Catch 22

Today I received an email from the moving company. The lady who sent it is the international moving coordinator. She's in Switzerland. She sent me a list of documents that I need to have filled out and ready for the customs declaration.

The first document is the Dutch Customs form, in Dutch of course. The lady kindly included a translation page. I realized pretty quickly that the translation was bogus. Remember, they don't speak Dutch in Switzerland. So, I spent the next several hours running the form through Babel Fish, the on-line translator.

Besides asking the usual questions that I should know the answer to and don't (like when are you going arrive in the Netherlands), they asked some really odd questions. They want a copy of the purchase agreement on the house where we currently live in the US. I can't think of any reason why we would still have that nor of any reason why they would want it. We've been living in the same house for 10 years, do they really care that we wanted the washer and dryer and the curtains when we bought the place?

The next strange request was for a copy of our Dutch residence permit. Apparently, the Dutch Customs office doesn't realize that you don't get a residence permit until you move in. You actually have 3 days to present yourself to the authorities in your new community. You must apply in person and have proof of where you are going to live. It's the classic tale of the left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing.

Oh and we STILL don't have a rental contract on the house in the Netherlands. I guess the owner's real estate agent was on vacation, so it's just been sitting. We need the rental contract for the customs paperwork, too. We've been working on this rental contract for almost 4 weeks now. That's crazy, isn't it? I have been sending weekly emails to my real estate agent asking for updates - each email sounding a bit more desperate. My new tactic is to send daily emails. In today's email, I explained that this contract delay is holding up our entire move. With a 5-week transit time, we are already stuck until the end of April before we can move in, although we start paying rent on the first of April.

To add to all of this crap today, we also had a conference call with the Dutch tax company. They were very helpful, but the Dutch government is going to rob us blind. If Dennis keeps his job, he will pay 52% in taxes and then another 15,000 euros a year for Dutch social security. With the poor exchange rate, it will end up being about 70% tax rate! Add to that the cost of long distance phone calls for work and occasional flights back and forth (non-reimbursable because he is choosing to live so far away) and it looks like a loosing proposition. Dennis has always wanted to be a "kept man" and he might realize that dream. He'd be bored out of his mind in two weeks, though. I'm sure he can look for a Dutch job and he'll qualify for a work permit based on my work status.

I knew I'd get super frustrated at some point in this process. That time has come.