Pictures of the Céret house

Things are moving ahead; we signed the sale agreement yesterday at the agents – a meeting I expected would take 30-40 minutes stretched out over an hour and a half(!) , as everything in the agreement had to be read aloud in English and often discussed in French also for the benefit of the agency manager, then agreed, and all the expert survey reports again, all read aloud. Welcome to French love of procedure and bureaucracy. (There are no termites, the state of electrical systems is a little out of date, but satisfactory, the energy rating is undetermined because the house is usually empty over the winter months, there is no risk of floods or earthquakes, on and on it went.)

Today we got final documents to the bank, and collected a new bank debit card and cheque book, and said hello again to the nice bank manager, a friendly soul.

Then back to the Norwegian couple selling the house to take an inventory of furniture they wish to sell with the house, price as yet to be agreed, we shall meet again tomorrow in the hope they have a price for the whole lot. Three nice French wardrobes in bedrooms, and a nice kitchen display cabinet.

Finally with a camera working we took some piccies. The main entrance from the Rue Victor Hugo is directly opposite a boulangerie, and is actually just a set of triple folding garage doors. One can open just the middle door to gain entrance. These garage doors can fold all the way back against the garage walls, so we think it will be an inviting gallery area to show paintings in once we have lighting and perhaps some tiles laid over the cement. The garage then leads onto a toilet and shower room, and the stairwell in the middle, and finally, the back bedroom, Carol's sewing room. 

Going upstairs, you reach the kitchen and master bedroom and another shower room and toilet.

The kitchen is directly above the garage with a dining room table that seats six or so.

The kitchen has a nice armoir or display cupboard.

The master bedroom is on the same floor as the kitchen diner, which also has a shower room, but we are undecided if we wish to keep the Ikea bedroom stuff, since one can get such nice French antique stuff here which may look nicer..but it is a five foot wide bed.

Then one goes up to the third floor where there is a lounge, large enough to have a study area in it.

This is the "sejour" or living room. (Above the kitchen, which is above the garage or painting studio.) There is a bedroom on each floor, the ground floor bedroom has it's own back door into the street behind, which is really just a walkway - too narrow for cars.

The entrance to the lounge has an area with a desk and chair, like a study, and a log burner. If you look carefully you can see how crooked all the walls are!

The Norwegian couple have a couple of single beds in the top floor bedroom but again, we think a double might be better. But they do have some rather nice wardrobes and we meet again tomorrow to discuss prices for the house contents. The big elephant like white thing is an air conditioning unit that also can do heating, ducted into the chimney.

The lounge is on the same floor as this bedroom with the single beds, but no shower room on this floor means more area in the lounge.

Finally on the fourth floor is the roof terrace, with nice views of some hills overlooking Ceret and of Mount Canigou. When it came down to making a choice between two front runners, it was the roof terrace that made the difference to us. A tiny bit of outside space with the sun and a view.

This afternoon a visit to the notaire who will do the conveyancing and all the legal work and taxes – about 7% of the purchase price. The agency have been very helpful, and an English speaker is coming along with us in case his English is not as good as it could be – we could hardly understand his English translation of French passages in the ten page “compromis de ventre”

The notaire also pays the capital gains tax from the sale on behalf of the vendors here - the French are very clever when it comes to taxes...