Wednesday 9 October 2013

Bureaucracy.



France is well known as a place that takes it's time. It takes it's time over lunch, it takes it's time over breakfast, and it takes it's time when you are trying to pay at the supermarket. Which is fine, in many ways it's the very reason we want to move there. A slower pace and a more gratifying way of life. However, when it comes to buying your dream home it starts to wear slightly thin.
We waited four weeks for the "compromis de vente" to reach us which we then had to go through over the phone with the Notaires office. The power of attorney then had to be witnessed (another £10), before being sent back.  Then and only then did the THREE MONTH procedure commence!
During the conversation with the Notaires office we were quoted a preliminary completion date of 15th of December, well as you can imagine this was a bit of a shock. I know it was a worst case date, but even so! We knew that most of the searches had already been done when the house was almost sold previously, and were still valid. Also the fact that we were not seeking a mortgage would help things along a little. But as I said it was a worse case date and with any luck we'll get the keys a little earlier.
We have made tentative enquiries with the owner to see if we could rent the house for a couple of weeks prior to the signing of the final papers, if only to rid of the payments being made to keep our two cats in our local cattery, which is more expensive than storing all our worldly goods. Still awaiting a reply on that one.


So at present we are in our third week lodging with our (still) good friends Paul and Pauline, constantly scanning the email for the elusive completion date. It seems a long time ago we left "Melrose" and began the big wait. But were getting there. Hopefully by the next post things will be clearer and we'll be getting stressed about the Christmas shopping that will have to be done before we go.