Monday, December 28, 2009

Auguri per Natale e Buon Anno

I hope everyone had a good Xmas. I am already thinking of New Years resolutions one of which has to be to do  more exercise after eating too much as ever over Xmas.
  The weather now seems to have changed to warm and wet with the resulting problems of flooding and landslip. I hope everyone manages to escape these natural disasters without mishap. I will be visiting the house next week and with any luck it will remain unscathed by the weather.

Thursday, December 10, 2009

Will the earth move for you?

We have just got back from seeing the progress of the work on the house. It doesnt look like that much progress has been made but in fact a lot of the work is not visible and will not be visible once the house is finished.  There are lots of steel bolts in the first floor which will strengthen the floor and steel beams and reinforced concrete which will mean that, when finished, the house should withstand an earthquake! Let hope it never needs to.
New Terracing
Having seen the original foundations I can now understand why the old house had a few cracks in it. Work has also started on the new terracing where the old drive was which will join up with the infinity pool and the garage which is going under the garden and on top of which we will be planting an old olive tree. The builders have also made good the road which a few weeks ago was impassible. But there is still a lot to do!!!

Friday, December 4, 2009

Strange goings on with notaries and mortgages.

We are almost ready to finalise the mortgage on the house and thereby have enough funds to complete the building work!! It has taken so long because the previous owners had not asked their bank to remove the old ”ipoteca” which their bank had on the house even though they had repaid their mortgage, this took 3 months. The notary also discovered there were some old ‘subalterni’ still registered at the castasto which needed cancelling. I am not sure exactly what these are  but apparently they date back even before the previous owner so i am not sure why they were only discovered now?
And finally aparently it is required in order to do the mortgage that I declare that I am celibe (single) I cannot not do this myself in front of the notary but need a declaration from the commune where I am resident (Castelnuovo Magra) that I am single. Only they can do this. This seems very odd to me as the information that I am single I gave them in the first place but they are the only people who can do it and it is no use arguing. So next week I will visit the Commune to get this declaration in order to proceed.Lets hope it is that simple…..