Christine and David's Property Diary

I’ve now gone full time at work to help our finances. We’ve borrowed on the equity of the house, so that we can buy the house in France outright. Fortunately, David’s a builder, his dad’s a carpenter and my brother’s a plumber so we can keep our costs down. It all seemed a bit of a dream in the beginning, but David’s really enthusiastic now.

The agents have been fantastic at keeping us informed of the progress, so although it’s been a long wait, at least we knew things have been progressing. We were given a date of 26 August as the signing date. At the notaire’s office, we met the vendors. Marie from the agent’s was there and translated everything for us. The notaire cost us an arm and a leg, but they do arrange everything – even down to sorting out the gas, water and electricity connections. The local people are great – really friendly. There’s an elderly couple just down the lane from us – Pierre and Célèste. Her French has so much Breton mixed in with it, I can hardly understand her, but she makes up for it with hugs and kisses! Every time we come over to the property she walks around with her dog to see what we’re up to. When the water board turned up, they switched on the water and suddenly it all gushed out behind the house where the pipe had been disconnected. We discovered the main meter was located in some fields behind the house that didn’t belong to us. The water board man just took one look at the flood, shrugged his shoulders, said “this is a problem” and went off to lunch! We called the agents, who once again came to our rescue and arranged for the meter to be transferred to our property – for a cost of €958!

Just a few months later, David and Christine moved to their property in France, and have settled in very well. We wish them every success with their new life abroad!