Good news about the Villa and we eat pancakes

Saturday 11 April 2015

Hot and sunny
24 degrees

Today was read through day of the contract with the Russian buyers and English sellers.  I usually do this on Skype as, having visual, I can better gauge their level of stress and comprehension.  The Russian guy had everything printed out and it took about 40 minutes.  He said they are setting off by car tomorrow to drive down.  They love the adventure.  He works for an air base - why doesnt he like flying?  In the part of the contract where the parties declare they are legally competent to contract, the Russian said he had regular psychological assessments so could prove he was sane.  Nice...  Some of my other clients could do with furnishing a certificate, in fact so could most of the residents of my local town.

The English sellers were far more stressed.  The lady is pale and drawn.  They have a large stock of animals to move, are going to another European country, and their notary has been asking for paperwork which they haven't got and possibly never had.  They had done extensive work on the barns, with full planning permission, but it may be that they never got the conformity of the works checked out by the relevant authorities, to see that they were in agreement with the planning consent.  Knowing local communes as I do, the main purpose of this assessment is to see if they are paying enough land tax, which is based on rooms and total habitable area.  Their land tax did rise substantially at the completion of the works, so it is likely to have been signed off.  They think that the notary has enquired in the wrong commune office but of course, it is the weekend, everything is closed and the notary is not answering her phone.  We get over this hill and read the rest and say see one another Tuesday next for the signing.

I then go down town and meet the owner of the Villa which interests the ladies from NZ. She  says she is in town for the duration as her 94 year mother is in her 'end of life' period.  We look through the house and I realise that it is not in such a bad state as OH had said - not having been in it for some months.  The boiler was replaced ten years ago, full diagnostics were done just a year ago and showed no termite activity, and another agent has requested a quote for the electricity.  We discuss price and I say the ladies are very interested and the owner says they would come down 8%.  That is not going to be enough. Get back home and have siesta.  Feel exhausted and the bronchitis medications have given me revolting salty and metallic taste in my mouth.

OH goes fishing for a couple of hours and I clean up and email ladies to say I have some good news about the Villa.  Walk dog.  Countryside smells sweet and growing.  There is absolutely nothing in the cupboard so have pancakes with sultanas.  Dog likes pancakes too so we sit on the doorstep and enjoy the sunshine and the food and then he snoozes and I listen to the birds in the tall trees.  The phone rings.  It is the owner of the house that the ladies from NZ offered on.  He says he is waiting for other offers to come in but admits that the 390k offer he told me about yesterday is subject to 100% financing.  i.e.  has 100% chance of being refused.  One of the reasons I left the French agency with which I worked is the fact that the French banks are extremely shy at parting with their funds.  He is still not ready to accept the offer I have and says I need to cut fees by 50% and get the ladies to up their offer by 50K.  Cheers mate.  I bet you love doing your work for half price.   The Villa is a much more interesting house which will, upon renovation, have a far greater capital value. Also, I get to keep my fee percentage.  All to play for in favour of the Villa.

Watch the Curse of the Were Rabbit.  Eeeey lad.   Cheeeese!

Smelling of roses, almost...

Friday 10 April 2015

Cloudy 19 degrees

Woke early and rang agency boss to ask her how to play it with the owner of the house where I had received the full price offer but who had transparently cocked up over the detail of what he wanted to be included in the sales contract.  She says to keep it light, not talk legal obligations, and see if we can emerge out of this with a deal and smelling of roses rather than crap.

The owner is sitting at his dining table when I arrive and the new girlfriend serves coffee in translucent china cups.  I take a lump of brown sugar and stir it slowly and put the offer on the table.  We look at one another warily.  It does not feel like the OK Corrall but even so, the owner has got out all of the other sales contracts signed with other agencies and none of them have the flats included in the price.  He says he did not read the document properly when I sent it to him and he also says he has a written offer dated Wednesday (ie preceding mine) which is 60000 euros higher and he cannot afford to lose that much money.  He is also having further revisits later on in the day.  He has not signed the Wednesday offer document, but neither does he have any intention of signing mine.  He says if my ladies match the Wednesday offer, bearing in mind that the amount they would have to loan is significantly less, he would accept.  I get back out to the car and discover someone has smashed the wing mirror to bits by driving too closely and then driving off.  Go home slowly, hanging onto the wildly waving mirror part which is now only attached by a thread.  OH tapes it back together.  I drop a line to the potential buyers and they are, understandably, really hacked off.  Feel depressed.  Eat pizza.

OH has been busy during my time out and it transpires that he has organised a visit on our house for Sunday.  The clients are known to me and have been running around with another agency all week, now are feeling desperate because they have found nothing, and if I had accepted the visit from the agency (refused because house is a hovel), it would have been them who would have come!  OH has talked them through various properties and when the lady rings back, I organise to see one other and ours on Sunday.  Feel rather horrified.  Ms Noddi says to shove things in cupboards.  I cant put dust and dog smells in cupboards.  OH goes into town to have front tyres changed on car and book car in for new wing mirror. Insurance says there is no excess so that is good news.

Spend afternoon completing and loading up various documents for the offer which was accepted, organise the diagnostic reports and set a date with the notary for next Friday. Ideally, we will get the buyers signed up before they head back to the UK and speed things up by at least a month. 

Speak to youngest, WF, and he is going for an interview with a call centre car company. We tend to be of the opinion that if you can do a hard crappy job at the start, it is good experience for the future.  He has driving test at the end of the month.  Speak to eldest, RJ, who is fed up and looking for another job.  OH offers to come over at the end of May and drive him around to interviews.  He is very isolated where he works and, at 25, is not having an exciting life.  Restauration is so poorly paid too.  I think WF is earning more and working significantly fewer hours.  RJ needs a woman with a good financial head and a thick skin and they could open up a little resto together.

Catch up with the ladies who made the full price offer.  They are in Paris and lounging on a bed under a picture of the phases of construction of the Eiffel Tower.  They are significantly less hacked off and philosophical.  They love our town and are happy to have found it.  They may offer on the other property that we showed them providing I can get an idea of how much the renovation would cost.  Otherwise, I am mandated to go out and find them something lovely.  They want a Belle Epoque house at a reasonable price.  Somewhat of a challenge.  The excellent thing is that our relationship is still good and we still have their trust.  The best outcome in the situation.

Phone rings towards 9.30 and I dont get to it in time.  It is client for Sundays visit and she says that she is going to see all the houses OH suggested with the other agent but would still really LOVE to come and see our house.  OH gets extremely wound up at this point and essentially tells her to fuck off.  Oh well, at least I dont have all that cleaning to do.

Call me the rhinestone cowgirl (with offers coming over the wire...)

Thursday 9 April 2015

24 degrees - wonderful and warm and sunny

The sudden burst of warmth has made the fields and trees explode into colour. Escaped rape seed is rampaging over the warming fields, its sharp acid yellow in contrast to the dull spikes of last year's maze.  Magnolias are heavy with blooms and the willows have their first delicate pale green fronds.  Birds are checking out nesting boxes and potential partners and the first cuckoo of the year sings in the bosquet.

We are down town for 9 am, waiting for a blow in couple.  Blow ins are people who are on whistle stop tours of the country, looking for that special something.  They are from the other end of the world by birth, and living in Asia at the moment, and looking for the space of their native country with a climate that has less than 60% humidity in Summer.  They get a bit lost so we go and find them and then have to kick off the visit of the first of the two houses immediately.  The owner is out and his new girlfriend is in attendance.  She is on similar lines to her predecessors.  We do the visit and the couple are very interested.  I go down to talk to the girlfriend and she tells me that they have already had an offer and there are revisits tomorrow.  I am very surprised when she tells me the amount of the offer because it is above the amount on the sales contract which I hold.  The girlfriend says that the sales contract I hold is just for the house and not for the two flats.  I say I am sure it is not and she rings the owner and he is rather short with me and says do I have an offer or not and I say we have only been here ten minutes and I will get back to him.  We leave the house and I ring the agency, who confirm that we hold the contract to sell the house plus flats.  Coffee time and quick chat and then I leave OH to show the couple another property in town and go and meet the clients from earlier on this week.

They are in the bar in the centre of town and it is market day and the air is alive with a mixture of languages and the smells and perfumes of the stall goods and it is a good day for asking for a revisit of just the one house.  They are looking coy and happy and this is a good buying clue.  We fix up an afternoon revisit and I leave them to chat to the locals and dash back to find OH and the couple in the turn of the 20th century villa on the big roundabout at the end of town.

Built by an architect for his daughter, the villa is named after her and was completed just after 1905.  It is an imposing property, dubbed 'Snow White's villa' locally and has been empty for some time.  The rooms are very large and flooded with light from the three metre high patio windows.  Brass light fittings glow dimly from the brown material lines walls.  The fireplaces are of marble construction.  There is no kitchen to speak of, and only one bathroom.  The turret roof sustained a lot of damage and even though the roof has been repaired, great swathes of water damaged plaster are hanging down like bedsheets from the top rafters.  Multi coloured light filters through onto the oak staircase from the stained glass windows.

We leave the couple for lunch and I ring the agency and clarify that if I receive an offer without condition for the first property, then the owner will be obliged to accept it.  That is going to be a fun interview (not).  I look at the internet and it appears that all of the other agencies have just the house for the price at which I have the house plus the flats.  It must have been an oversight on his part when he signed the sales contract with our agency. Back down town for the revisit and in 20 minutes I have an offer which I negotiate over the phone, sign up the very happy buyers and then dash back to find the other couple and a rather frazzled looking OH

He has had to amuse them for an hour and a half and had told them unsuitable jokes, done impressions of Harry Worth, and showed them every corner of our town before taking them back to the second house.  They were getting on like a house on fire.  When I got there, pink faced from the unexpectedly warm afternoon and the excitement of a sale and far too much coffee for just one day, he was closing up and the ladies were sitting on the lawn and looking tired.  We established that they would make a cash unconditional offer for the first house and so I signed them up and then we had a beer and they left to overnight near the airport before heading back East and home.

OH went back home to walk the dog and I went and signed up the sellers of the property revisited with the couple from earlier this week.  We sat at the kitchen table and the man looked tired and the lady looked rather hyper and one of their little girls sat on my knee and showed me her book.  It is so long since I have cuddled a small child.  She was very hot and heavy and smelled lovely, of biscuits and milk and shampoo.

Back home and there was nothing to eat so we went for another beer in town and then to a local hotel where we had an immense entrecote and chips and pudding.  Felt like I had eaten a brick and went to bed on getting back home, where I slept exceptionally badly.

Poodles on parade

Wednesday 8 April 2015

Sunny 22 degrees

10 am finds me lurking in a car park and waiting for a client from the coast.  He arrives on time and backs his virulently yellow soft top car into the parking space.  A small apricot poodle peers out of the sun roof.  I am very surprised because the house the client has asked to see does not fit at all with his appearance.  The client and the dog appear from the car and I suggest we all go in together and the man says he will drive.  The dog is put out because I have her seat so she sits on the man's knees and we head for the first property. It is a large farmhouse with extensive lands and is fully modernised.  The owners and their massive black hunting dogs are enjoying the sun, some cigarettes and in the case of the dogs, chasing some large pieces of shredded cardboard around the terrace.  It is interesting how people, dogs and houses go together.  In my experience, people with flashy handbags, small dogs or sparkly shoes would never do renovations, people with large dogs are up for a challenge and people with young kids just want to be found a quick solution.

The client sucks his teeth and the dog pants and he tells me that this is not at all the house he had chosen.  We have to go and see it in any event because the owners are there and waiting but the visit is over in a very short period of time.  It transpires that he had wanted to see a small manor house with pool and virtually no garden and had mixed up the reference numbers.   I am now, stuck in his car, so he says he will drive on and he drives very, very slowly and I am running out of conversation when we arrive at the second house.  The owners are away and there is just a workman, sanding down the gates.  Because it is mid morning, the passage of lorries is fairly heavy but this doesn't seem to put him off at all.  He says he will get Madame to come and look at it and we wend our way back, slowly except in the case of the road bumps, which he takes at some speed and the dog shoots into the air and goes to sulk on the back bucket seat.

He leaves me back at my car and I feel the need for coffee.  OH is out doing shopping. Workmen are starting to file in for lunch and the sun is cracking the flags.  Ah, bliss....

Back home and then out to do an estimation of value at a nearby farm.  The owner looks confused when I get there and says he thought it was tomorrow.  Go back home.  I am not having a good day here.   Internet is back on when I get home so I ring people up, including the notary to ask her about my would be buyers for the house in town.  One advocate has said the damages may be 4k and another said they might be 20k.  The notary says only the judge can establish the amount of the prejudice and she has no idea where the advocates are pulling these figures from.  She also says that my would be buyers cant have a condition put into the contract, limiting their exposure to damages payable to a third party, outside of the parties mentioned in the contract.

The combination of cortisone and anti biotics is making the inside of my mouth flake and puff and I have the most revolting taste in my mouth.  Somewhat alleviated by wine and chocolate.

Election fever grips the capital

Mayor of London Boris Johnson

Monday 30 March 2015

13 degrees
Light drizzle followed by heavy drizzle

This made me laugh - although unlikely to have been by the Mayor himself, the wildly shaggy haired Boris Johnson, sadly lacking from Have I Got News for You since he decided to get serious.



So parliament has been dissolved, the General Election set for May 7th and everyone is looking very happy about it

David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Ed Milliband

Ed seems to feel that his genitalia are under threat.  If you are looking for serious political analysis, by the way, you really are in the wrong place.  My analysis of the election will largely extend to amusing pictures and cock ups.

Lots of enquiries and everyone seems to want to come when we are on holiday.  OH takes the idea of moving the holiday very badly and starts waving hands in the air like angry sea anemone.  Say OK we will stick with it.  I cant be bothered with holidays.  I would rather stay here and do some gardening and writing and fiddle around with my crafting stuff but no, we have to spend hours in the car going somewhere hot, stay in a hotel which is stuffy and where I have to listen to him snoring all night, and drink and eat too much.  I usually feel exhausted when I get back, although it is good for clearing up the stress related eczema which is now all over my elbows and neck and driving me bonkers.

My Russians say they will be back to sign the reservation contract on the 14 April and the sellers have found a house in Murcia and, fortunately, they are speaking on Skype when I ring up so I manage to speak to them on broadcast.

Spend the morning trying to find property for the buyer who wanted to buy the house that the Russians have now agreed on, and they reject everything.  The problem is that when people fix on a house, they want to find something else which is identical, and it can take years before they let go.  This happened twice in 2013 and both sets of buyers are still looking.  As Del Boy (Fools and Horses) would say 'fortune favours the brave'.  If you love something, you just have to dive in and then figure out the rest later.  If you are not brave enough to dive in, then perhaps the time and the action are just not right for you.

Go swimming later on in the day and the pool is almost empty, apart from a really annoying woman who swims so fast on her lengths that I am absolutely breathless in trying to keep up with her.  Do my 30 lengths in record time.  She is still shooting up and down the pool like an automaton whilst I take a breather, sit in the bubbles and look at my stomach bouncing about.  I have been eating bread again and look six months pregnant with the two kilos gained right on my front.

A french client contacts me about a house which has just come back onto the market, after having been reserved for a period of six months, at the expiration of which it transpired the buyer couldnt get the loan.  She says she knows the house and loves it but could only afford to pay 90% of the asking price.   It is an expensive house and this represents rather a lot of money.  I ask her if she wants to come and see it again, and she says she will talk to her husband.  This property, a stunning water mill, I used to have on exclusive contract. I found a buyer almost immediately, at a sum thirty percent in excess of what is now being asked.  The seller dilly dallied at paying for the necessary reports and insisted on having their own notaire, with the result that the buyers who had waited a month to sign, had to return to the States.  By the time they got off the boat, they had changed their minds and now we are two years down the road and it is still not sold. A voir, as they say over here.

Watched the end of The Tempest and was surprised to find that I enjoyed it.  OH was in deep sleep.