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Chapter 3

Buying French real estate

Real estate transactions in another country should be considered a matter of “assume nothing and ask questions about everything.” Buying our house seemed an easy enough task once we had found the one we wanted. We had spent two weeks in Nyons with a realtor looking through listings and visiting more than a dozen houses.

We became acquainted with stone ruins advertised as maison à restaurer, which meant that there was a lot of work to do and a lot of money to be spent. We had been warned about the amount of money involved in restoring an old stone house. “It’s cheaper to build a new house than restore a ruin,” was the advice. One house was built into a cliff face so that in rainy weather it offered its own running water across the floor. Another was a villa on the knoll of a hill with fabulous views. Then we noticed that all the trees leaned south from the force of the mistral wind. A delightful mas in the countryside had no water supply as the well had gone dry. It was understandably vacant.

Finally, on the flight home we decided to make an offer on a house sheltered on a southern hillside on the outskirts of Nyons. Marie-Hélène telephoned the realtor and then e-mails went back and forth without any documents being signed.

“Don’t we need to make a formal offer?” I asked the agent.

“No, it’s not necessary,” she said.

The next e-mail we received said that the vendor would leave the sinks, the toilets and the kitchen cupboards.

“But those things are fixtures and go with the house, don’t they?” I asked, astonished.

No, apparently not, at least not in France. We were told that when someone rents an apartment the tenant must install his or her own fixtures. A vacating tenant takes all fixtures.

“What about the doors and the light switches?” I wanted to know.

Well, those things do go with the house, but not the light fixtures, I was informed.

After some further negotiations, the price was agreed upon, but there had been no discussion about a deposit.

“We’ll get to that,” was the response.

Then two days later the tone changed. The e-mail read, “If you are serious about the house please send us a deposit of ten per cent of the price immediately.” We were to learn later that a rival offer had come in from another real estate agency. When we sent our money in the form of a bank draft drawn in euros, we knew we had crossed the line and were committed to owning a house in Provence.

Closing the purchase of property in France proved to be another new experience. Arriving at the office of the notaire to sign the papers, we met the realtor, Madame Joule, already there, waiting with the vendor. He was a retired civil servant, in fact the former tax collector for the village. We had been told that his career hadn’t made him very popular around Nyons. He was seated in the waiting room like an old curmudgeon and rose reluctantly to be introduced.

The notaire’s secretary appeared and showed us all into an office furnished with a few chairs and an oversized ornate Louis XIV desk. The notaire rose from his antique chair in a grand welcoming manner, shaking our hands. Then his secretary carried in a heavy, leather-bound tome, which she set on the desk in front of him already opened to the relevant page.

He put on his glasses and read the entire transaction aloud to us.

Did we have any questions?

I asked if we would receive a deed to the property. Of course not, was his reply. It was, after all, all recorded in the title book he had in front of him.

Was there a plan of the property I could see?

No, there wasn’t, the vendor said. It seemed that when the village expropriated a corner of the lot to put the road through no one had bothered to do a new plan. I saw the notaire take the cap off his fountain pen and make a notation in the margin of the tome.

At this juncture the vendor was showing signs of considerable agitation. “Why do you need a plan? After all, the property has a wall along one side and the rest is fenced. Isn’t that clear enough?”

I acquiesced to this assertion as there was nothing else to be done short of stopping the transaction. “Any other questions, Monsieur?” the notaire asked. We moved along to the signing of the documents.

We were all handed ball-point pens and the secretary moved the documents past us in succession, showing us where to sign. Madame Joule stayed at the side of the vendor and talked quietly to him to see that all went well. Once the papers were signed, the secretary gathered them up and left the room.

I had been expecting to see a statement of adjustments showing the use of the funds we had given to the notaire. Nothing had appeared.

“Do you have a statement for the funds?” I finally asked.

“Monsieur, that will be in the report that will be mailed to you in a few months.”

We were handed the keys.

The notaire stood up, indicating that the transaction was complete. The vendor remained seated and asked when he would receive his money. That would be in a few weeks, he was told. We all shook hands and filed out of the office.

Marie-Hélène and I had the keys and immediate possession of the house. It was now ours. So, giddy with expectation, we drove over, unlocked the front door and walked in. We looked around at the dusty rooms, peered out the dirty window panes and began to realize the amount of work we had ahead of us. The empty rooms echoed as we walked about. The realtor’s ‘À Vendre’ sign was still nailed to one of the shutters. We found some dust-covered tools the vendor had left behind and pried the sign loose.

That we were starting from scratch hadn’t fully occurred to us. We needed everything: beds, chairs, fridge, stove, dishwasher, cutlery and much more. As agreed, the toilets, sinks and the kitchen cabinets were still there. Fortunately, friends had lent us their house to stay in for the time being.

As every room in the house was wallpapered, we decided the bathrooms were the place to start. We bought scrapers and litre-sized spray bottles that we filled with water and used to soak the walls. The glue softened and we began to scrape and peel the paper. However, it only came away in small pieces. This proved intolerably slow considering the amount of wallpaper to be removed. Then I noticed a four-gallon garden sprayer that had been left behind in the garage. I filled it with hot water and sprayed a strip of wallpaper from floor to ceiling. The entire strip peeled away in a single piece. We began to make progress and moved on to other rooms.

Friends came and went, each contributing labour as well as moral support. They had looked at the condition of the house and knew we needed it. Their enthusiasm helped us continue. All the same, we knew that we had gotten ourselves into far more work than we had thought. Without their assistance we could easily have been overwhelmed and dispirited. We dug in and stayed at it.

Looking around the garden that first spring, I stopped to examine a pile of wood that was infested with a colony of large black ants. The house didn’t have a fireplace, so the wood had to go. There was too much to burn in the yard and I had no means of hauling it away. Our neighbour, an observant man, I came to learn, leaned over the fence just then and introduced himself as Monsieur Jean Drouin. We chatted amiably for a few minutes and then he asked, “What will you do with that wood?”

“I don’t know what to do with it. It’s infested with ants.”

“Pas de problème,” he said. “It’s olive wood and burns very well.”

I clued in. “Would you like the wood?” I asked.

In less than an hour we had moved it all over the fence and he had carried it to his garage. The wood and the colony of ants were gone and, with another problem solved, I breathed easier.

That spring I had returned to Vancouver and my law practice, leaving Marie-Hélène to finish stripping the wallpaper and painting. She had also been trying to put up curtain rods, in order to hang drapes. The walls were not wood-frame construction, however, but stone and concrete. The electrician had been using an industrial-sized hammer-drill for boring through the walls, which he lent her. The job involved holding a ten-pound drill that was two feet long at the top of a six-foot ladder. The vibration from the drill made a deafening noise and set everything shaking, including the ladder. When she put the drill down for a moment to rest, Marie-Hélène heard someone knocking. Covered in dust, she opened the front door. It was the neighbour’s wife, Suzette.

“Marie-Hélène, are you using an electric drill?”

Marie-Hélène nodded, “Oui.”

Suzette looked absolutely horrified. “Mais non! C’est un travail pour un homme! I’ll send my husband down immediately to help you. Please wait.”

A few minutes later Jean appeared. “Can I help in some way?”

They spent the day drilling holes in the stone walls, screwing curtain rods up and hanging drapes. That day a close friendship was established. Our neighbours had taken it upon themselves to look out for Marie-Hélène, and so they did. They asked her for dinners, took her away from her work for walks, and offered every type of assistance.

• • •

That first spring we made shopping trips for furniture and assorted other things to make the house liveable. Once we had the basic necessities like beds and kitchen appliances, we decided to furnish the house as much as possible with genuine provençal pieces. Their simple rustic craftsmanship has a relaxed elegance that immediately attracted our attention. We resisted the detailed and fine antiques, opting instead for furniture that could be used for day-to-day living. The wear and patina only added to their charm.

I came across a small oval-shaped keg with a long leather strap to carry it over a worker’s shoulder. He would have filled it with wine each morning which he drank over the course of his day working in the vineyard.

For pottery the village of Dieulefit just north of Nyons was the place to go. It had become a centre for potters because of the fine clay deposits nearby. We drove over to visit the pottery studios scattered along the streets. The variety was astonishing and some of the pieces so artistically made we sometimes bought just for the pleasure of owning them.

Some villages had Sunday marchés for antiques and a slew of other goods. We carefully searched through the junk spread out on the sidewalks, hoping to turn up a genuine piece that had been painted or damaged but was repairable. We began to understand that a lot of paint remover, steel wool and furniture wax can often bring back the finish of a unique table or chair made from a rare wood. The seller either couldn’t be bothered to do the work himself or didn’t recognize what he had for sale. Before buying the house, neither of us had ever guessed that treasure-hunting would become one of our most absorbing pastimes.

There are different qualities of used furniture outlets, selling anything from high-grade antiques to worthless junk. The antiquaires sell the real thing at prices that assure the buyer the piece is both genuine and valuable. Then there are the brocantes, selling a second tier of quality where old and increasingly rare provençal furniture is more likely to be found. We bought a chest of drawers with an inlaid wood pattern.

In the summer, villages hold vide-greniers where anyone can come and spread out their goods on makeshift benches or on the ground, to sell anything from old shoes to their grandmother’s linen and silver. Often our best buys came from these attic sales. I found a set of old boules still in their worn leather carrying case. Marie-Hélène picked out a two-seat wicker chaise.

We were told that the gypsies on the outskirts of Nyons were good at recaning. Marie-Hélène drove over to their encampment with the chaise and returned the next week to pick it up. The man had done an excellent job, but when she handed him a fifty-euro banknote he had to call his son over to give her the correct change. He couldn’t add or subtract.

On weekends the village marchés aux puces are places to buy smaller things like bric-a-brac. We tried the trocs that sell furniture nobody wants, hoping to find some misplaced bargain, but gave up on their inventories of junk after a few visits.

Never knowing from week to week what might turn up, we returned now and then to L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue. It is by far the best hunting ground for antiques in the area, and is the second-largest market in France. The merchants share large buildings and their pieces arrive and sell daily. To hesitate buying something expecting to return the next week is to miss out. In all likelihood it will already be on its way to New York or San Francisco by air freight, or in a van operated by Hunter’s Humpers headed for England. I couldn’t help but think that at the rate these pieces were selling it was highly unlikely Provence would have any provençal furniture left in a few years.

It was at L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue that we found the bistrot Chez Nane, where we lunched during our Sunday quests for antiques. Located at the back of one of the buildings, it is frequented by the brocanteurs. The food is simple French bistrot fare, but the patio is trellised and covered with vines. On one side, fish and ducks swim by in the canal. The shaded setting with clusters of grapes hanging over the tables offers a delightful escape from the frenetic Sunday market. In all likelihood the person we had been negotiating with an hour earlier would arrive and nod and wish us bon appétit before joining friends at a nearby table reserved for them.

We decided we needed French provençal chairs for our dining room. We hadn’t had much success until we noticed a set of seven in one of the stalls. This was a rare find. The brocanteur wasn’t there; the fellow at the stall across the aisle said she would return in a few minutes. We waited, but after some time she still hadn’t returned so we discussed moving on. He saw that we might do so and came over.

“She won’t take less than two hundred and ninety euros for all seven,” he said, asserting his expertise.

Marie-Hélène and I glanced at each other. We had been ready to pay more than that. The price marked on the chairs was four hundred and eighty. I looked at the fellow and feigned some concern.

“We could pay two hundred and fifty, but we can’t wait any longer. Can you help us?”

“Beh oui. Je pense,” he replied.

I paid him while Marie-Hélène brought the car around and folded the back seats down. Just as we had loaded the last chair in the hatch of the car a woman came by and stopped.

“Those are my chairs!”

“Oh yes,” I said. “The fellow in the next stall looked after it for you and we paid him.”

She went off to see him, while we closed the hatch door and headed for home.

• • •

Our drives took us an hour north on the A7 Autoroute to Valence for shopping in the boutiques, to Barjac situated deep in the Massif Central for a giant outdoor spring antique market, and an hour and a half south-west on the A9 Autoroute to Nîmes to see the Jardin de la Fontaine and the best-preserved Roman amphitheatre in France. Nearby, the massive 275-metre-long Pont du Gard, part of the aqueduct that the Romans built to supply water to Nîmes some two thousand years ago, rises almost 50 metres over the Gard River.

In Nîmes and Arles, ferias with bullfights are still held each year, although they are less violent than they once were. The bullfighters are unarmed, and their goal is not to kill the bull but to snatch the ribbons off its horns. On the other hand, the bull is free to do all the damage it can. Angered bulls have been known to pursue their tormentors over the arena barrier and up into the stands amid terrified fleeing spectators.

We were walking past the amphitheatre in Nîmes when I couldn’t resist telling Marie-Hélène a story about a man visiting a city in Spain known for its more traditional bullfights.

“He had an introduction from a friend to a very good restaurant in Barcelona. The maître d’hôtel welcomed him warmly when he arrived and showed him to an excellent table. The man accepted the suggestion of the waiter for the dinner. When the maître d’ returned at the end of the meal to ask if he had found the dinner to his satisfaction, the man said it was excellent, but he noticed that someone at the next table had what looked like a very unusual dish.”

I glanced at Marie-Hélène to see if she was listening, and then went on.

“‘Can you tell me what that dish was?’ ‘I most certainly can, monsieur; it was bull’s testicles.’ The man was very interested now, so he asked, ‘I would like to return tomorrow evening and try that. Would it be possible?’ The maître d’ said he would do his best. So the man returned the next evening and as promised the dish he requested arrived and the man ate it. Once again, the maître d’ returned after the meal and asked if he had enjoyed it. ‘Yes I did, but I noticed they were much smaller than the ones you served the other gentleman last night.’ ‘Well, that is true, monsieur. . . . You see, some days the bullfighter wins, and other days he does not.’”

• • •

While Marie-Hélène is fluent in French and has a natural grasp of dialects, I had learned the language in university and could read, write and speak reasonably well—or so I thought. I began to realize that I had a very small vocabulary and that my pronunciation was apparently abysmal. I learned this when the gardener turned to Marie-Hélène and asked, “What did he say?” . . . The French language was going to be a challenge for me.

The Parisian French taught in classrooms does not apply in Provence, where the words run together into short sentences that are delivered with a staccato efficiency. Furthermore, I was faced with a dialect and a mixture of old provençal words not found in dictionaries. I was forced to resort to more basic communication—that international language of gesticulating combined with exaggerated facial expressions. So body language took over, and before long I found myself interpreting gestures, the roll of the eyes, and where a finger was pointed. When Albin pointed at a tool and said marteau a second time, I reached for the hammer. Before too long the words began to fall into place. Dealing with artisans, however, is easier as there is something to point at. Social conversation is different again. I learned to hear the nouns first and to fill in the words in between later.

I learned ‘bof’ quickly enough, as it summarized our gardener’s rejection of one of my gardening ideas. It often accompanied or was used in place of a dismissive shrug. ‘Merde’ was a categorical dismissal mixed with hints of contempt.

With Albin ‘oui’ became voui, and ‘vingt et un’ became vantay ay eon.

‘Pas d’accord’ meant strong disagreement, while ‘beh voui’ seemed to indicate agreement or at least the acceptance of a suggestion.

I had a lingering fear of mistaking the meaning of just one word and it leading to mirth, personal embarrassment or some more serious blunder. I learned there can be a subtle difference in the sounds of two words, but a serious difference in meaning. Baiser means either to kiss or to make love, baisser to lower. Poisson is a fish and poison is poison. It was wise to stay away from some words.

The garden took up much of my time. One day I was working on one of the last areas that needed weeding. Long before a motorcycle appeared in sight, I could hear the deep thrum of a powerful engine. I looked up from the rosemary shrub I was pruning, my nose filled with its sharp, resinous scent. The machine came into view as it rounded the bend in the road and I recognized the black cycle and the rider in black leathers and helmet. While I couldn’t see his face through the tinted visor I detected a nod of his head and I raised my hand in response.

The motorcyclist continued on by, and then a hundred metres up the road he slowed, moved to the edge of the road and then swung across to make the sharp turn up the driveway to Faustin Buisson’s house. Last year I had become familiar with the thrum of this engine and the cautious approach the rider made on the road. I assumed that he must be Faustin’s son. In time I learned that he had moved to Aix-en-Provence to find employment. The family farm was far too small to support him and he probably wanted to get away and explore new opportunities not available in Nyons, as so many other youths had done. Like his father, he arrived alone and left alone. However, that was soon to change, and we were to see more of him that summer.