Bird's-eye view

Negotiations have continued on the house I mentioned a few posts back, and it looks like things are moving forward. Elder has been super busy going back and forth between the three different parties selling (and a possible fourth!), the lawyer, the town hall, the property registry office, the tax offices, etc. It's been quite a process, and I'm so very grateful to have Elder to handle all of it. I wouldn't even know where to begin!

More updates and details soon, as we finalize things, but I just thought I'd share a birds'-eye view of the space in the meantime, since some people found it difficult to imagine how exactly it was that we were looking to buy a house that was divided up into parts!

Looking at the image above from the Property Registry office, the rectangle marked 19200 is the main portion of the house, and is the only part that was originally for sale by Don Denis and his sister. The next two pieces up, 19404 and 19403 are owned by Don Ivan and his niece Rene, respectively. 19402 is owned by Ivan's sister (Rene's aunt), who currently lives there with her daughter, granddaughter and another person.

We liked Denis's house, but we really wanted a place with a good-sized patio, so we were only interested if the other inheritors would also sell their portions. The patio is the space with all the trees and open area in the middle and back of the house. Rene wanted to sell, but Ivan said he didn't, making it a bit difficult to move forward. However, over the past few months, Elder has worked on him, through his son and other channels, and Ivan finally agreed to sell.

The aunt (that's how we refer to the owner of 19402) won't sell because she lives there, but that is okay. We are trying to see, however, if she'll sell us a portion of her patio in the back, since she doesn't use that space. Once we buy (assuming it comes through!), we'd immediately build a wall to separate her portion of the patio from ours (along the 19402/19403 line). Her house structure is separate from the rest of the house (as you can see, the roof on 19402 looks different from 19403), so that part should be fine.... I think! There are still details to be worked out on the division of space, including her moving into her own space as she is currently occupying other parts of the house in 19403 and 19404, which are not hers. In addition, the bathroom she uses is a separate little building in the middle of the patio of 19403 (you can see a small structure in that box between the trees), and so we offered, as part of our negotiations, to build her a bathroom on her side. She obviously couldn't move to only occupy her side until she had a bathroom to use!

So, as you can see... lots of details and negotiations to figure out here. This isn't just a simple offer-accept-buy house sale! Stay tuned...