French property buying as she is not done

  Reading poor Piglet`s problems { I really feel for that girl) reminds me of the ups and downs we had in buying our house here. It was so long ago that it was priced in Francs (remember them) and the exchange rate was about ten francs to the Pound which was easy to calculate on the fingers of even a disnumerate like me (see my last blog )
  We had gone through the usual stages of Compromis ,approval by the agricultural people who stymied Piglets sale (they had a different initial then, why do French organisations change their initials so often?) and were nearly at the Acte de Vente stage. For those who don`t know this is a final meeting where everyone concerned gathers in the Notaire`s office, the contract is read out in full in case you can`t read, and most important the remaining 90 per cent of the sale price is handed over. The penalty for not having the finance are said to be severe and can result in the sale being cancelled and the vendor keeping the ten per cent, so it is vital that there`s no hitch.
  although we had the money to buy we had decided to have a loan from Credit Agricole, who seemed curiously amateur at the time and kept delaying confirmation and demanding yet more documents. They promised however that the loan would be at the Notaire`s office on the day, but Kim, wisely as it turned out had serious doubts.
 We decided to hedge our bets by taking the purchase price with us to the meeting and to ensure no snags we`d take it IN CASH in Francs. We arranged to draw the money from our Abbey National office in francs. The Manager had to have a special Securicor delivery just for us of 100,000ff. It made a surprisingly small package but I`ve never handled so much cash in my life. We had bought two money belts and split the sum between us for the ferry ride to France terrified that someone might steal it we never took them off
  Imagine us then at the meeting. The two Notaires were there the vendors, a lovely elderly French couple, our Immobiliers quite a croud  After the legal formalities had been dealt with. we asked the Notaire if Credit Ag had sent the loan as promised No,was the reply and everyone started to look extremely grave. Never mind we said we`ve got the money here and we turned out the contents of our belts onto the desk.
  We expected consternation but they didn`t turn a hair, split the money in two and started to count it. The vendors smiled and made clutching motions to take it with them there and then which the notaire forbad on security grounds. As for us we felt as if a load was lifted from our backs and I was never so glad to hand over money to someone responsible in my life!