As many people have said, and we all know from personal experience, life is full of surprises. Some good, some bad. It seems to me that when you venture away from dealing in your mother tongue the incidence of surprises increases exponentially. Inevitably somethings are lost in translation, while other unexpected events occur as a result of cultural differences. And then there are the honest-to-God surprises that you encounter. We’ve had more than a few in the last year. The biggest one for me came as I sat in the Notaire’s office going over everything prior to closing on the house.
We have been exceptionally lucky in that the Notaire that Jean-Pierre (our immobilier) uses for property transactions has a delightful assistant who speaks fluent English. She “held my hand” as we lead up to the formalisation of the Compromis*, explaining each step of the process and clarifying sections of the document that were as clear as mud, even after I’d run them through a translation service. There were many times when, as we spoke on the phone, I imagined her shaking her head in disbelief at my ignorance and failure to have done my homework before we embarked on the venture of buying a home in France.
So, shortly after having arrived in France for the closing I had an appointment to see Catherine in order that she could explain what remained of the legal process. I bemoaned the delays that had resulted from the mortgage company’s failure to courier their contract to me for 5 days…… I’ll tell you about that process in another post. However, we had used the time well, getting our bearings, sourcing some of the items that we would need for the house and taking the opportunity to visit some of the area’s prime tourist attractions out-of-season.
As Catherine opened my file she looked across the desk and said to me, “Well, I only received written notice from the Mairie that they have elected not to pre-empt the sale this morning, and we couldn’t have done the closing with out that.” I was, to use a less than lady-like expression, gob-smacked.
“What do you mean? I’ve never heard anything about anyone being able to pre-empt the sale,” I spluttered.
Eyes wide, Catherine explained that as the house is in an historic district and we are not French the Mairie reserved the right to buy the house from the current owner instead of us. I have no problems at all with the concept – in fact I could readily support such a policy – this saves the French patrimony for the French, instead of allowing it to fall piecemeal into the hands of foreigners. What was mind-blowing was that no-one had told us that before I bought airline tickets and booked accommodation for the closing.
Can you imagine what might have happened under other circumstances, such as the Mairie actually deciding that they were going to buy the house? I am, 6 months later, still rendered dumbstruck when I think about it.
*Compromis: agreement to buy.