Initiation To The Vendee
I have been passing through or around the Vendée for many years on various forages into the French countryside without realising it was the Vendée. Usually when you are on holiday you will be following a map with the intention of getting somewhere and completely missing large chunks of interesting places. When in 1996 my sister inherited a bit of money she realised a long standing dream to live in France. Through a local agent in Somerset who had a contact in France she eventually found a rundown house in South Vendee. How and why she ended up there is a mystery.
With her husband they started to refurbish the house, but due to fate and various circumstances they didn't get very far and the place started to return to the way it was - rundown. I bought the house from my brother-in-law in February 2001 partly as a challenge - to finish off what my sister started - and partly to help my brother-in-law who was finding it all too much.
After chasing around by post and on the telephone from October 2000 when I originally agreed to try and help sell the place, I eventually managed to contact the notaire local to the property who had dealt with it's sale to my sister in 1996, but by this time the interested purchaser had backed out, so taking a large intake of breath I arranged with my brother-in-law to buy it myself. The notaire passed on the telephone number of the agent who originally sold the house. I had made contact. This was a big step as I really couldn't do anything without help as my french is rudimentary to say the least and french law is light years away.
Jeremy Lageard from www.agencemelusine.com was my saviour. He e-mailed me what to do and contacted the notaire for me. The notaire sent me some proxy forms and I faxed them back complete with copies of mine and my wife's passports and birth and marriage certificates and he prepared the documents. I arranged the money to be sent to the notaire's bank and he signed the forms on our behalf. We are now the owners of the house. Facile n'est pas.
The next step was to visit the place which we hadn't seen for over four years. Jeremy said although the front door had been left open since my brother-in-law had left two years before, he thought it could be habitable. He arranged to have the electricity and water reconnected for our visit the following week.