Goat Farms to Vege Farms
At the end of last year,, my father was all the craze for opening a goat farm. He was sick and tired of his job and wanted to go into goat farming himself. When we visited him down in Kluang, the first thing he did was to bring us to a nearby goat farm to try to get us all excited and supportive of his idea. Of course, knowing only too well my father's 'hangat-hangat tahi ayam' style, we knew it was just a matter of time before the excitement sizzles out of him, and stops having these unrealistic ideas.
For a long while there, it seemed almost as if it wasn't going to fizzle out, and that he would really go through with it.... But it did eventually. He quit his job in johor and came back to KL, to start another school canteen business with his wife. Not that it isn't profitable, only that he never seems to get a cent out of these businesses (usually goes all to the controlling wife).
My father has an extremely complex love-hate relationship with his wife. He hates her quite a fair bit, and she seems to love herself quite a fair bit too. She controls all the money and only gives him what ca be described as just scraping the bottom every month. She doesn't talk to him for days and treats hi more like a worker rather than a husband. Sometimes, I really wonder just what this woman has done to my father that he is willing to put up and take all this crap from her. I guess in his own little way, my father constantly tries to search for ways to be independent and free from her control, and I suspect ideas like having a goat farm of his own, totally un-reliant on her was one of his 'plans of escape'.
Latest in his long list of business ideas is to have a vegetable farm somewhere on the way to Pahang. He's been talking to some local Pak Haji or something like that and is seriously exploring the idea of setting up his own vegetable farm, starting out by leasing, developing empty land and planting local vegetables to sell. he pitched the idea to my brother and I though we remained stone faced throughout the conversation. I was tempted to just highlight the numerous business and career ideas that he has brewed over the past few years, none of which has ever been successful or even seen the light of day. But I held my tongue and let him have his say. The real problem was about money, and where he would find the capital to raise the amount he needs to get started off. Never mind that we thought he was a complete new comer to this business, hasn't planted so much as a bean sprout in this last ten years. He bought a small flat in KL many years back, and has been promising my grandmother for over a decade now that the house will go to my brother and I. Main cause of worry being that now that he is a muslim, whatever property he might have will automatically go to his muslim family / the government without question. In wanting to honour what he said, he intends to transfer the title of the house to our joint name. At the same time, he wanted to take up a loan using the house as collateral.
So effectively, he wanted to transfer the house to our names and for us to take up a loan using the house in our names for him to use the money as capital for his business.
Well, to be fair, the house is his anyway.. and its really up to him if he thinks he wants to use his property in that manner. The problem was that he is asking us to take up the loan in our name. So legally speaking, WE owe the bank money, WE are obligated to do the repayments, and WE will be blacklisted and our credit standing affected should HE fail in his business. Worst part of it all, the loan will take another 20 years to be fully serviced. Does he intend to do this business for the next 20 years at the age of 52? Is he confident that he will generate enough revenue to repay the loans?
Now, it all sounded a bit too riskly and, dare I say, silly thing to agree to. So 2 days later when we met up again, I said to him point blank that we were uncomfortable doing it. Not that we were not willing to help.. but hey.. I can't even get a credit card to my name yet, what more getting a 50K loan. Plus, what if in future I wanted to get a loan of my own to buy a house of my own? The banks will see that I have already taken up a previous one, and thus adding to my inability to take on additional debts?
So I guess he conceded the point.... I told him it was OK if he took up the loan in his own name.... but personally, I still felt that it was a big risk to take knowing his character. I said that whatever it is, please think it through THOROUGHLY on all aspects before making such a commitment. I just hope he knows what he is doing.......
posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 8:33 am
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