Monday, October 19, 2009

Where's The Beef er ah Euros?

You know if you've been reading this blog for very long that we did finally sort of, kind of, maybe did...sell our little house (called appropriately The Little House) in Lignieres last August to a local person we will call "Madame". She who walked into the open garage, approached us and spoke in very rapid French to ask us if the house was for sale or had it been sold (a short review is necessary I believe to refresh all of our memories). Anyway, she finally got her point across to these two stupid Americans and we gave her the short, long and only tour of the little house, over inside 10 minutes. 4 rooms plus 2 pottys and a shower room...not much to show for all the affection it gave us during our 7 years of ownership. There it was and in a second after setting her foot outside the door she turned and said (in her native tongue so incomprehensable to us...almost anyway) "I'll take it". So here we were cleaning up her future house. Whoopee! The Little House is SOLD! Holy Cow!
Fellings of great joy and amazement as well as some lingering doubts came and went until a few days later when we met her again at the Notaire's office to sign papers and do all the things you do to give the keys over to someone else...eventually.
As I have said before the process is long (3 months to close is typical!) but not complicated as far as us personally...the notaire does whatever they do, other beaurucrats do their thing, the owner gathers the money and some day in the future there is a settlement date (in this case 15 October...last week infact) which is when the money is paid to us via the Notaire who got it that day from Madame (in this case). Well we have checked our fine French bank acount which is about 200 yards from the Notaires office in downtown Lignieres and no...there is no money in there that would represent said sale. Hummmm. To add to this story is the fact that our dear friend T is THERE, well...not THERE...but in Paris as I type this missive.
He's there to collect and retrieve (not the same thing these days) his hal of the proceeds of the sale. Doof! So he called us from Paris and a friend's apartment therein. All sorts of boundless confusion and questions. Friend has called someone and is asking questions to his requests from the Notaire or whomever will answer back. Doof! Friend got Waaaay to deep in the original buy of the Little House back in '01 and here we go again! Doof...double Doof! The notaire never answers an email and the phone rings off the hook as the office is always closed it seems. T has emailed him too to no avail. Stress, pain and we are putting off LIFE itself til this sale is completed and now we are 5 days PAST the settlement date. Doof! Time WILL tell but we are NOT pleased. Not at all.

____ POST SCRIPT follows:

The next morning. Email from daughter dearest says she called the Notaire to no avail as the phone number was wrong. Yes...I looked at...it is VERY wrong! No Country Code...no "33" in there to be found. Dialing into space. Doof! Oh well.
Then an email from T, nothing there either...like he wasn't there for the same reason our minds are. Doof! This is a joke isn't it?! Doof! Then about 10am, 7pm Lignieres time, a call from T saying the REAL date is now the 28th as some environmental report was forgotten (didn't we already pay for it and escort the gent around the place back in August...I seem to remember! Doof, doof, doof! Yea gads how screwed up is this going to be? Oh well...the 28th huh? So T is off to Venice to while away his time. Good idea...I'll go back to pulling my hair out.