Post purchase, the next steps

Myself and my friends on Islay

When I got back to England, and while I spent the best the most amazing week on Islay meeting whisky nuts and getting a sun tan (who'd have thunk it on Islay!) I was aware that there was still a chance that I would not own the School.

Every sale made by the Obshtina has to be ratified by the head Kmet (mayor) who can decide that he/she doesn't actually want to sell that particular property to you. While they would have to give a pretty compelling reason to pull out at this late stage, it was still a possibility.

Georgi had in the meantime sent me the details for my own bank account into which I would pay the balance, once the ratification had occurred. It was supposed to only take a week for this to come through but, once again, they went on holiday and so it was a little longer than expected until the good news came through.

After an even more irritating episode with Santander where they refused to do the transfer over the telephone (despite having done so only a few weeks before) and then attempting to refuse to do so in the branch (I admit to getting my "you are not going to say no to me" voice out at the clerk and he wilted before it) I managed to get the balance winging its way to Bulgaria.

More flying money

Upon receipt of this Georgi paid the balance to the Obshtina, paid the sales taxes and got all the relevant stamps and then finally sent me the documents. Final proof, if it was needed, that I was the proud owner of the school.

Now what.

Another view of the school

I am now going to rewind slightly as I did skim over a few things to focus on the specifics of buying the property.

One of the actions I took whilst going through the process with Georgi was to double check all his advice by asking as many people as possible and trying to learn as much as I could from an independent source. A resource which I found particularly good (though it is slowly becoming less popular as more and more people move away from Bulgaria) is MyBulgaria.info and it was on here where I posted questions. I put a question on there about the different location, to which I received multiple replies, and I also asked if anyone had experience of buying a school from a council.

This is how I met Chaz, a very useful contact who was just coming to the end of the renovation of his own school. He was able to tell me the process he had been through and, at every stage, his advice agreed with what Georgi was telling me.

The planning process in Bulgaria is quite simple. If you are not extending and are building on existing footings you don't have to do anything however, as I had bought a building zoned as an educational facility I needed to go through a Change of Use to be allowed to make any changes to the building. For this to happen an architect needs to be engaged who will put together a Project. This Project includes plans for the building, electrical and plumbers plans and agreements from the water and electricity companies regarding supply. There are also hoops to jump through regarding insulation and fire safety, though these are less onerous as I am not trying to build a business, but purely a private dwelling.

Chaz was happy to help and recommended that I meet up with the architect who had managed his project. This made a lot of sense to me as personal recommendation is most often best. Over the course of a few emails I made an arrangement to meet her and booked some flights; I planned to spend the first day tidying and clearing the upstairs, and the second meeting her, then going round the utility companies to make arrangements for water and electricity suppler.

And the next blog will be about that trip.

My favourite seat on the plane