On a random day in March, Sunshine received notification from HDB that our house was ready for collection! Omg!!! Yay! This is the day we had been waiting for since years ago! *beam!* Hehe. Sunshine was asked to go online to select a day for our key collection. I learnt that not all can select their own key collection date. This was the first time I heard or read about anyone being able to choose their own collection date. Most couples I knew received a SMS notifying them of their date for key collection. However, I am not complaining because this meant that we had the flexibility to choose the date most convenient for us! We both preferred a weekend collection date but there was no such slots for our selection. Hence, after consulting my father (Sunshine and his father are not really bothered about this kind of things) on a few not-bad days, we selected our key collection date. My father also kindly helped us prepared some stuffs for praying at our house during key collection. Both my parents also took leave to join us on this special day (my birthday too! =p)!
We reached HDB office in time for our appointment and were soon called in for our key collection. The HDB office asked us if we wanted a joint tenancy or tenancy-in-common and we chose the former. In the event that either Sunshine or myself passed away, the flat would automatically go to the surviving spouse. For the latter, we could choose to will it to other people in varying shares as well. As Sunshine had already bought our fire insurance online beforehand, after signing a few documents, choosing the length of our housing loan (we took the maximum) and paying the first month of conservatory fees, we were finally handed our keys! The officer beamed “Congratulations!” at the both of us. Hehe.
We then zoomed to our house straight away!!! I had asked my papa to help us get something simple for praying when we first go to our house and he kindly bought us a pineapple, some salt and uncooked rice mixed together, some fruits, joss sticks and paper (?) for burning. When we reached our place, the man of our house, Sunshine, rolled the pineapple and we all exclaimed “Huat ah!” Haha. We went round our house while my father helped us pray for safety and harmony when we stay in our new place. We bought along the following items on this first visit to our house and they are:
- Chairs/stools
- Portable USB fans
- Masking tape and marker
- Charger (or some plug to test all the electrical points)
- Measuring tape
- Mineral water
- Carpenter’s ruler
- Small hammer (to check the tiles)
After a brief check of our house, we went for a late lunch and then home as proud homeowners! 🙂