The next step (to perdition).....

Part Two

I spent a lot of the winter trawling ‘daft. Ie’ and other sites, and by springtime I was ready for round two. Emails had been sent to several estate agents – and many remained unanswered. There seemed to be a subtext “ it’s all on the website, get off yer arse and find out for yourself”. So I did.

Himself in tow, we once again headed west. This time I was organised and made a systematic raid on every estate agent in the area.

On returning to one, I lurked about the desk while Mrs Rottweiler (not the dragon, a different dragon…) persistently ignored me. A fella came in with some paperwork, bemoaning the state of things and declared that the only thing keeping them going was English buyers with cash. Emboldened, I repeated what I was still looking for and was informed “sure you’ll never get anything for that price out there” as the lady rottweiler glared meaningfully at the door.

Later (having taken comfort in carbohydrate, fat, sugar and caffeine…) and armed once again with a sheaf of papers, we began.

Now I’m not averse to a bit of manual labour, but when the estate agents blurb states ‘would suit someone who likes a challenge’ you know things are going to get interesting. I parked up in a gorse bush and surveyed the view. Not too bad at all! Once Himself had extricated himself from the foliage, we set off down the track. This was a ‘pre estate agent’ viewing, to see if the house had potential. There was a very definite air of recent (and possibly distressed?) livestock on the track, which clearly doubled as a stream in bad weather. The cottage was on a rock to the left. I noted that the absence of chimneys was unusual – in a cottage. It is not however, unusual in a stable or cowshed! There were doors and windows (well, there were holes for them). There was even an upstairs, accessible via the stone steps outside (if you didn’t mind the brambles). Undoubtedly there was a lot of work to be done, possibly involving dynamite and napalm.

Out of curiosity we explored further down the track, wanting a look at another cottage which had apparently just been sold. The pictures on the website featured a track through undergrowth and shrubbery, a glimpse of a drunken roof and chimneys and a selection of wrecked cars in equally wrecked stone sheds. The reality didn’t disappoint.

At this stage I had learned to take the estate agent’s fulsome descriptions with a kidney shrivelling pinch of salt, and also to take note of how long a property had been hanging around for. Most seemed to be in for the long haul and were often listed with several different agents at different prices. Some claimed to be simultaneously for sale, under offer, sale agreed and sold….. you choose!

One helpful gentleman took us on a tour of assorted ruins and wrecks in the area. As we scrambled through gorse, clambered over fallen stone walls and barbed wire (ummmm….. are we actually supposed to be here? Will there be a man with a shotgun?) and kicked water swollen doors, we asked things like ‘where’s the septic tank?’ (this was to become a refrain through the whole process) ‘how long has it been unoccupied?’ ‘is there a dispute over the estate?’ ‘how much?’ and even ‘where’s the body???’.

The answers were few and far between. We were however assured that building labour is virtually free in Ireland these days, so desperate are the builders for work, and that the rising damp, bowing walls and sagging roofs would be “no problem at all” to fix up. Er, ok…. Next?

On attempting to visit one agent, we found the door locked, despite the fact there was a fella inside toasting himself on a heater while we shivered in the drizzle. We tried the door a couple of times before deciding to give up. It was only at this point that yer man shifted himself and opened the door. Apparently he’d come in the back way and forgotten to unlock the front. Clearly not expecting a big rush then.

I once again went through the spiel of what I was after, carefully explaining that I was a cash buyer. He then spent the next ten minutes carefully explaining to me that they only accepted cash buyers. Something had been lost in translation. He wasn’t hopeful of being able to offer me anything, and told us that everything they had was in the window (so get out of my office and stop annoying me) as he settled his bum onto the shiny repro desk….which collapsed.  I studiously regarded my feet in an effort not to wet myself laughing and the pair of us made as graceful an exit as we could. Himself swore the office had been thick with the smell of last night’s drink, I hadn’t noticed, my attention being elsewhere.

There was one cottage which had genuine potential. Right location, near enough right price, pretty good condition.

Once again an appointment was made with the diminutive estate agent. Now the property was quirky, you had to walk through one bedroom to get to the other and the third was accessed by outside steps, or a hole in the floor and a ladder from the utility room. But I liked it.

The only unanswered question (here we go again…..) ‘where’s the septic tank?’.

Ummmm…. I’m sure there is one, over there somewhere… sure it will be no bother….

Anyway, I was interested. The agent maybe noticed I wasn’t sprinting down the road, so collared me in an outbuilding. I was told there was someone coming over from England the following week to look at the cottage, they’d been very interested last year but the price was too high, now it was reduced. Then there was this other couple, their offer of XXXk had been accepted. They had their mortgage sorted… but the vendor wanted 20k in cash to avoid CGT, and the bank wouldn’t hand over 20k in used notes (or new ones even)… no, the house hadn’t been surveyed (so how did they get their mortgage then???), the upshot was, they lost the house.

Now at this point I was feeling a little twitchy, but with the horrified fascination of someone watching a car crash I heard myself saying ‘so how does that work then?’. Hypothetically (of course), if I made an offer and it was accepted (verbally) I then handed the readies to the estate agent, presumably in a brown envelope… and the sale would proceed with the declared figure 20k less. On completion I would give the agent the nod and the cash would be passed on. No receipts of course. The poor creature found it very stressful holding that amount of cash on the premises….

I don’t know if the change in atmosphere was noticed… We departed in stunned silence (yes, Himself had heard most of the offending exchange).

By the time we got back to our friend’s house where we were staying, I was a little wound up. The house was great, the best I’d seen, but what the hell was going on? We all chatted a while and I was told the story of the vendor and the buyer and the agent. The buyer made an offer through the agent, the agent then informed the buyer that the offer had been accepted. Presumably the buyer was pleased. Then, by accident, the buyer and the vendor met up, They got to chatting and it transpired that there was a significant difference between what the buyer was paying and what the vendor thought he was receiving, not in a good way. So they went to have a little chat with the agent… Now perhaps this is just a rural myth, but it was enough to worry me a bit. I decided the best thing would be to speak to the vendors. This being the arse end of the back of beyond, it wasn’t too difficult to track down a phone number. Acting as my agent and frontwoman, my mate made the call. Now I’m not saying that she was indiscreet, but somehow the vendors got the impression that I thought the agent couldn’t be trusted with a dry cowpat.

This resulted in a rather offended call from said agent the following day. I politely explained that I hadn’t personally spoken to the vendor, but I was very anxious to resolve the issue of the septic tank (insert expletive of your choice). This dragged on and on. In the middle of the meantime we were driven around the countryside to view a couple of wildly expensive and hopelessly inappropriate holiday homes. The trouble with holiday homes is that they are built for the summer and take no account of heating, and how much it will cost you to heat that cathedral like ceiling in the winter. We even did a last minute private viewing of a property in the dark, It may have been lovely, who knows, I couldn’t see most of it. Then there was the place in the bog between the mountains. It wasn’t officially for sale, but the previous incumbent has shuffled off his mortal coil and his estranged wife was keen to be rid of it. I think he was still living there! As he had a reputation for being rather irascible I didn’t fancy joining him. I had no difficulty at all picturing myself sat in the crepuscular gloom nursing a shotgun and a bottle of whisky at three in the morning (or any other time). The place came with a sentry box down the track, and a half built wooden shack whose ownership was under dispute. A number of locals helpfully wanted to sell me building plots (no planning included).

Back to the cottage then. Eventually I asked the vendor for their bottom line, and then offered it to them. THEN I called the agent and said I’d made an offer. In tones of strangulated apoplexy “did you tell them how much????” I could hear shorty’s blood pressure rising over the phone! Well yes, of course I did, otherwise what would be the point? I mean, I wasn’t trying to exclude the agent, just keep everything out in the open. I think that was an abrupt and painful end to a beautiful relationship….

The offer was accepted, my solicitor then had apoplexy himself and ran through a seemingly endless list of the potential problems with old houses. Everything from ceiling height not meeting building regs (how much does it cost to raise the roof? Well you could leave the gas on….?) to the run off for the putative septic tank (probably into a neighbouring swamp) and everything else in between.

Disspirited, worried but strangely exhilarated I returned over the water and made contact with a local surveyor. My solicitor had told me the agent would be looking for a deposit pretty rapidly. When this didn’t happen and I wasn’t getting any response to my mails I got more worried. So I contacted the vendors, who contacted the agent, who sent me a snotogram. The conclusion of all of this was that I was only a pawn in shorty’s game to get the price up, as I was gazumped! The only bloody house in the whole of bloody Ireland that has two cash buyers interested! That ought to make headlines! You know, I don’t think shorty likes me? Small consolation, both my surveyor and solicitor reckoned I was well out of it.