Arrival

Our flights, car and accommodation were booked for a week’s holiday to south west France. However, this wasn’t going to be your usual holiday as it involved a trip to see the Mairie, Bank Manager, Notaire and local planners! Before we got there, we stayed and ate in what has become my favourite restaurant. It is near Thenac in Dogdogne and is an experience that should be had by everyone, at least once.   This was our second time here and this time we stayed the night in their chambre d’hotes and could therefore take more time over our meal.  Just don’t be put off by the simple website.

We then headed to our B&B in Montemboeuf.  The Lavender House  is amazing, you don’t have to take my word for it, have a look at their reviews on TripAdvisor.  Anyway, we took this time to visit our plot and take some more photos.  Driving there again after a about 6 weeks was quite nerve wracking.  Fortunately, as soon as I saw the plot again, this time in the sunshine, I knew that we had made the right decision!

The next day was spent visiting some of the local attractions.  There is quite a lot to do in the area, but a visit to Angoulême or La Rochefoucauld is definitely worth it.  We are both also training for the marathon du medoc so needed to go for a little run and what better place than the local leisure lakes!

That night, I think we both went to bed feeling knackered a little nervous – the next day was the day of the signing!

The big day

Armed with some outline sketches we visited the Mairie the next morning.  Unfortunately, he wasn’t in but it was still a good idea that we visited and made ourselves known.  The people in the office were very friendly and gave us the name of the local Direction Départementale de l’Equipement (DDE) who would be making the decision on our planning application or permis de construire. We contacted her and arranged a meeting for later that afternoon.

Next stop was a visit to our Bank Manager at Crédit Agricole to finalise the opening of our bank account.  They do require a lot of information from you, but it is fairly straight forward and not as bureaucratic as you might think.  Their head office is in a rather nondescript building on the outskirts of Angoulême, but they were very friendly and the meeting was conducted in English – the only thing that day that was.

Then on to Montbron to meet the Notaire to sign the compromis de vente!  This is basically the ‘contract of sale’ and legally binds together the seller and purchaser.  I will not go in to the finer details of this, but there is a lot of good information here.  We also had to pay a deposit of 10% of the purchase price, the rest will be paid when we complete.  It is important to know though, that when buying land there isn’t a seven day cooling off period like there is with houses.  The Notaire was very friendly (as was the land owner), but spoke in very quick (legal) French. Luckily Tom and our Estate Agent, Sandra understood it all and could explain the bits (all of it) where I got stuck!  I just tried to pick out the odd word that I knew and at least then I knew which part of the compromis de vente they were talking about, for example système d’égout or bourn.  We all (seller, Tom and I) had to then sign every page of the document and that was that!

As Tom has mentioned in the design page we did put in a ‘condition suspensive’ or conditional clause stating that we did not have to complete the purchase if we did not get our new certificat d’urbanisme (CU) which stated that we had permission to build up to 170sqm.  However, at this point the seller cannot pull out and neither can we unless the new CU doesn’t come through (and the planners said it was just a question of rubber stamping).  I think we can safely say the land is ours!

Next stop the planners!  Tom had prepared some early image/sketches of our initial ideas to show the planner. Tom was amazing and I think charmed her a little. He has gone in to more details of this on the design page. She was very receptive of our ideas and although she said she preferred traditional buildings, she did like to see original ones too!

Next stop – design time…..