I am up to my neck in officialdom and regulations at the moment and am a tad annoyed.
I am trying to buy a house and set up a company in the UK, and am running into many ‘Catch 22’ situations.
If you never read the book Catch 22 was the following regulation: “If you want to be excused from flying combat missions because you are crazy all you need to do is ask. Anybody who asks to be excused flying combat missions is not really crazy.”
My solicitor in the UK said I should transfer some money into their account to pay for fees. However, they will not send me details of their bank accounts for security reasons!
I can’t arrange to pay them cash because of money laundering regulations. I am trying to open a bank account for my company so that it can purchase a house to renovate, but I cannot open a bank account in the UK unless I have residence in the UK.
I do have a house in the UK but that does not count as I am not registered on the electoral roll. I cannot register on the electoral roll because I LIVE IN BAHRAIN.
The banks were caught with their pants down a few years ago allowing corrupt rulers and drug lords to launder vast sums of money through their systems.
Most European governments went ‘tut tut’ and wagged a finger, but it was when the Americans hit them with huge fines that they finally took it seriously.
So the banks are now forced to make it difficult for your average criminal to deposit large amounts of cash, but because they don’t like regulation the banks have invented a new strategy.
They are making it not only difficult for the bad guys they are making it difficult for all their customers in the hope that we will all complain to our governments, who will then remove the regulations and so allow banks to service their unsavoury buddies once again.
Lawyers are no better. They ask for proof of ID so you send them a copy of your passport. That’s not good enough. It has to be signed by another lawyer to say that the copy is genuine.
Yes Ma’am this here is a 100 per cent genuine copy! I need to send all documents by post or courier (snail mail) as they will not accept them sent by email.
They will accept them by fax. Who on earth has one of these nowadays?
Then they want to charge you £36 to telegraphic transfer the money to the seller.
Look I said I can transfer money instantly from my bank account to yours for free so why are you still using outdated and expensive systems to transfer money.
Because it keeps other lawyers in jobs. And another thing. Why do I need to send my money to my lawyer first? Why can’t I transfer it directly to the seller when they tell me?
It seems to me that a lot of red tape is there for the sake of red tape, and procedures which have been made obsolete by modern systems need to be revamped or scrapped.
I can moan all I want but the lawyers will always win because the majority of our members of parliament are lawyers.