First Pictures

Apparently this was taken today. You can see the double garage and the bedrooms behind that. Hervè has also sent me my first official invoice for the construction and an outrageouse quote for the electrics. I think I will be doing them myself.

Ohmri (my 7 year old son) and I are going to Morzine this weekend to see for myself. We are meeting the bank manager. Apparently when the Notaire said he wanted assuarance he didnt want my life assuarance he wanted building assuarance ! So I have to get this and send details to the Notaire quick so that I can pay Hervé!

I think we have movement

My spy on site tells me that some concrete has at last been poured. No photos yet but they have been promised.
Matt, a friend of Robs is staying in Robs Chalet and fixing it up. He has reported to Rob that some floor slab and walls have been poured.

In other news, about a week ago, the Notaire sent me my receipt for 11900 euros and a request for my assurance details. So off those go to the notaire in the hope that this might be the last thing they need.

Meeting the notaire, paying the notaire

My discussions with the Notaire resulted in the need to change the way we own the land before we can sign the mortgage agreement before we can have any money. Now in order to change the way we own the land all the owners have to sign the document. Before our holidays I arranged a meeting for all of us.
We have just returned from our holidays eager to discover what is going on as Hervè has promised an imminent start to the construction. Well as I said we now have a hole in the ground.

We arranged this visit to Morzine to coincide with Rob and Sharon being there. It is really hard to get all four of us in the same place at the same time but we all needed to sign the Notaire's documents in order to change the way we own the land.

In order to split the land between us we have to pay a fee. This fee is 7000 Euro's ! Each! Now I wanted to get an invoice from the Notaire and get the bank to pay this money after all I cant start building until the land is split, but no the notaire had other ideas. He wanted the money before he submit the documents so straight there he phoned the bank and spoke to Julian (a very nice chap, at the moment, who arranged my mortgage) Julian explained that no way could this fee be paid for out of the mortgage. Oopss.

Upshot is the Notaire allowed us all to sign the documents (thank god as getting us all together again would be a real nightmare and probably not possible for at least a couple of months) he is waiting for all his fees before he signs and submits the documents.

As well as the land split there was the actual mortgage agreement and that is going to cost us another 3900 Euros. Again I thought his could be invoiced and come out of the mortgage, OK that is perhaps a bit naive thinking that the mortgage would pay for its self (if you know what I mean) but now I have to come up with 11900 Euros!

Well, we moved all sorts of money about and sent the Notaire his 11900 yesterday so we should have our hands on the mortgage euros quite soon !

What with going on holiday and not getting paid whilst I am not working (contractor) and the moving money about we had to do to pay the Notaire we will be seriously skint this/next month.

...a hole in the ground. Luxury!

Well they have finally started. After 6 years we have a hole in the ground ! 

On your marks, get set.....

Well this is a busy site!
One post in January and the next is in June!

Well the good news is that finally My architects might be about to organize someone to start work on actually building my chalet. Next week !

I will believe it when I see it.

The money is very nearly sorted out. After over 6 months of wrangling I have finally sent the final (I hope) forms back to the bank and now have to sign a guarantee. The next problem is the guarantee. The notaire has written to us and is actually being proactive which is frankly amazing, he is asking if, because we jointly own the land do we wish to start proceedings to split the land. Well this is the day before I was going to phone him so now I can tell him yes.

We shall see how all that goes.

I have a meeting with Hervè (the architect) on Wednesday to discuss things and so that he can finally show me the construction drawings.

Keep you informed.

Money

The time has come to finally sort out the money side of things. We are getting a mortgage from Credit Agricole, a local branch there is sorting out the details. I have to find lots of documents and send them to the bank. One intresting thing was that they might be able to do us a loan in Swiss Francs with a lower intrest rate than Euros. Not sure how the repayments work out but if it comes off it should save us a bundle.

This is Robs chalet sometime in July 2004

First Post !!

This is the first post to this new blog. I have thought about this for a long time but never actually got round to doing something about it.

At some stage I will try to expalin the long story of how I got to where we are now. In the mean time I will say that a friend of mine, Rob, his wife, my wife and I all bought a piece of land in the French Ski resort of Morzine in the year 2000. It was our intention to build 2 chalets on this land, one each. Rob has at this time built his and is busy, when time permits fitting out the inside. My chalet should be built this year.