6. Crunch Time

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...................