I still cannot believe the difficulties I have experienced thus far in order to get my family available to travel overseas. I can see the finish line, but it is not quite a done deal yet. The costs for all the extras has been adding up fast, but that is the least of my concerns right now.
Last week I had to get my kids South African passports to the UK so the documents matched their new British Passports just in case they had changed their gender. Thankfully the British Passports arrived yesterday ,but no South African Passports as apparently they will arrive back from the UK tomorrow.
The the next box to tick is to apply for French and British visas for the unfortunate few who only have South African Passports. Those fees alone combined is another £800 that needs to be forked out. I need to book the flights and accommodation first however and need to do that tomorrow. This is he first time in over 3 months that I can actually consider booking the tickets. As a priority I will get my grand kids British Passports once we are back from this trip because I have seen how bad an experience it has been for those who were even born there.
The other obstacle I have to deal with is my endowment policy which fell due and is ready for payment. Nearly 2 weeks ago I sent all the required information making sure every paper was counter signed so there would be no further problems.
Today I gave the insurance company a ring just to double check everything was in order because I had heard nothing. Presuming no news is good news is a lesson I learned many years ago and a follow up is the smart play here.
The verification of the identity had apparently failed and it has to be done by a lawyer or chartered accountant. In South Africa if you need things verified you go to the police station which involves stamping along with signatures and the officers badge number. Failing the documents on these grounds is utter twiddle and luckily last week the business has it's own chartered accountant who I am now seeing first thing to get those documents redone.
This is just part of the process delaying the payments so they earn the extra interest and an extra week or two adds up quickly. Just think if they delay every outgoing policy payment how much they would earn and it would be in the millions of GBP. This money I was banking on as the extras for accommodation etc just in case mainly as the back up.
We are due to fly on Friday 26th April so this payment should be cleared by the time we arrive in the UK. There is a 13 day process to clear these funds so they should have the updated documents in their hands by this Friday. That is another £115 courier fee, but I have no other choice.
If I could have paid an agent to do all of this stuff I would have because it has been a total waste of time and it shouldn't be this difficult. Just the courier bill for all the documents and passports sent back and forth to the UK when I have finally finished will be well over £500 which is ludicrous.