Franklin

What the devil am I rambling about?

Moving …

Moving lock, stock and barrel.

Always a pain, always a LOT of stress especially if it is a double move: office and apartment. Last time we moved (from Chicago to DC metro area) it rained and rained and was awfully humid during the loading and off-loading. I still remember the heat and humidity, we had to throw away some fabrics that got wet and grew mold.

Still … good riddens to my apartment! It has ancient electrics and hardly any closet space and no balcony to get "fresh" air (we live close to Route 50, so get lots of car pollution which of course does wonders for my parent's asthma, and doesn't exactly help with her high blood pressure).

The downer is that we will be paying two office rents for a while (two month lease termination clause, and notice period only kicks in from the first day of next month (September 1st), the day we will be in our new office *ouch* Another downer of course is that I have to find the money to cover a whole year's rent on a new apartment; the lease on the new office is not a problem, we just have to sign the lease and the office is ours (for a year). So I will have some getting-to-work-issues if I can't get an apartment within walk distance of the new office.

Still, our new office is within stone’s throw of the new patent office location in Alexandria, Virginia (moved from Arlington, VA – huge facility, some bits are still in the processing of moving from Arlington to Alexandria). F2F interviews with Examiners will mean a short walk and a skip. Currently takes five minutes to get to the old patent office site from our old office so not much difference there, but it is a 30 minute drive in traffic from our old office to the new patent office site plus a possible parking headache when we get there, now we park next to the new patent office in our own parking spot (well, I don’t have a car, hence my need to move to within walking distance of the new office/new patent office, right now it is not a serious problem because one partner drives past my old apartment building on his way to our current office).

Not many patent firms can claim they are on the patent office campus. Got to leverage the benefits of our location, got to leverage our backgrounds, got to get new clients to neutralize the larger office rent (plus the two months on our old office). Still having a quiet time, so cash flow isn’t there just now; we will have to cover the rents out of our own pockets *ouch* Need to leverage and get, among others, biotech-startup clients based in blighty.

Duncs

Hope it all comes together for you and good luck its a lot of hassle to move.

Big Vern

Good Luck - I'm sure all the trauma will be worth it!

Franklin

Thanks guys, I don't mean to sound like a whiner, but sometimes it seems to be 2 steps forward and 1.99 steps backwards ... this level of stress is out of left field. But you are right, got to be right in fact.

NC Penguin

Personally, I didn't get the impression that you were whining in any way. More like simply relating the latest adventures in your personal and professional life.

I wish you luck in your new offices and home.

Franklin

Thanks NC. There is a twist, double twist and a back-flip in our adventure! Not sure if it is good or bad. Some good though. The new landlord said we can move in on November 1st, 2004, so that means we will not have to pay double rent; our current landlord said we had to give 2 months noticed operative from the 1st of the month (so our termination notice is operative from September 1st, 2004 and we have to pay rent for September and October - *ouch*. Well no "ouch").

Now the twist ... we just figured out that we could buy a property for what we would be paying in rent. We are starting to think a bit like what doctors and lawyers sometimes do ... buy a house ... and set up shop inside the house. But we will be hit with a higher interest (or some charge) ... related to something (not sure what). The accountant will have to tell us how this works out, what we can write off etc (assuming we get approval and buy the house).

The double twist, we don't have 2 years of tax records for the business, only been in business less than a year. So have to look at a "no-doc" mortgage (I think that’s what the bank called it); the bank said that with this type of application they don’t look at our previous tax returns (our W2s don't count since we are now self-employed and counted as greater risk). We will know tomorrow if a 10% deposit will cut it with "no docs" or if we will have to find more (not possible for me, 10% taps me out, this means all my cash reserves are exhausted, not really a good situation to be in). The bank said I might still squeeze through if I pay off one or two credit cards and put down a 10% deposit. That may be on the cards, I will have a credit "reserve" so long as the credit card companies don't take it away by reducing my credit limit.

The back-flip ... haven't seen it yet. No doubt it is lurking someplace getting ready to pounce! We are worried about our current landlord who seems to be pretty upset that we are going (hey, we signed a 6 month lease which just expired, so long as we give two clear months notice we are not in breach and totally satisfied our obligations under the lease). I am wondering if we should withhold our last month's rent, we paid a one month deposit; we are wondering if we will get it back. There's no legitimate reason why we should not get it back, but the current landlord is having money problems and might not have the money to return our deposit.

Franklin

Just an update: we signed the lease on a new office next to the new patent office. My bank screwed up my application for a non.doc mortgage, they wrote my SS # down wrong that delayed them getting three credit scores. After fixing this problem they rang me back to tell me that I have an excellent credit score - I was knocked over. I thought it would be horrible because of the amount of debt I have (80% of it being tuition loans). But I have always paid my credit cards and tuition loan on time and didn't have any negative comments, hence the high score.

So some good news, but my bank got back to me after the firm signed the lease on the new office, so the original idea of buying a house, living in it and using one floor as a office got blown away. Well, it was a long shot. Anyway, I got approval to buy a $200,000 house/condo/whatever ... snag is there are no houses/condos around here for $200,000. So it is back to the drawing board and meanwhile its "stay in a crummy apartment" ... a depressing situation because the apartment is horrible, ancient kitchen (can only have one appliance on at a time in case the fridge comes on (micro wave plus kettle = blown fuse if the fridge comes on); I started unplugging the fridge when I wanted to use more than one appliance but it is easy to forget to put the plug back in!

On the positive side (apart from snagging a brilliant office location) our small law firm had some big (relatively) orders. So it’s getting busy again.