02 February 2020

February 2003 surprises

In 2002 and then in 2003, I had three occasions to visit the house we ended up buying in France. Walt and I had first seen it on Dec. 10, 2002, and then again on December 12, that time because we liked it and were seriously considering whether we might buy it. The price was very low compared to San Francisco Bay Area house prices. While we were seeing the house on December 12, I took a lot of photos. After the visit was over, the realtor we were working with told us he had asked the people in his office draw up the document that is called un compromis de vente — an offer letter — for us to sign.

I told him we weren't sure we were ready to sign any papers at that point. His reply to that was: you are going back to California in a few days. If you don't sign the paper now, when will you sign it? That was a good point. And then he said: when you are back in California, either send me a check for the down payment, or write me a letter to say you've changed your mind. What did we have to lose?



Back in California, we decided to send the money. It was a lot of cash in one sense, but not enough to radically alter the course of our lives if we changed our minds and forfeited the down payment. Once we had paid it, we thought it through and decided we'd better put our San Francisco house on the market to see what we could get for it, and whether that would be enough to finance the purchase of the Saint-Aignan house while leaving us sufficient funds to live on for a few years.

At that point, we needed to know what furniture we would want to have shipped to France if and when we actually relocated ourselves. So poor me, I needed to travel to France one more time — it's an 11-hour flight, but remember, I was unemployed while Walt was still working — to go inspect the house again and measure the rooms. We needed to figure out if our SF furniture would fit. Pieces that wouldn't fit would need to be sold or given away.

While I was in the Saint-Aignan house, measuring the rooms, I left all the shutters closed. It took too long to open and then close them all. I didn't want to be late for a scheduled appointment with the notaire who was handling the legal aspects of the sale. My measuring done, I pulled the front door open and was surprised to see that it had started snowing. It had been sunny when I arrived less than an hour earlier (see the photo above). So you can see what the yard looked like as a light snow fell. Snow was exciting for us back then because we had been living in the San Francisco Bay area where snow is a very rare occurrence.

By the way, the weather is completely different from that this morning. It's about 55ºF and raining outside this morning. News reports is that fruit trees around the country have started setting flower buds because of the very mild weather we've had so far this winter.

8 comments:

  1. Let's hope it won't be a repeat of 1956. I keep my fingers crossed!

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  2. It must have been quite a moment, taking such life-changing decisions. I don't think I'd have had the courage.

    Early flowers here, too: some of the usual suspects are a couple of weeks early, but I've also seem some sheltered shrubs, such as a ceanothus, putting out flowers months before normal. But London is warmer than elsewhere, of course, on top of the generally milder temperatures.

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    1. Cities are warmer than places out in the country, that's for sure. Our decision to quit California and relocate to France was born out of desperation in one sense, but also out of our good experiences here in France over the decades. No regrets.

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  3. That light snow was a good sign for you. I bet you don't miss those 11 hour flights!

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  4. Thanks for the lovely snow pictures. Speaking of shutters - in a future post perhaps you can tell us about shutters on homes in France. I’m thinking that I read or was told, maybe by Danielle who lives near Paris, that it’s an insurance requirement but I may be wrong.

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  5. Smart realtor, and he's good at closing sales. But couldn't he have sent you the measurements?

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    1. Well, I also wanted to sit down and talk with the notaire who was handling the legal aspects of the house purchase. We decided to incorporate ourselves by creating a société civile immobilière. The company owns the house, and we own the company as equal partners. It turned out that that was not really necessary, but we weren't sure. We wanted to take that step to avoid inheritance problems in case one of us died before the other. Inhertitance taxes for the survivor can be very high when the two owners are not married to each other. It's completely different here compared to how it works the U.S.

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