Country Article / Postcards

Bloomsday

Date: 06/15/2004

Dear Reader,

"Why would anyone do it?"

I had been detailing our efforts over the past two weeks as we continue to work to engineer our move from Waterford to Paris.

We found an apartment. Agreed a sale price with the owner. Returned to Paris a week later to sign the Promesse de Vente, the promise that she would sell and we would buy. Then the real work began.

We needed financing...which meant visits to three banks to shop rates and terms. We wanted to hold the apartment in an SCI, a French company, to mitigate the French tax and inheritance burdens...which meant a half-dozen calls to attorneys outside France (to advise on any non-French--that is, U.S.--implications) and another meeting with our French notaire.

It takes six weeks, typically, he told us, to form an SCI. But we didn't have six weeks. Our clock was ticking...and but two weeks remained until the date set for closing. Stephane (who, you can't help but notice, strongly resembles a young Pierce Brosnan) responded to my ever-more-frantic phone calls with a very non-French "no problem." We'd have the SCI in less than two weeks, he promised.

Ah...then...we were told...the mortgage offer couldn't be made until we had life insurance in France. And we couldn't arrange life insurance in France without medical tests. No time to do the tests in Ireland and courier over the results...so we arranged another last-minute trip to Paris...and an early-morning visit to the doctor of a friend who promised he'd have the test results to the insurance company by the end of the business day.

Ah...then...we were told...we needed a bank account in the name of the SCI. We had set one up in our own names, realizing we'd need an account number for the mortgage (which would be handled by direct-debit). But now we needed a second account in the company's name. And only five days to go until closing.

As of this writing, closing is two days away...we still have no bank account in the name of the SCI (though three friends are working to make this happen in the next 24 hours)...in fact, we have no confirmation of the existence of the SCI...though Stephane continues to tell us not to worry.

We do have tickets to Paris, for the closing on Friday.

More later.

Kathleen Peddicord
Publisher, International Living

P.S. Today is the 100th anniversary of Bloomsday, the day James Joyce's character had his tour round Dublin. Festivities are planned all day, all across the country, starting with a breakfast of nutty gizzards and mutton kidneys at the James Joyce Centre on George's Street in Dublin.

This day, like nearly every Irish event these days, has made me nostalgic.

Our house here in Waterford sold last week at auction. The new owners are a nice young couple from Dublin with a small son. We're leaving the place in good hands...but I can't help but begin to regret the going.

P.P.S. The question at the start of this letter was put to me by Bill Bonner, my friend and boss. Why would we put ourselves through this, he wondered aloud? Sure would be easier to stay put.

Bill, by the way, moved himself and his family (of six children) to France six years ago.

P.P.P.S. All the resources we're putting to the test as we feel our way through the process of buying an apartment in Paris (including our James Bond notaire) have come to us courtesy of our man on the ground in this city, Jocelyn Carnegie Reach him at ParisProperty@InternationalLiving.com