The Deed is Done

It has seemed a long time coming, but at last we are the proud owners of a tiny pied a terre at Sète. The process of buying property in France is fairly complicated , and today it involved a repeat of twenty three years ago, when we visited the same notaire , in the same town of St André de Sangonis, to sign the deed of sale for our house in the forest. Today however, felt very different.

We were shown into the waiting room , where, to pass the time, I decided to leaf through a magazine which rested on a coffee table before me. But perhaps, this was not really meant for the likes of me. It appeared to be a catalogue from some auction house . Maybe other clients of our notaire could afford to furnish their newly purchased property with items such as these. I particularly liked a Picasso ceramic which featured the head of a goat, and worth up to an estimated 12,000€. As for the featured gilded bronze clock: I would prefer to stick to my own mundane round faced one, rather than fork out a mere 5,000 € !

Well ,actually I wouldn't mind this 1200€ knick knack sitting on my Ikea bookshelf after all.

The last time we signed an 'acte de vente' our notaire's office seemed to be full of people, including the couple who were selling our new house to us, as well as their own notaire. Today, when we entered the room, it was completely empty, save for a dozen vacant chairs, and a computer at one end of a very long table. We took the two nearest seats, and our notaire who is familiar to us, sat at the head of the table .

It took me some time to realise that our vendor and her notaire were actually present on the giant video screen ahead of us. We waved an acknowledgement.

As I had already predicted, the process turned out to be extremely long and frankly, rather boring. The notaire had to read out the many paged document that was shown on the screen above us, and questions had to be posed and responded to. But finally it was all over, and we now own a miniscule part of the beautiful town of Sète. But how different this all is from buying a house in Britain. A notaire is not the same as a British solicitor, in that she is an agent of the state. It is her duty to collect the required taxes on the state's behalf. These, it should be said, are not insubstantial. But on the other hand, if one should need advice, as we have done in the past, in France this is absolutely free, whereas British solicitors charge' an arm and a leg.' Vive la France!