I Think I Have Sold My House In Spain

Today I couldn’t have had better news, no no, not a new posting to some tropical island in the pacific. I got a mail from my Realtor in Spain who has been selling my house for me over the last 3 years, saying that someone is making and offer on it. This has been a long and torrid tale of unbelievable Spanish paperwork and dogmatic endeavours from my realtor (estate agent for the brits). I left Spain almost 3 years ago and I put up my house with the local realtor who I bought it off a year before, it was a spontaneous buy which afterwards I regretted. The weather in southern Spain is not what you would expect. In the summer it is roastingly hot upwards of 40+, it is basically a desert, an extension of the Sahara and the houses there are not really built for that weather, the main bedroom was downstairs to keep away from the heat and still was chokingly hot. But when I was there in the winter of 2001, it was freezing with frosty mornings and bitter winds and again the house is built for that weather also, it was like an ice box. The house needed a proper cavity wall insulation and air conditioning for the heat but didn’t have either. So I was disappointed and looked for pastures new. I never thought it would take 3 years to sell, the problem was it had no garage and was up a hill and again no garden and that put off all the brits, they love a little bit of grass, not that it will grow in the deserts of Andalucía. So I did sell to some stupid young brits who were going to live the life of some runaways , he was going to pick olives and she was going to “do nails”, what a pair of losers, well we had a 6 month time limit to the contract and they paid they deposit and I left for Costa Rica. Well the paperwork was just bogged down in the endless tunnels of the mysterious ministries and after the allotted time they pulled out saying they wouldn’t wait that long and again the house was still empty. Another year passed and then I got the news the paperwork was finally on the notary’s desk for signing and there it sat for another year. So a couple of months ago I was told it had been signed and it was actually going on the market, and today 3 years later and 25,000 Euros more it has had an offer of sorts, they are going to apply for a mortgage and then if it is approved I have to go for a holiday to Spain to pick up the cash sort of and sign my name on the dotted line to say I am happy to get rid of the unliveable ice box and sauna all rolled into one. I had such great plans for it, I was going to install a solar hot water heating system as it shines all year round in that desert and I was going to strip off the roof and put on an extra room, for guests to sleep in the summer and perhaps eating breakfast while overlooking the valley it was situated in, it was in a very nice area up in the mountains just back from the Mediterranean, and infront of the sunroom/breakfast room I was going to put a large patio. It would have cost a lot but would have made it into a very nice place. So I am now deciding what to spend the money on and all that extra money as it has appreciated over the last 3 years. Perhaps a new chevy Tahoe and drive it all the way from Arizona to Costa Rica, cost $33,000 or perhaps a Dodge 3500 truck but knowing me I will end up with a 30 year old jeep costing about $250.