Yesterday, we had to take the car in to Marcela’s Uncles Garage, and whilst it was there, we went off with the Owner (Don Pedro), of the house in Copacabana, and checked that there was no mortgage, he paid all his bills up to date, and gave us copies, we then went to the Notaries Office to see how we went about the sale, there is a problem, not insurmountable, and it is just clerical, the Deeds / Escritura, were fine when they were last sold on, but the new Registrar is insisting that all Deeds show the area of the plot, and these don’t.
The Official said that as there is a house shown on the plot, although not the one that is there now, which is only about 18 months old, she might let it go through, but that would then give us problems at a later date, when or if we wanted to sell, apparently it takes about three months for the Authority Surveyors to get out and do the measuring, and then the Deeds have to have an addendum, so we don’t know how long that can take.
We have been told that if all Parties agree, the Compra-Venta, can be drawn up and the sale go ahead, but only a portion of the money would be paid, until the new Deeds were ready for change in Registration. We are considering this at the moment, the Owner likewise; it turns out that he is not as poor as we thought, the Bank had advised him to liquidize some of his assets, because business was not that good last year, he owns a Bus Company, a Construction Business, and has irons in other fires. The decision is going to come down to how much he will accept as a down payment, and be prepared to wait for the rest, Marcela has decided it will definitely be less than a third, I doubt he will go for that, but she knows the ways of negotiating here, so I am taking a back seat on this one, it seems to be a case of ‘déja vu’ in reverse, after the problems I had in Spain.
Update: This morning we headed off and collected our Surveyor, along with Mother-in-law, Sister-in-law and Nephew, and headed up to the house, meeting up with the owner.
Whilst Marcela and the Surveyor went off to look around, I spent my time taking photos
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| Pool looks inviting! |
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| View from balcony |
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| View down the garden |
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| Another balcony view |
and looking for problems.
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| Modern wiring, but it all looks the same grade and a mess! |
In addition to the wiring, I found some cracks, running through tiles upstairs, and outside, I pointed these out to the Surveyor, and she said they were nothing to worry about, likewise with the big Mango tree immediately outside the house.
An Englishman in Colombia 