“You don’t give me the price I want? You are not serious, you don’t have money”

Monday, August 3rd, 2009

Part 2 (to read part 1, please press here)

The “unbreakable” contract…

Without any serious documentation available, I was informed that I had to give a VERY good offer in written, because eitherwise the owner would get upset and the deal would be off. I asked for the renting contract, but in the beginning the response was “not polite”. If you go to Macedonia in Northern Greece and introduce yourself to 5 Greeks in a café saying “hello, I am Macedonian from Skopje”, their reaction will be more polite to you than the one I experienced… It was difficult for the owner to think how I dared asking this, asking for documents and not believing in his words.
As I insisted, he finally decided to provide me with verbal feedback, being really “insulted” by my… “arrogance of a foreigner who doesn’t have trust the big, serious, rich people, with all connections for everything”. He described to me the renting contract more or less as follows: “I am very strong, I know very well all the tricks, I have the best lawyer and the best accountant. I established my terms, so the contract is definitely very good for my side, as the owner. I treated the bank as they deserved, showing them who is the boss. In the end, the final result is 90% at my favor, an unbreakable contract, which protects you 101%. Last but not least, with this contract you will be able to avoid many taxes, in legal way”. All these said with the maximum possible arrogance and confidence, which probably makes many people in Romania say “this man is strong and brave” (wow).
Based on this information, I sent him a Letter of Intent, pointing out that my offer stands as long as all that he said was accurate. Very soon I was informed that he had another client, offering the same amount with me. Also, he had transmitted to me that he didn’t care that much, because even if the bank would go, he could easily rent the space to someone else, with even higher price.

…Broken like a leaf
My lawyers are definitely among the best in Romania today, but they didn’t need to get involved that much. In the end we took a copy of the contract… A colleague of mine and myself read it and it was enough so as to make sure that the contract was really very bad. The bank could leave with just few months notification, as it happens in most of the renting contracts we read daily. Why is that? Simple: Because during 2006 - 2008, very few owners were interested in securing themselves, while renting their property to a tenant. They were only concentrated in the highest possible rent, plus in any possible combination with some months of rent paid in advance. Also (the funniest part), the majority of them has included a term like “in 3 years we will renegotiate the rent, based on the situation of the market at that time”.
They were sure that the market would go only up, this is why they wanted to be able to increase the rent furthermore in few years time (so as to guarantee that there would be not 1% possibility that the tenant “will take advantage of their property”). There are many people here in Romania who get upset with the idea of someone making money with their property, even if they will be paid a lot, even if they will become rich themselves. So all these owners, feeling like small gods, were refusing any proposal for consulting… This is why today almost all the banks and other tenants break the contracts so easily and establish their new terms…
So, the contract could break at any moment. The arguments of the owner were almost funny. I was really curious how it was possible for him to say things like these. What did he expect? That I would not read the contract? That I would not crosscheck EVERYTHING? That I would just believe him, because he is (or feels) important? Would he do the same while buying a property? “The bank should deliver to me the place as I gave it to them, so they have to pay money so as to restore it” he told me. But this was not specified in the contract and there was no amendment for this too… When I asked my lawyers if there was a possibility that I was wrong in my estimation, they were laughing at me: “What happened? Aren’t you able to understand what you read?”

(tomorrow the last part)

“You don’t give me the price I want? You are not serious, you don’t have money”

Part 2

(to read part 1, please press here)

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