4 July 2011
When you close the deal on the purchase of a property abroad it’s the biggest, most exciting and satisfying part of all. In particular I knew I was doing the right thing because I was following a sensible approach which gave me full confidence that I was buying the ideal holiday home for my family. Now I’ll tell you some important steps I followed or wish I’d followed when I bought my overseas property.
What’s the biggest concern when buying a property? It’s the uncertainty factor.
It is twice as big when the property is abroad because on top of all the usual worries you don’t know the law of the land, you can’t speak the language well (or at all) and you won’t be there in person if you are needed or even to collect the keys. Oh, and have you read about those property nightmares in foreign countries? For example where the property developer ‘forgot’ to get permission to build from the local government office, so someone bought a house that was bulldozed a couple of years later. Believe me, you really don’t want to be involved with absent minded property developers.
A lot of what I have told you so far is about addressing that uncertainty. I told you to do your research, plan your viewings and remember I said to collect as much information about the property developer as possible when you view a property abroad. It’s so that you have the means to give them a proper shake down before you commit to anything.
I got lawyers involved. Make sure you use a reputable firm, based in the country you plan to invest in. I told them that I was planning to buy a property, gave them the address and told them who the developer was. I asked them to check out it’s legitimacy and they did an excellent job.
Before I put down a holding deposit for the property I knew that planning permission had been correctly requested and granted. I also knew that the developer had been around for a good few years, they had completed a number of builds all over Bulgaria including some high profile ones and they had a clean legal history. For me this kind of information was well worth paying for and it was the final trigger that gave me the green light.
So I contacted the developer directly since I wasn’t using an estate agent and told them that I wanted to put in an offer to buy. I asked them to let me know what the terms were. I already had them for the estate agents that I was in contact with because I collected them when I was planning to view properties in another country and thinking it over now I should have got hold of the developers’ ones as well. Certainly before I got solicitors involved. Anyhow, it took a few emails to beat out the fine details because they were willing to accommodate for my specific financial arrangements. For example I was able to choose how much I was going to pay in cash and how much with a mortgage. I was also able to choose when and how much the instalments for the cash part of the transaction were. I made sure the last instalment was paid just a few days before I was going to use my new apartment for the first time. And as expected from a reputable firm, eventually they sent me terms and the sale contract in Bulgarian with an English translation.
One final review of the documents by my solicitor was duly followed by a money transfer abroad using a carefully chosen foreign exchange service (a good one will save you a lot of money). About six months after I made the first payment I was walking through the door of my newly built holiday home.
