oh woe
I thought we had our purchase in Corsica stitched up, but 2 visits & lots of phone calls later, where the price was vaguely agreed, we have now been told that the other vendor won't entertain our offer.
Basically, the situation is that the whole building was owned by the grandparents and loosely divided. Now, two different lots of grandchildren have inherited. The vendor we've been talking to owns the 1st, 2nd & 3rd floors and hall & stairwell of one half of the building, but there is "droit d'acces" in the stairwell (for US readers, the 1st floor is the one above the ground floor). For what we want to do, I need exclusive and closable access to the stairwell, and I also feel extremely uncomfortable about the ground floor (ie the foundations etc) not belonging to me, and currently not belonging to anyone who seems to care about maintenance of the property, so I have made an offer for the ground floor, in proportion to the value of the floors above, to secure that part of the property too.
The hitch is that the vendor thinks that his cousins will not react favourably to my offer for the purchase and also to my condition of exclusive ownership (with no right of access) of the stairwell. He has accepted my offer for his portion, but I have made it clear that my offer is conditional upon the satisfactory acquisition of the ground floor.
To be honest, the ground floor is not viable as a dwelling without practical space from the building either above or across the other side of the hallway. To my mind, the value of the remaining half (which is intended to be sold) is negligibly influenced by the inclusion or not of the ground floor (23m2 max), but both vendors will encounter problems with the access issues - I think.
The whole property requires a substantial amount of work (electrics, plumbing, windows, floors, stairs etc) & of course those works have to be taken into account vis-a-vis the offer(s). I (although I know it's not their problem) also have to take on board the atrocious current exchange rate Stlg:Euros, so cannot up my offer in comfort very much. I also think I have made a fair offer for the ground floor in proportion to the nominally accepted offer for the rest.
Does anyone have any advice or think of any other tactics I might employ ? I REALLY would like to get my hands on this place ....
Hils
I thought we had our purchase in Corsica stitched up, but 2 visits & lots of phone calls later, where the price was vaguely agreed, we have now been told that the other vendor won't entertain our offer.
Basically, the situation is that the whole building was owned by the grandparents and loosely divided. Now, two different lots of grandchildren have inherited. The vendor we've been talking to owns the 1st, 2nd & 3rd floors and hall & stairwell of one half of the building, but there is "droit d'acces" in the stairwell (for US readers, the 1st floor is the one above the ground floor). For what we want to do, I need exclusive and closable access to the stairwell, and I also feel extremely uncomfortable about the ground floor (ie the foundations etc) not belonging to me, and currently not belonging to anyone who seems to care about maintenance of the property, so I have made an offer for the ground floor, in proportion to the value of the floors above, to secure that part of the property too.
The hitch is that the vendor thinks that his cousins will not react favourably to my offer for the purchase and also to my condition of exclusive ownership (with no right of access) of the stairwell. He has accepted my offer for his portion, but I have made it clear that my offer is conditional upon the satisfactory acquisition of the ground floor.
To be honest, the ground floor is not viable as a dwelling without practical space from the building either above or across the other side of the hallway. To my mind, the value of the remaining half (which is intended to be sold) is negligibly influenced by the inclusion or not of the ground floor (23m2 max), but both vendors will encounter problems with the access issues - I think.
The whole property requires a substantial amount of work (electrics, plumbing, windows, floors, stairs etc) & of course those works have to be taken into account vis-a-vis the offer(s). I (although I know it's not their problem) also have to take on board the atrocious current exchange rate Stlg:Euros, so cannot up my offer in comfort very much. I also think I have made a fair offer for the ground floor in proportion to the nominally accepted offer for the rest.
Does anyone have any advice or think of any other tactics I might employ ? I REALLY would like to get my hands on this place ....
Hils