Part 5 - To leap or not to leap !
Having found what appeared to be our dream plot of land, three days before the end of our September vacances, we revisited the notaires office for a second time. After discussing the finer points of the proposition, we eventually signed the "Compromis de vente" agreeing to purchase the land with a “condition suspensive” that if we could not get our own plans passed by the deadline (31/12/05), we would not lose our deposit and the deal was off. (A very satisfactory way of going about things over there I think and with the peace of mind that none of that gazumping nonsense would come into play.
The plans submitted by the very nice M. Dias.were passed by the DDE about two days before the deadline (All these French people seemed to be so nice, and I don’t believe it was just because they were after our money ! )
So January 2006 came and we both went back over to France on the 21st to sign on the dotted line............. We found ourselves sat in the car, outside the Immobiliers discussing what we were about to do prior to meeting up with Annie, before walking over to the Notaires office with her again.
As we sat there, I looked at Christine and said,
“Do you think we are doing the right thing here“ (just to test the water you understand ! )
She replied,
“It‘s a bit bladdy late now“ and with that we went in and signed the ACTE DE VENTE .
There are times in your life when you sometimes arrive at a crossroads and think, “How the hell did we get to this point“. It was scary, but I believe at times like this, you just have to take the leap of faith ! (So far the net has always appeared)
So that was it, we owned our very own, very small (just under an acre) piece of France.
I thought all the stress of emails back and forth ,adding to, then tuning and fine tuning the planning and design details, was finally over, but of course I should have known better. Things were only just beginning...................
Wednesday 29 August 2007
5. A visit to the Notaires
Part 4 - Rules are not for breaking !
I returned back to base and excitedly told Christine of my discovery. I dragged the rest of the family to the plot and after agreeing with my superlatives about my discovery, Christine and I found ourselves at the Notaires office the following day. We were under the impression that we were just going to find out a little more about the land etc. To our surprise "The Vendors of the land" met us at the office. What was all this about ?, we just wanted to know a bit more about the land, not get into great discussions - “Nothing heavy !”.
We discovered during the meeting (with an interpreter present) that, although planning permission (Permis de construire & a CU) was in existence, it expired at the end of the year, i.e in less than twelve weeks time and that no more development for that particular area was going to be permitted after that date. In effect the area was going to become what is know in the UK as “Greenbelt“. This meant that if we were interested in purchasing the land, we would have to apply for, and have approved, our own plans for the type of house we wanted built on the site - before the end of the year. (The plans the current owners had drawn up were for a very grand affair and simply beyond our budget).
Annie, as ever, was very helpful (well she would be of course, she had a vested interest here - 5,000€ commission !). She recommended the architect of the builder she had used, to have her own house built.
Now let’s just look at what we were facing here:-
We basically had about four weeks to have plans for a house drawn up and submitted, so that the DDE (the french equivalent of the UK planning dept) had sufficient time to peruse them, all in a language we didn’t understand by far, by people we did not know and had not been recommended, not to mention all the golden rules that I knew should not be broken like,
1) Always get everything written down and translated into your own language by someone independent.
2) Use professionals that you have carefully researched, preferably who have been recommended by others.
3) Visit the area you intend buying in a number of times, particularly in winter or off season.
4) Don‘t make decisions on the spot
5) Think with your head, not your heart , to name but a few.
We left the Notaires office and returned to our accommodation to try and get our heads around what was being presented to us. I spent the afternoon number crunching (or more simply put - pressing buttons on my calculator) and speaking to our financial adviser on the “Dog and Bone” and after doing the maths :-
“Christine, you know, we can actually afford to go ahead with this“ I exclaimed, hoping that I’d not missed something critical in the calcs! “We can afford to build a modest house of about 100sq metres“. (It was only going to be a holiday home, so 2 bedrooms would be sufficient).
She basically put her trust in my mental arithmetic ability and we decided we would revisit the notaires office the following day and find out more……………..
I returned back to base and excitedly told Christine of my discovery. I dragged the rest of the family to the plot and after agreeing with my superlatives about my discovery, Christine and I found ourselves at the Notaires office the following day. We were under the impression that we were just going to find out a little more about the land etc. To our surprise "The Vendors of the land" met us at the office. What was all this about ?, we just wanted to know a bit more about the land, not get into great discussions - “Nothing heavy !”.
We discovered during the meeting (with an interpreter present) that, although planning permission (Permis de construire & a CU) was in existence, it expired at the end of the year, i.e in less than twelve weeks time and that no more development for that particular area was going to be permitted after that date. In effect the area was going to become what is know in the UK as “Greenbelt“. This meant that if we were interested in purchasing the land, we would have to apply for, and have approved, our own plans for the type of house we wanted built on the site - before the end of the year. (The plans the current owners had drawn up were for a very grand affair and simply beyond our budget).
Annie, as ever, was very helpful (well she would be of course, she had a vested interest here - 5,000€ commission !). She recommended the architect of the builder she had used, to have her own house built.
Now let’s just look at what we were facing here:-
We basically had about four weeks to have plans for a house drawn up and submitted, so that the DDE (the french equivalent of the UK planning dept) had sufficient time to peruse them, all in a language we didn’t understand by far, by people we did not know and had not been recommended, not to mention all the golden rules that I knew should not be broken like,
1) Always get everything written down and translated into your own language by someone independent.
2) Use professionals that you have carefully researched, preferably who have been recommended by others.
3) Visit the area you intend buying in a number of times, particularly in winter or off season.
4) Don‘t make decisions on the spot
5) Think with your head, not your heart , to name but a few.
We left the Notaires office and returned to our accommodation to try and get our heads around what was being presented to us. I spent the afternoon number crunching (or more simply put - pressing buttons on my calculator) and speaking to our financial adviser on the “Dog and Bone” and after doing the maths :-
“Christine, you know, we can actually afford to go ahead with this“ I exclaimed, hoping that I’d not missed something critical in the calcs! “We can afford to build a modest house of about 100sq metres“. (It was only going to be a holiday home, so 2 bedrooms would be sufficient).
She basically put her trust in my mental arithmetic ability and we decided we would revisit the notaires office the following day and find out more……………..
Friday 3 August 2007
4. The ideal plot?
Part 3 - It's now or never !
There were three days left of the “Holiday” and Christine and the children had understandably had their fill of walking around old houses and trudging through fields. I however knew, that if we didn’t find something that week, the likelihood of us joining the thousands of others, that look for that dream “French country house” and give up because they don’t find it first time round, was a distinct possibility. After all with two teenagers, there are only so many times you can afford to holiday abroad, in a year. I also believed from the research I had conducted, that there was still some growing to be done for the French property market and thought that another six or twelve months delay might be quite costly, financially. I am also a strong believer in doing it whilst you can, if the possibility is there. It is better to have tried and failed than to live a life of regret (Sorry, getting a little carried away with the philosophy there). So the following day, I left everyone by the pool and I trawled the estate agents again. It was at one of them that I met “Annie”, a very nice French lady, who’s English was much better than my French. Annie took me to three plots of land , which again just didn’t fit the bill. I had one more plot to look at that day and that would probably have been just about it, for the holiday.
There are moments that occur in every persons life, that, on reflection, they know they will remember for eternity. One of these moments was about to happen for me. Just around the corner from the last plot we’d seen, we were on a hillside, winding up a country road when Annie, who was driving, suddenly stopped the car. She didn’t say anything, just started getting out of the car. I assumed we had arrived at the final plot and as I alighted the vehicle I looked to my right. The open space to my right sloped away from the small “Voie communal” we had just driven along. The view was stunning. I looked at Annie in disbelief. The plot was a little more expensive than the others at 53,000€, (About £36,000 at the time), but it was so “Out of this world”, I thought surely she had made a mistake. I asked her “Are you sure this is the right one”. “Yes“, she said “Of course”. Goosebumps ran up my arms, the hair stood up on the back of my neck. The “Terrain” sloped down into a gentle valley. There were vineyards running up the valley opposite , a small wooded area in the foreground, the odd farmhouse dotted here and there, farrowed fields, and even a church on top of one of the rolling hills in the distance. It was as near to perfect as I knew we would ever get. The words “Location, Location, Location“, sprang to mind. This was it . This was the plot I’d been looking for. Pictures or photo's never quite do justice to those beautiful moments that we ocasionally come across in life do they. This picture doesn't do the view real justice, but it gives you an idea. This is the view that I saw that day -
There were three days left of the “Holiday” and Christine and the children had understandably had their fill of walking around old houses and trudging through fields. I however knew, that if we didn’t find something that week, the likelihood of us joining the thousands of others, that look for that dream “French country house” and give up because they don’t find it first time round, was a distinct possibility. After all with two teenagers, there are only so many times you can afford to holiday abroad, in a year. I also believed from the research I had conducted, that there was still some growing to be done for the French property market and thought that another six or twelve months delay might be quite costly, financially. I am also a strong believer in doing it whilst you can, if the possibility is there. It is better to have tried and failed than to live a life of regret (Sorry, getting a little carried away with the philosophy there). So the following day, I left everyone by the pool and I trawled the estate agents again. It was at one of them that I met “Annie”, a very nice French lady, who’s English was much better than my French. Annie took me to three plots of land , which again just didn’t fit the bill. I had one more plot to look at that day and that would probably have been just about it, for the holiday.
There are moments that occur in every persons life, that, on reflection, they know they will remember for eternity. One of these moments was about to happen for me. Just around the corner from the last plot we’d seen, we were on a hillside, winding up a country road when Annie, who was driving, suddenly stopped the car. She didn’t say anything, just started getting out of the car. I assumed we had arrived at the final plot and as I alighted the vehicle I looked to my right. The open space to my right sloped away from the small “Voie communal” we had just driven along. The view was stunning. I looked at Annie in disbelief. The plot was a little more expensive than the others at 53,000€, (About £36,000 at the time), but it was so “Out of this world”, I thought surely she had made a mistake. I asked her “Are you sure this is the right one”. “Yes“, she said “Of course”. Goosebumps ran up my arms, the hair stood up on the back of my neck. The “Terrain” sloped down into a gentle valley. There were vineyards running up the valley opposite , a small wooded area in the foreground, the odd farmhouse dotted here and there, farrowed fields, and even a church on top of one of the rolling hills in the distance. It was as near to perfect as I knew we would ever get. The words “Location, Location, Location“, sprang to mind. This was it . This was the plot I’d been looking for. Pictures or photo's never quite do justice to those beautiful moments that we ocasionally come across in life do they. This picture doesn't do the view real justice, but it gives you an idea. This is the view that I saw that day -
Sunday 29 July 2007
3. Let The Search Begin
Part 2 - Where in France.
So how did we decide which region of France we were going to look at. The places we’d been to already were OK, but as I said earlier, nothing really grabbed us.
The choice was made very Simply.
I was doing an evening class in GCSE French at a local college at the time and one of my fellow strugglers had an old friend that had moved to a small village in the Lot et Garonne dept and worked at an Immobilier’s in the principal town of Agen. Perfect ! an English speaking estate agent. We’ll have a look there, I convinced Christine.
So we booked another Jolly and in September 2005 we stayed in a very comfortable Gite near the Bastide village of Beauville, not Far from Agen.
The countryside was very much like home. Not arid and hot, like Languedoc, or too built up and touristy like Nice and a damned sight warmer than Brittany. Yes this part of France was very pleasant. My GCSE French was just about sufficient to ask for the menu at a restaurant and we all quite enjoyed the sign language at the local supermarket and Boulangerie. Yes, this was real France and the culture was very different. Almost without exception every person we met was as warm as the climate and showed heroic patience with my wild gesticulations. I enjoyed the interaction and Christine and the children enjoyed watching me, even more.
But we were here to look for that lovely old ruin to restore , with an asking price around 50,000€, so many other Brits go hunting for.
But wait. Where were all the ideal “Résidence À rénover” we’d seen in the magazines and brochures before we came out here ?. We visited all the Immobiliers in the area and viewed several properties over the course of the holiday and the suspicions I’d had, before we arrived, were founded, that the French property market had risen quite sharply over recent years and there weren’t as many of those “something for nothing” opportunities left.
Ever the optimist, I decided that we would just have to settle for a nice plot of land ( I knew that land prices were still much more affordable in France than back home) and then we would do another self-build, when we could afford it. It would be an investment for the future. After all we had almost completed one self-build in the UK, surely it couldn’t be too different over in France ( Sometimes, eternal optimists just don’t know what they’re letting themselves in for ! ) And so the quest for the idyllic plot of land on which to build our “Maison Secondaire commenced………
So how did we decide which region of France we were going to look at. The places we’d been to already were OK, but as I said earlier, nothing really grabbed us.
The choice was made very Simply.
I was doing an evening class in GCSE French at a local college at the time and one of my fellow strugglers had an old friend that had moved to a small village in the Lot et Garonne dept and worked at an Immobilier’s in the principal town of Agen. Perfect ! an English speaking estate agent. We’ll have a look there, I convinced Christine.
So we booked another Jolly and in September 2005 we stayed in a very comfortable Gite near the Bastide village of Beauville, not Far from Agen.
The countryside was very much like home. Not arid and hot, like Languedoc, or too built up and touristy like Nice and a damned sight warmer than Brittany. Yes this part of France was very pleasant. My GCSE French was just about sufficient to ask for the menu at a restaurant and we all quite enjoyed the sign language at the local supermarket and Boulangerie. Yes, this was real France and the culture was very different. Almost without exception every person we met was as warm as the climate and showed heroic patience with my wild gesticulations. I enjoyed the interaction and Christine and the children enjoyed watching me, even more.
But we were here to look for that lovely old ruin to restore , with an asking price around 50,000€, so many other Brits go hunting for.
But wait. Where were all the ideal “Résidence À rénover” we’d seen in the magazines and brochures before we came out here ?. We visited all the Immobiliers in the area and viewed several properties over the course of the holiday and the suspicions I’d had, before we arrived, were founded, that the French property market had risen quite sharply over recent years and there weren’t as many of those “something for nothing” opportunities left.
Ever the optimist, I decided that we would just have to settle for a nice plot of land ( I knew that land prices were still much more affordable in France than back home) and then we would do another self-build, when we could afford it. It would be an investment for the future. After all we had almost completed one self-build in the UK, surely it couldn’t be too different over in France ( Sometimes, eternal optimists just don’t know what they’re letting themselves in for ! ) And so the quest for the idyllic plot of land on which to build our “Maison Secondaire commenced………
Tuesday 10 July 2007
2. A Sea of Sunflowers - A self-Build diary
Part 1 - The sowing of a seed.
Christine (my wife) and I, enjoyed taking our two young children, Christopher and Kimberley on holiday to a variety of different locations, some in this country and some abroad. We first went to France when Chris was 4yrs and Kim 2yrs of age. Being a young couple we scraped together enough pennies to stay in a mobile home on the Brittany coast and despite 10 days of almost continuous drizzle, we enjoyed ourselves enough to return a few years later when we were a little more extravagant, staying in a hotel in the centre of Nice. The following year another visit introduced us to the Carcassone area of the Languedoc. By now we were starting to “get the French bug “ a little. But , despite some really lovely places, none of the areas we had visited, quite “floated our boat”.
Sometime during the Summer of 2005, a friend of mine just mentioned in passing, that a friend of a friends brothers, aunties sister -in-laws cousin, twice removed (or was that three times removed) Anyway, someone somewhere owned a property in the Gers, that required some renovation and it was supposedly for sale. To cut a long story short, it had already been sold. This however, sowed a tiny seed, somewhere deep inside my grey matter and I started considering the possibility of a renovation project in France. We were nearing the completion of our “Dream home“ self-build project here in the UK and Christine knew I wouldn’t be able to sit still for very long, before getting “ants in my pants” and looking for something else to immerse myself in, so to speak.
I started buying various French property magazines, then books about the property buying system in France and before I knew it we had booked a holiday in September with the intention of having a damn good look at a particular region to see if this new crazy idea of mine was worth pursuing (I think Christine was secretly hoping, or possibly praying, that it might just be one of those phases I was going through. A bit like the phase I went through when I decided a self-build project would be a good idea in the UK. And look what happened there !).
Christine (my wife) and I, enjoyed taking our two young children, Christopher and Kimberley on holiday to a variety of different locations, some in this country and some abroad. We first went to France when Chris was 4yrs and Kim 2yrs of age. Being a young couple we scraped together enough pennies to stay in a mobile home on the Brittany coast and despite 10 days of almost continuous drizzle, we enjoyed ourselves enough to return a few years later when we were a little more extravagant, staying in a hotel in the centre of Nice. The following year another visit introduced us to the Carcassone area of the Languedoc. By now we were starting to “get the French bug “ a little. But , despite some really lovely places, none of the areas we had visited, quite “floated our boat”.
Sometime during the Summer of 2005, a friend of mine just mentioned in passing, that a friend of a friends brothers, aunties sister -in-laws cousin, twice removed (or was that three times removed) Anyway, someone somewhere owned a property in the Gers, that required some renovation and it was supposedly for sale. To cut a long story short, it had already been sold. This however, sowed a tiny seed, somewhere deep inside my grey matter and I started considering the possibility of a renovation project in France. We were nearing the completion of our “Dream home“ self-build project here in the UK and Christine knew I wouldn’t be able to sit still for very long, before getting “ants in my pants” and looking for something else to immerse myself in, so to speak.
I started buying various French property magazines, then books about the property buying system in France and before I knew it we had booked a holiday in September with the intention of having a damn good look at a particular region to see if this new crazy idea of mine was worth pursuing (I think Christine was secretly hoping, or possibly praying, that it might just be one of those phases I was going through. A bit like the phase I went through when I decided a self-build project would be a good idea in the UK. And look what happened there !).
Saturday 7 July 2007
1. What's this Blog all about then ?
My wife and I recently bought some land in France, had a house built on it and now rent it out as a Holiday Home. Here's a photo of it.
I have set this Blog up to share our experiences with others. There are apparently 10's of 1000's of UK folk (as we still are) that are seriously thinking about doing what we have done and I wish to pass on our experiences to others, so that they might benefit, if and when, they commence their own adventure. In return, I'm hoping to link up with those more experienced than we are in running a Holiday let, so that we might improve the service that we offer to our guests and also learn more about the beautiful region of South-West France. You can ask me questions about our experience if you like, by posting your comments, or for a speedier response, email me through our website. I would like to get some really good chatting going on within this Blog and hear all sorts of views and opinions, which can include anything to do with France. Ask me a question or tell me about your experiences. Our website is http://www.valmargite.com/.
Feel free to go and have a look. You will find lots of info about our gite as well as other stuff about activities in the Lot-et-Garonne dept and Tourist Information for the region.
I have broken our "story so far" down into different posts, so you can jump around to the bits you fancy. There are also lots of links to other places/people we've come across so you can also disappear elsewhere if you wish. Go back to the top of the page now and select which part of the story you'd like to read from the menu on the right. To read the full story from the very beginning, just expand the individual month buttons and start at post No 1. and work your way through.
Please feel free to add a comment or make a suggestion
Thanks for visiting my blog.
Regards
Ray
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