"Pierre, what
do they have?"
Number 13. I did that on purpose, of course. But I hope it was a lucky choice.
The house was discussed already briefly
here, but here is some of the story about acquiring it.
Still looking for mill and/or water we stumbled upon this place. One of the driest regions of Europe, but still: a watermill. We had seen this house before. We are into houses in lush green, cadres verdoyant, and even: bucolique! This one is in a barren stone area, and did not appeal to us, really. But, it does have water!
We went there first time April 2015. Really impressed by the house, especially by the huge kitchen.
A few buts first? Alright. In the picture here you can see that on the right side of the house there is a road. That is a road with right of way for the neighbours. Right along the house. Plus the space in front of the house. Areas that are baking in the direct sun, and thus are hot and dusty. And, we don't like chemins communal along our house, being the a-social type we are, although we were
assured there is very little traffic here. Just the "lemon truck
once a year", and the "house down the road is
not inhabited".
Another thing is that the workshop and terrace of the house overlook a block of land that did not belong to the property (the
red area in the picture). Well, if there is something we like less than chemins communal it's a house that is right next to someone else's land. Before you know it they start a camping, a chicken farm or a motocross terrain. Or, they install a trampoline.
Of course we are paranoid. We're from the City.
The owner apparently had heard more worries from other prospective buyers about that road along his house, and decided to do a new road, further away from the house, the
red line in above map.
We felt we needed to choose between Serena and this place. So we went back in June to have another look, see how the new bypass is, have another look at Serena, and experience Andalucia in summer, at it's almost hottest.
We went to
Serena first, and just sat still an hour and let it sink in. We walked up the rambla, to see where the Serena river would lead to. Well, it becomes narrower and narrower, till you are stopped by a thick bunch of reeds. The area is absolutely lovely and peaceful. But, the house itself did not catch our hearts. Too much work to make it nice, a garage at the house is not really possible, and then it probably it still is not at all as nice as the house in Antas.
So: Antas. With it's nice spaces and thick walls.
And, something else:
Restaurante Mi Casa. That is a very nice restaurant, within walking distance (15 minutes) and certainly within bike distance. I have a theory. A theory that is mine. And it's a theory about restaurants. And the theory is that if they pour a
Good. Campari., then it most probably is a good restaurant.
This. Is. A. Good. Campari.
Back to the house. There are more roads, in the map above the
Good. Campari., on the border of the property: the dark greens in the map. So why the red path? Just follow the greens! That caused a lot of misunderstanding because people cannot or do not read maps. But in the end our solicitor told us that you cannot change rights of way, that way, and you may get taken to court.
Hm. That would not be a great start.
Another but is that this house is located not in a nature reserve, but in the middle of agricultural fields. They grow artichokes here, nice! Cauliflower, good! Kale. Kale. Kale! Hate kale. Yuck. Agricultural activity may mean tractors doing their thing there all day, with irritating noise. "No, no!", the owner and estate agent cried, "some people thought the area was
all too quiet!". And, "we think it is a very funny question". Sure, sure.
We quickly found out there's quite a bit more traffic than that yearly lemon truck. There
is someone living in the house down the road, who lives there during the week, works elsewhere and travels by car, and a few times a week there's a little van of a man who tends the orange grove even further down the road. And they all don't drive carefully.
It's not so much that it's noisy, but the dog that came with the house loves to chase cars. We quite love that dog, so we need to put up a fence so she can't just run after the cars whenever she feels like it. That'll be quite a long fence, actually.
And yes, there's noise from the fields. Harvesting kale (yuck!) is done by hand, they pick the lower leaves, and leave the rest to regrow (bleah!), but the harvest is stored in a big truck that has a cooling machine. It was droning there a few days last time. But, at least you can escape that noise by sitting at the other side of the house, or go inside.
The
(red) block of land next to the house was owned by a "mate" of the owner. "Ah, that won't cost you very much", he said, "as he does not have right of way, and he cannot build on it, and it has no water rights, so it's worthless". Well, it is worth something to a new owner, as it probably is the place to extend the garden, or put in a swimming pool. But we won't buy a house where we cannot walk around on our own land.
Next thing/but is: water rights. Water rights are extremely important for us, as we do like a hot and dry climate, but we do need water to irrigate garden, and perhaps fill a swimming pool. You cannot do that with drinking water. Well, not responsibly. And it may cost a fortune, especially if your water is from a desalination plant, as is sometimes the case in Andalucia. The previous owner had sold a strip of land for water rights. The paperwork for this was missing, however, but a search would be started to find that.
Advised by our solicitor, we decided to put the purchase of the extra block of land and the water rights as "requirements" in our offer, which was accepted. Then an interesting time starts, where actual papers and deeds, and water contracts must be located, and exchanged from one solicitor to the other, and shared with the estate agent, and. Then one solicitor says she has sent papers two weeks ago while the other has not yet received them, etc. That went on till the very last day.
Oh yes, somewhere in above paragraph we must have decided to actually
DO it. Unclear water rights, a block of land that was more expensive if we did not want to grant the previous owner right of way, worries about traffic, pesticides, noise, etc, make decisions quite difficult. This is not a choice for a holiday, it's for the last 20, 25 active
years of our
lives.
Drama! But we seem to have said yes. (Didn't we?)
We also put in a date in the requirements for the transfer of ownership. We did not have very many time/dates left in our schedule, as end of August there were work-related responsibilities at home. We had hoped for a transfer date early August, so we could spend about 4 weeks there, but that was not possible because too much legal stuff still needed attention. Alright, August 14th then. Noooo, that was not possible for the owner's wife, who wanted to say goodbye to everyone, and wanted to spend a last holiday there. A date of August 24 was proposed as earliest date, and we would need to find a place to stay for them, afterwards. Which we declined, as that would leave one full day to us before going back to work, and it was simply silly. Ok, then it's end of October for us as earliest next opportunity. Then August 14th was quickly accepted, but not with a smile.
Visiting the day before the transfer at the notary, to see if the house was still there, and it's inventory, was declined. Very odd. We'd not be the first to find an empty or even stripped house after the visit to the notary, and the transfer of a property. Sigh. We'd like to know a bit about the house too. Where is the mains water tap? How does the electricity work here? What do you do to keep that wood shining? Ah, oil. How often do you spray against woodworm. What paint did you use? The reply was that they "prepared lots of notes" for us, and it was not possible, because it was "emotional".
In the end it was agreed to visit an hour before notary, which was at 13:00. Well, everything seemed to be there. Not that a full explanation and guided tour were intended. "Yes, well, the house did not come with a manual to us either", the vendor grimmed. Very drole indeed. "We need to go", his wife pressed. Oh, and there's something else. The dog. She is behind the house with puppies. "But we contacted a charity, and they will come for them the moment they come out of their den." Yeah, right. Well, you can read more of
that story starting with
Zoomba part 1.
That morning: off to the bank. Money to pay for a house isn't transferred electronically, nor collected and handled by the notary. It's the responsibility of the solicitor here. (The notary only arranges registration with the catastro end escritura.) So, you go to the bank with the account you transferred your assets to, and, for each receiver of money, a bank check is printed, and deducted from your account. One to pay off the owner's mortgage, one for tax to Andalucia in the name of the vendor, one for tax to the council, one for the actual house, one for tax to Andalucia for us, one for the block of land, one for the tax on that block, one to pay the estate agent ("ooh, I can feed my family again!"), and now I have lost count again. About 10 checks. Oh, and a check to pay the bank.
That was a joke, the bank could be paid electronically. They (Cajamar) were quite decent actually, and did not charge much.
Coffee.
And the notary. Us two, our solicitor, the vendors, their solicitor, the vendor of the extra block, and his solicitor, 8 people signing and reading papers. And, at the very last, a very dark copy of a copy of a water rights contract! Yeah! We were assured (if that word still means anything) that that was in order.
The notary reads the deed to you, or at least parts of it. You all sign, and you get thrown the keys along the table by clearly less than happy previous owners. And then you own a place in the sun!
Though the nice chained fly screen was gone, and so was the pump and filter installation of the (derelict) swimming pool. Aha, that is why he inquired so strongly that we did not intend to put a new liner in... You could see the plastic pipes were freshly broken, so that just happened, apparently.
But, we had other, and bigger, worries on our mind. Like, this mother and her children.
(But that all ended well.)
So, we had a week here. Besides taking care of Zoomba, that meant exploring the house, buying a vacuum cleaner (not a little task), and stocking the fridge. And some cleaning. And locating the prepared notes. We still have not finished this last task.
Well, the house was perfectly liveable. Plenty of clean linen, towels, etc. Enough and proper furniture and kitchen utensils for a holiday house. Though after a few days you long for your own pans, knives, bed and couch, and everything. And,
INTERNET! Ah well.
A last, and quite maddening, hiccup was the transfer of the telephone line. You need to do that from the actual phone line, and supply the last so many numbers of passport and bank account number. But, if the previous owner refuses to give you that, you can't. We had thought a land line would be a good idea, for an ADSL internet connection. But actually, the lines are so bad that not much bandwidth remains. So, we did not pursue that avenue any longer. I hope for the old owners that they stopped payments.
Strange, how people that before seemed pretty decent can so quickly change after a sale is done. And leave a lovely dog behind. Well, that dog is one thing we really must thank them for, she's totally adorable. Perish the thought the transfer date would have been the 24th of August, or 30th of October, instead of the 14th...
PS
The neighbours who sold us the extra block of land turned out to be a really nice. They dropped by the next day to see how we were, and even allowed us to use their wifi! That was very convenient, to get e-mail, arrange shelter for a dog, and download the newspapers. They keep an eye on the place while we're away too, which is very nice. Oh, and they close off gas bottles. We're really grateful!
