and forth and a whole lot of frustration.

When I went for the loan, it was a crazy time, I took out a loan, borrowed from my family and then I was told that I wasn’t earning enough so had to beg my family for more money before they eventually gave me the loan. There was a lady who was supposed to be acting as a middle person between me and the company but when she realised that getting the funds wasn’t as forthcoming as quickly as she liked, she gave up and left me to deal with it myself. When it all went through eventually, she reared her ugly head to ask for her commission, then got mad when they refused her. She then called my aunt to tell her that I was the one who blocked it. I think that the mortgage advisor kept it but that’s between them.

The mortgage advisor also gave me the impression that he would pay the housing agency in Ghana Cedis so I would pay it off in that currency but it ended up being my undoing when the Cedi declined drastically against the dollar plus a couple of “life’s lessons” thus finding myself back in the UK.

Fast forward 7 years and now I want to pay the whole thing off. I sent an email and asked for the redemption statement and told them that I would pay it off by the end of March. My intention was to send a back transfer but my uncle said that he would pay it off and I should transfer the money into his UK account. Not being one for lingering debt, I paid this into his account and my cousin paid the money to Ghana Home Loans. He paid two cheques, one from his Ghana Cedi account and one from his dollar account. I received an email to say that they had received the Dollars but nothing about the Ghana Cedis. After chasing this up for a week, the loans advisor finally came back to me that the Ghana Cedi cheque had cleared and it would take two weeks for them to complete the paperwork. This conversation happened at the beginning of April meaning that paperwork should have completed by now. Wrong.

So after weeks of chasing up for an update (I thought I should start before the two weeks were up just to see the progress), I was told that the USD cheque had not cleared. Now, I am not sharpest pencil in the box, but if it takes 3-5 days for a cheque to clear and it is almost 2 weeks and the cheque still hasn’t cleared, wouldn’t you reach out to someone if not me, the person who wrote the cheque, who you have their details or even drop me a note. I would have thought so but no, nothing until yesterday. Not only that, they have had to “re-evaluate the redemption statement” and now they are charging me an extra month’s mortgage payment.

To say I am vex is an understatement but this is Ghana and I am not surprised. What annoys me the most is the lack of communication (I literally had to email/call every day), it’s either incompetence or intentional either way I am going to take this matter further.

I am hoping this gets sort this out in the next 5 days before they charge me for May too.

Oh Ghana!