River Ebro Babble

“Sorry,” I said, “I’ve tossed and turned all night thinking this over and I’m not going to sign for the house.” It was a cold December morning and we were standing in the car park of the small Pension where we had stayed overnight. My husband glared at me. We’d already tried to settle this over breakfast. The good morning smiles of the Estate Agent changed into a look of alarm as he saw his sale dissolving along with the morning mist that now hung over the River Ebro.

“Please, there is nothing to worry about” he said. “I explained to you yesterday that we will have a written agreement with the vendors.”

“And that is all we get!” I exclaimed. “Look, everyone stands to gain this morning except us! The bank gets a new account. You get your commission on the sale. The Notary gets his fee. The vendors get a wedge of money in their bank account. What do we get? A mortgage on a house with sitting tenants and a piece of paper promising that they’ll move out sometime! It’s madness to go ahead!

Husband Keith shuffled his feet in embarrassment. He wasn’t exactly happy but he wasn’t as worried as I was about the turn of events.

“Well, our appointment at the Notary is in 20 minutes” said the Estate Agent “would you feel better if you saw him alone first and talked this over?” I agreed and off we went in his car.

The previous afternoon we had arrived full of anticipation and excitement that we were about to buy the house we had fallen in love right on the banks of River Ebro. We’d met the Estate Agent and over coffee he took a deep breath and told us about the “slight problem.” The house the vendors were due to buy was not ready. They had phoned him a couple of days before and said that they couldn’t complete the sale of their house to us for several months. They were not pulling out of the sale – if they did they would have to return double our deposit – they were merely postponing it. The Spanish attitude to time being very elastic, they were quite relaxed about this! Tranquilo! Don’t worry! It is only a slight delay, no? For us everything was in place. 10% deposit paid, mortgage agreed, Notary arranged and flights booked. The Estate agent had decided not to let us in on this little nugget of information until he saw us face to face and offered his solution. Namely, that we go ahead with the purchase and sign an agreement with the vendors that they could stay in the house for 12 weeks to give them time to look for other accommodation.

We met the Notary who had been appraised of the situation. He agreed to write a legal clause into the sales contract with a deadline of mid- March for the vendors to move out and a penalty of 100 Euros per day for every day they stayed over this.

In the UK vendor and buyer sign contracts with their personal solicitors which are then exchanged. Not so in Spain. Everyone involved in the transaction meets with the Notary. So, one hour later we found ourselves sitting at a huge oak table -me, Keith, the Bank Manager, the Estate Agent, the Translator, the Notary and the vendors. The Contract was read aloud in both English and Catalan. This was it ..last chance to change my mind! We wanted the house. The location was perfect. If we pulled out we lost our deposit. Prices were already starting to rise here…

Madness or not, we signed. The vendors then returned to what now was legally our house whilst we booked another night at the Hotel! The following day we flew back to England as the owners but not occupiers of a house in Spain! What had we done?