More hurdles (or, do you REALLY want to do this?)

Since HSBC is the only bank that seems to be truly world-wide, it makes sense to set up accounts in the US and France with them - right? For any of you who might be considering it, let me tell you it is a true lesson in patience.

We thought the US side was a bit of a challenge (#1 amended trust agreement, done by our attorney of course,"isn't valid", #2 checks made out to us as trustees of the trust and endorsed by us as trustees "can only be deposited in another trust account" -which they won't set up because our amended trust agreement "isn't valid".) That was really a minor, somewhat amusing (in retrospect) annoyance since we took the check to Chase, deposited it in our regular checking account, wrote a check for the same amount on our regular checking account and deposited the check in our regular HSBC savings account. No HSBC trust account needed. Are you still with me?

Now on to the account for France...one of the pieces of documentation the "International desk" requires is copies of utility bills showing our names at our current address. So we gave them a copy of our Puget Sound Energy bill (in David's name) and our phone bill (in Anna's name). It seems the phone bill doesn't qualify - doesn't matter that it's a land line. But, they will accept a copy of our marriage certificate. (At that point I lost it a bit and said that the French government was much easier to deal with when we got our long-stay visas. Our personal banker, who is caught in the middle, was all apologies but there isn't much she can do.) Fortunately, our City of Kirkland utility bill has BOTH our names on it and will suffice.

I can hardly wait to get on that plane and have a nice, stiff drink.