Forms always make me panic, reducing me to such a state that I can’t recall the simplest of facts. I manage to inverse my names, misspell my place of birth and plead guilty to any crime before it is even mentioned. Therefore to be confronted with a preliminary contract to buy a house and to be expected to hand over a deposit of forty thousand euros, which incidentally, I didn’t have in my bank account, was a living nightmare. My husband’s face mirrored my panic. How were we going to get out of this tricky situation honourably?

Luckily for us, I remembered that the French love using the Anglo-Saxon word "timing". I needed it big time to help us out here. "Nous avons vraiment un problème avec LE TIMING". I proffered. This was indeed true. We saw the house Saturday morning, phoned to say we were seriously interested in the evening, and here we were on the Tuesday expected to sign a compromise de vente. The over eager estate agent had to agree that "le timing" was "limite". Once I had introduced him to this notion I quickly supported it with other problems like our earliest meeting with the bank to get a deposit was for the Friday several days after, and the biggest problem, which he had chosen to ignore, was that we had yet to sign a compromis with our buyers. Unfortunately for me, the vendors arrived at this very moment to get on with important work of signing, so my excuses were abruptly brushed aside.

To compound our embarrassment and probable disgrace, the vendor moved with great difficulty on crutches, so the whole operation was obviously very painful for him. Undeterred, the zealous agent distributed copies of the dreaded document and the reading began.

The French love their paperwork and this weighty document does them justice. The first three pages were devoted to a description of who the different parties were. I had wondered why we had been asked to fax copies of passports and birth certificates so it was no real surprise to see it all. Our lives were remarkably simple to sum up as we had been married for over 30 years. However, I seemed to have been born in Cortishall in Nowfalk, and my husband in Tonbege Wells. From then on, the reading resembled a "spot the error" competition, which helped enormously to relieve the situation. As the vendors were Dutch with unpronounceable names, they were happy to join in adding their own corrections. This, coupled with the fact that all four of us spoke English better than French helped to promote a feeling of camaraderie. We were able to help each other out and to my relief we were bonding nicely. This was going to prove vital later I told myself.

Like an animal cornered in a trap I decided not to go down without a fight. I was ready to attack which meant that I was on the look out for flaws in this document. I was also basically uneasy about signing without the presence of my notaire. I had heard that this was the modern way to speed things up, but exactly how legal was it? I didn’t feel comfortable at all.
In fact, I didn’t have long to wait because one of the vendors was not actually present. I seized upon this fact in delight. The agent tried to belittle the fact that madame x had chosen to stay in Phoenix as she couldn’t stand France. It had been agreed that the document would be taken to her for signing later. I however, had seen the light at the end of the tunnel. Where was the mandate, the procuration for her signature? I was really fired up now and made it obvious that before signing I would have to inform my notaire of this irregularity…….salvation!

Further on in the compromis, annexes were produced showing the architect’s original plan in Dutch and the French translation. There were also copies of the planning permission and declaration of building work. However, warning bells rang in my mind. The house had appealed to us because it was so wacky. Was the end result actually approved as conforming to the original plan? I knew there should have been a final certificate. Apparently there was but this had been omitted…..another point to me.

Inexorably, the reading continued until it came to our part regarding deposit and completion dates. There was no beating about the bush; we were just not in a position to proceed. However much we wanted to buy the house we could not raise the deposit until we had signed the compromis with our buyers and they still had not sold their house; the typical chain scenario.

Surprisingly enough, we had raised sufficient doubts as to the readiness of the document for everyone to agree to meet again at the end of the month. In fact "le TIMING" was not right. But would we be able to buy the house in three weeks? There could be no excuses this time. We all shook hands positively. I wondered what the next three weeks would bring………….