The notaire has the documents!

Good news from Helen, our estate agent, in Quillan--the documents have arrived!  That means that the process to actually purchase the house has begun.  Helen will now have the contractor go to the house and give us bids on electrical, plumbing, painting, demolition in the kitchen and plaster work.  The house is really in good condition--but we need to completely redo the kitchen--with the exception of the fireplace--- and upgrade the electrical and bathrooms.

We have a friend, Chris, in Quillan. He is willing to help oversee the project once the sale is final.  We are grateful for that.  He tells us that fall will be a good time for workers because they aren't so busy that time of year.

We will not be back in Quillan until October.  It gives us lots of time to decide what items are absolutely necessary to take to France and what we will just buy there. We have been busy looking for furniture, appliances and kitchen cabinets.  Hopefully, we will get most of these items while there in October and then the contractors can work over the winter and  when we return in the Spring, the hard work will be done!  Then, we can spend our time shopping the brocantes and vidi-greniers for all of the accessories for the house!  I can hardly wait!  Of course, besides the shopping, there will always be time to enjoy a bottle of good Languedoc wine on the terrace!

Learning the art of patience!

We started dreaming of owning a house in France several years ago.  We had visited the French Riviera and that gave us just a little taste of what France is all about.  The house hunting process began by researching on the internet, reading books from the public library, and beginning to believe this actually could happen for us. We set our sights on the Languedoc-Roussillon region because of its Mediterranean influence.   

We began the process of buying a house in France in late February.  We spent 10 days in the South of France, looking at 26 houses all in the Languedoc-Roussillon region.  We looked at houses in the Aude, Herault, Gard, and Eastern Pyrenees areas.  There were elements in each of these areas that we really liked but finding a house we liked was a different story. We liked the idea of the circulade villages with the historic homes and walking distance to all of the services, but each time we entered one they felt dark and cold. So, a bit disappointed, we left France with great resolve to return and expand our vision of what we really wanted.

We went back to the computer for more research and decided to return to France at the end of April. This time, we looked at a total of 22 houses and focused our search on the Aude and Herault areas. We ended up choosing the Aude region and the town of Quillan.  It had been my first choice of the areas from the very beginning.  Quillan is nestled at the foot of the Pyrenees Mountains.  It is a picturesque town conveniently located between airports in Carcassonne and Perpignan about 45 minutes away. It is close to Spain, the Mediterranean coast, a wealth of history and the Aude produces some of the best wines in the region!

We found the house of our dreams, returned home and then made the offer over the phone on the 10th of May. Later that day we received confirmation that the owner agreed to our offer. Because we are doing all of this through the mail, I am having to learn patience! We received the "Compromis de Vente" (Purchase and Sales Agreement" in the U.S.) and all of the diagnostic tests in the mail on the 19th of May. We were aware that the documents would be entirely in French, but when we were faced with 50 pages of French, it was still a bit overwhelming! We struggled through a rough translation and several phone calls to our estate agent, Helen, and then we finally signed the "Compromis de Vente" on the 25th of May. We sent the documents by USPS Guaranteed 2 day Delivery and are still waiting for them to be delivered. Our mail in the U.S. is no faster than that in France!

I know this will be the first of our "waiting" while we buy a house in France.  I am just anxious for the paperwork to arrive so we know all is signed and the process is begun!  Then, we will continue waiting 3 months while the Notaire begins the searches on the property including ownership, land boundaries and right aways.

While we wait, we continue dreaming of and planning our next trip to France.  We pass our time  by reading A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle, studying French by way of Rosetta Stone and Michele Thomas cds, and drinking the last of our vin rouge we brought home from France!  We often look at our pictures of Quillan and are reminded about why we chose this area of France.