Not a great night's sleep. Both of us had the possible sale going round in our heads.
We had planned to go to La Jonquera in Spain for haircuts and lunch, but when we finally got hold of Tentacion we were told we'd have to wait until Thursday. Nor could we do the contra-visite for the Control Technique which the car had failed last week. We'd fixed what we need to, but will have to wait until tomorrow for the recheck.
After a quiet coffee at Le Pablo to fill in the time while our purchasers were checking out the apartment again, we wandered back through the square only to bump into them. They looked very cheerful, and said to us "see you tomorrow with Valerie". We had a quick and inconclusive chat while wondering what they meant. It was pouring with rain so we decided to duck into Quattrocento and have an easy 'menu de jour' and came back to an email from Valerie saying "The apartment is SOLD!". They'd offered full price with no strings. We couldn't believe it. It had all happened far too quickly to comprehend it.
Valerie came and saw us in the early afternoon. They'd apparently loved it from the moment they saw it online. Even before they viewed it Valerie had two other buyers who were keen, so the American couple wanted to seal the deal asap, and thus offered full price. We are very happy. All we have to do now is to negotiate the building/contents split, and how we get paid for both. We want the price for selling the apartment itself as low as possible, and the chattels as high as possible. The way it is sorted potentially makes thousands of dollars of difference to the capital gains tax we will pay, also potentially the agent's fees.
We slept better, though many things were going round in our heads! At 10:30 in the morning Valerie, Patrick and Lucy came up to our apartment to sign the offer. We spent quite some time making sure that we could separate the contents from the apartment, but it turns out that today is merely the offer, and not yet the first of the 2 main legal documents - the Compromis de Vente. So we signed up and that was that. A great relief, though we are somewhat unconvinced that Valerie has got everything right yet. We all kept talking for quite some time, and after Valerie finally stopped talking we invited Patrick and Lucy to apero later so we could take them through the apartment in more detail.
Next step was to turn round Valerie's sign from A Vendre to Vendu!
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| VENDU |
Around lunchtime we headed out to view the Paris Olympic Torch Relay, which is currently touring in our region. It was quite a spectacle. The torch itself was a bit of a fizzer with a pathetic little flame, but the entourage was spectacular. There were 9 large blue tinted-out police vans full of gendarmes, countless motorcycle riders and other security, and a number of sponsors' floats. The torch bearer was surrounded by over a dozen security "runners" without visible weapons, but with bulletproof vests, comms gear, dark glasses and some with funny little backpacks that presumably held guns or tasers. The security in Paris must be a total nightmare for the police.
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| The torch bearer. Note the guards in grey, with bulletproof vests |
