But it has been significant work on negotiating the price, brokerage, payment terms, arranging for a whole bunch of documents (whose need we hardly knew before), fixing the registration date, travel to Mangalore, collecting so many documents from the bank, builder, broker and society, and the entire process of document verification and registration, settling final accounts, handing over the flat keys, and finally getting back to Bangalore in one piece.

We now know a whole lot more about Sale Agreement, Sale Deed, Khata, Encumbrance Certificate, Property Tax, Occupancy Certificate, and Land Documents. Selling a flat is definitely a very different experience compared to buying one, especially if you bought it from a builder, where you may not be informed, involved, or worried about getting these documents. Now it is time to worry about these documents for our Bangalore flat!

At the same time, it is sad that the flat that we built almost ‘brick by brick’ is no longer ours – each tile, each door or cabinet, each handle, every power point, phone point, music speaker point, sanitary-ware, that we meticulously selected. The number of times we have climbed up and down the 9 floors, the detailed instruction and follow-up with mason, plumber, electrician, carpenter … phew!

But in the end, it has been a terrific learning experience on buying, building, as well as selling the flat.