Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Chapter 2
Goodbye Pay Cheques,
Hello Château
'Good morning, Caro. How are you today?' said Patrick chirpily. 'The other offer has gone
away and the seller wants to accept your initial offer.'
'What happened?' I asked, feeling a cautious prickle of elation.
'Well, the offer was never formalised. Perhaps there was persuasion by Sa Furr. Our agent
will get a promesse de vente signed by the seller this afternoon so that they can't change their
minds again.'
I texted Sean then tried to contact the notaire . After calling seven times I spoke to him.
He assured me our verbal offer was accepted and he would call me back later in the day to
arrange a formal signing. It looked like it was really going to happen.
I caught Sean on a break from his French class and filled him in on the final episode of
our limbo nightmare, ending with the notaire who still had not called me back to arrange the
formal signing.
'I am sure this notaire is doing something funny. Maybe his brother is trying to buy the
vineyard.'
Sean laughed and told me I was paranoid then went back to the calm of his class. By the
evening, the import of the acceptance had sunk in and I felt like I had jumped out of a plane
without a parachute.
Fortunately a safety net was developing: the bidding on the house we were selling went
beyond our agent's estimate. We closed the sale with a critical boost to our budget. We knew
from reading about moves to France that the rule of thumb was to double your renovation
estimate. We would learn that even this was not enough.
At last we could talk about our move. In jubilance, I called an old friend in Oxford.
'Saucy Jack?' said Mike.
'Not Saucy Jack. Saussignac. It's famous for its wines. Haven't you heard of it?'
'No. We'll have to come and try it.'
Search WWH ::




Custom Search