| StCirq |
Nov 16th, 2012 02:37 PM |
I'll try to be brief (not my strong suit)
A few days later we are invited to dinner at P and C’s apartment, a not-unusual event. We make a salad and grab a bottle of wine and head around the corner to their place. We settle into the living room, and P assumes a business look and gets right to the point: “So…we asked you over not only because we enjoy your company, but because we love the house, and we want to help extricate you from your problems. How much does the ex need to leave you alone once and for all?”
And I name an amount that, to me, is really substantial. And P says “That’s no problem, but aren’t you also going to need money to get the house fixed – those tirants and all – so you can start renting it again? I mean, if it were my place, and part of it might just end up being that, I’d want to turn it into income-producing property again…even if you want to use it a lot yourselves. Or if we did.”
Runningtab and I are a bit slow to absorb this. Could it be…..? No, that’s impossible. We only met P and C a year and a half ago. We were having a yard sale before our last move, and C came by and bought a few things. We see them often and attend events with them (including plays – C is a terrific actor), have them over, sit with them in our front-yard “salon,” go on excursions with them, enjoy their company immensely, but they aren’t lifelong friends, nor would we have ever put them in a benefactor category. (Well, we wouldn’t ever have put anyone in a benefactor category – it was the last thing on our minds.) But…that is exactly what is transpiring in this conversation. The want either to buy a quarter interest in the property or just lend us the money (on terms any bank would scoff at) and think about the ownership aspect down the road a bit. So we agree to start off with a written agreement and promissory note, consult with lawyers, do a bit of business, which as of this moment we’re almost done with. And I got to show up in court last month with a copy of a Letter of Intent to the effect that the entire amount will be paid to the ex by the next court date in January (it’ll all be settled long before that, and the court appearance won’t even be necessary).
And P has taken the pictures of the house I’ve given her to another friend who is interested in a piece of it (not that we want to give away a lot more of it). And the estimate for the tirants and other repairs isn’t as onerous as I expected it to be. And this arrangement frees me from all the odious tasks associated with trying to get a home equity loan from a French bank, or having to deal with French lawyers and notaries, or stumbling my way through complicated time-share arrangements, or dealing with Madame D, the real estate agent.
So we’re not selling the house, at least not for now. We’ll deal with the original concerns – remoteness, stairs, upkeep – in due time. As runningtab says, we should be able to go to market, climb stairs, do a bit of gardening, for at least another decade. In the meantime we will fix up the place, start renting it again, suck as much enjoyment out of it as possible, use it as our source of succor, likely move there. We’ll have GTGs there and invite Fodorites. We’ll go there with P and C and find as many ways to thank them as we can. We’ll work and play in paradise.
St-Cirq has always been good to me. Always a magical, karmic place. So I guess it’s not unusual that she wants me to stay as much as I want to. I used to kiss the door of that house every time I left, and maybe she remembered that.
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