I was surprised he paid for such an apartment, it sounds like he didn't get any sort of survey done before handing over funds/agreeing what would actually be completed before moving in. Combined with then quitting a job with so little savings I think this year will be a stressful but worthwhile lesson in planning and being more long term in thinking.
The thing is, a salary in Romania outside of tech is between 300 - 600 euros. With most people who have non-tech jobs (cashier, seller, construction) and even some it jobs being on the low end of that spectrum (even lower). I was making 4 times what most people make. My first job as a game designer gave me about 400 euros. With a 200 euro mortgage nowadays and savings it was a no brainer to finish up the game in the remaining month working full time on it and release it. However there were some problems on the developers side:
- The building had power, via a contract with the local power energy and a written promise from the developer that he will handle all the legal documents to connect me to the power grid properly and handle all the payments.
- The same thing as above with gas.
A few weeks ago I received an e-mail informing me (and all people who owned property in the building) that the contract they had with the power company will expire and we need to get our paperwork sorted out. Now again, I met with the developer and have in writing the fact that he was to take care of things. It turns out, he did but he just applied for all the permits and did all the paperwork but he didn't pay for anything. And I got word of this 1 week before the plug was about to be pulled. In that situation I had to run and pay for everything so I can keep the power up and work on my things. And gas since we all use gas for heating here during the winter - same story.
Edit: There's an entire article to be written about buying an apartment here when the developer pretty much has a monopoly in this part of the city. For example, you can rarely find a already-built new building (that's not in shambles and will fall at the next big-ish earthquake) to buy. Most people pay for it in advance (before it's even built) and in the end can end up with a shit hole (it happens). And you pay mortgage on a building that's not even completed.
Yeah, that's a valid reading of the part that I quoted, and I would have interpreted it as such. Except that he then goes on to say that "the plug was pulled", implying (to me) that the bill for running consumption hadn't been paid.
Where I live, nobody owning an apartment would ever expect not to have to get an individual contract with an electricity provider and to pay for electricity based on individual consumption. There are some rental contracts that include a flat fee for electricity consumption, but I don't understand how an owner would expect not to pay.
Maybe the author expected electricity to be covered by other charges? But that would still be a misunderstanding on his part and not mean that the "developer behind the apartment did not do his job properly".