Well the day is finally here, we have had many ups and downs since February when we reserved the ruin at Haria. There were a couple of issues that had to be resolved before the purchase could be completed, the owner of the property had died and it had been left to his 7 children however they had not updated the escritura (deeds) with the will so this had to be done before they could sell the property. The other problem which we faced was that although the property was on a plot of 3500m there was only 1500m shown on the escritura. Having established that no-one else did have any rights to the land we decided to proceed with the sale but try to have the escritura updated after the sale – there is no guarantee that we will be able to have the extra land in writing which may affect reselling the property in the future. This house had always been the family home, the last time it changed hands was 1938, and the father had lived in the property before he died but it had been empty for approximately 10 years. The children are now all in their 70’s and during the months between reservation and sale one of them died which meant their children became part of the process and we were now dealing with 10 people for decisions regarding the sale.
I’m sitting here in the notary office, unfortunately Jenny & Norman couldn’t be with me as Jenny’s mum, my grandma had died suddenly and they had to fly back to arrange the funeral and estate. So I have the power of attorney for us all to sign, I’ve been to the bank and drawn out the money and I am waiting for the family to arrive and for us to go before the notary and sign a new escritura saying we own the property. I am approached by our lawyer Maria José, she tells me that there has been another problem, one of the brothers decided this week he was going to sell the property to someone else! She explains that they all need to agree in order for the sale to proceed and that the family were persuading him to go ahead with us instead of any further delays. Finally the draft escritura is produced and given to both sides to read and agree before we see the notary, I am told verbally that they are selling us the house and garden but not the boat? I am really perplexed by this what do they mean by the boat, and then it dawned on me they mean that they want the propellor from under the palm tree in the garden, I am told that they will have this removed the following week as it is very heavy.
The family have arrived and they completely fill the waiting area in the notary’s office, they seem to be divided into two groups, the local family are sitting in the office whilst the family that have flown in for the signing from the mainland are congregating outside. One man is passing back and two between the groups and later I discover that this is the person who wanted to sell to someone else – still working on them until the last possible minute.
Finally we are called in to see the notary, I have our lawyer and translator with me but I am completely outnumbered by the other side, usually there are two buyers and sellers, their lawyers and the notary so around 6 people in this office, today we have over 16 people in here, I am struggling to count them all. There are only seats for 8 so everyone else is squashed around the table standing over us, it is quite intimidating.
All of our id paperwork is checked, plus death certificates and birth certificates and the power of attorneys finally the notary is sure that the correct people are present and the escritura is read through, there was a scary moment when he asked if anyone had any questions or disagreed with the sale but they all nodded it was ok and we all signed the document. The money was paid, they had all insisted on separate payments so it took some time to pass the payments around and then it was done – we had actually bought the property!