Buying Our Spanish home

The Agent contacted us (knowing we really wanted it) to tell us we could have it, for the price we had agreed, and that we could take over from the buyer's solicitor as most of the legal work was completed and this would mean we could have possession far quicker.

We agreed immediately, but our concern then was the question of the timing of the completion of our own sale.

Everything looked good, but we received a call on the day of completion, to say our completion would have to be delayed a further 4 days, as there was a chain involved and the first-time buyer had simply given his solicitor a cheque instead of a banker's draft.

So, the delay was to allow time for that cheque to be cleared. But we had committed ourselves to pay the next day for our own purchase and could not proceed without having the funds. At that time, no sale could be considered certain until the after the completion, and our buyers had worried us earlier about the completion date.

I was so annoyed, I took a chance and told our solicitor to inform our buyer, that if they failed to complete on that day, I would withdraw our house and put it on the market the following Spring. Our solicitor said he thought we would lose the sale, as he believed it was no longer possible to be done on that day.

Trudy and I spent the rest of that morning walking around Puerto Banus feeling rather on edge. By about 2:00pm we decided to have something to eat, Trudy suggested I should check my mobile phone as we had not heard it ring.

To my surprise I found about three missed calls from our solicitor, so I immediately called him. He told me he did not know how, but our buyer had completed! We then had a couple of weeks to leave Birmingham and a few days longer to move into La Alcazaba. The relief was enormous, and I ordered some Cava to celebrate.

We had spent a lot of time planning what possessions should be for Spain and these were transported to arrive about 4 days after we moved in.

All the other items for Switzerland were put into storage. This was because Josephine had not found a suitable flat and we did not know how long it would be before we could complete our Swiss purchase.

The next shock was that having got the keys for our flat we found the last owners had left everything in it, even their personal things, like wine, food and even their toiletries were still in the bathroom! Our large delivery from Birmingham of furniture and various possessions was due in a couple of days and there was nowhere to put it all.

Panic set in, we had to get rid of so many things we did not want and quickly! We did it just in time and we were then able to unpack and enjoy being there. Mum and Dad were so pleased we had come to be so near to them, as we were too.


Emigrated to Spain & Switzerland

Because we eventually emigrated to live in Switzerland and Spain, we gradually found ourselves a new circle of friends.

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