Taking the leap

Being able to move to Spain was very much dependant on selling our house in Norfolk and as often happens serendipity stepped in.  We’d had our house on and off the market for about 18 months with limited success.  In October last year we decided to switch agents for the third time and also dropped the asking price, we had a flurry of viewings and finally accepted an offer on the house shortly after Christmas.  

At the same time that this was going on the company that Paul worked for decided to restructure and made his role redundant in November and as a result we got a fairly good redundancy payment which went into the new life in the sun pot.  We had agreed that there was little point Paul looking for work until after Christmas and once we accepted the offer on the house decided that Paul would not go back to work.  

The people buying our house were not in a chain and the sale of our house moved forward remarkably swiftly.  Shortly before we were due to exchange contracts we hot footed it out to Spain to do final viewings on the two houses we had got it down to; Cortijho Marcello and a house in a lovely village called Cobdar, though to be honest by this point we knew which one it was going to be.  

Perhaps more importantly while on this trip we met with Mari Cruz, who was to become our solicitor and gave her power of attorney to act on our behalf.  We also went to the bank and set up an account in Spain.  

We hadn’t exchanged contracts on the house in the UK, but buoyed up with optimism and gin and tonic we phoned our estate agent, Cathie, and put forward an offer.  As expected the vendor came back with a counter offer which we felt was fair and we agreed to buy the house.  

Back in the UK, the expected exchange of contracts dragged on a bit longer than anticipated but we were not going to be deterred and we transferred 3,500 euros into our new Spanish bank account so that Mari Cruz could pay the holding deposit for the house.  Looking back it all seems a bit trivial now, but I had a few nail biting days waiting for the exchange on our house and hoping that we wouldn't end up losing the deposit we’d made in Spain.  

In any event it all came good and we were able to progress the purchase of our new house in Spain while waiting for completion on the sale of house in England.  Mari Cruz, who had been described to me as a rottweiler, was able to complete our purchase in Spain in just under 6 weeks.  Nonetheless we had 3 weeks in England where we were homeless and I still had to go to work, in fact I still had to hand in my resignation, as I was waiting to see the money in our bank account from the sale before taking that final leap.  

Our furniture was packed and put in storage, I sold my beloved Land Rover Defender and we moved in with Paul’s mother and I stayed in a hotel during the week whilst I worked out my notice.  

My notice….  I was supposed to give 3 months notice, in the end I gave 6 weeks notice, albeit I asked to take 3 weeks as annual leave that I was owed.  My boss was incredibly supportive but then I knew that there was very little they could do to make me work my notice.  My last day at work was Thursday 6th April.


We were mortgage free, owned our own house in Spain and just had the little problem of getting there with the dogs.  We decided that the best way to get to Spain was to drive and so we bought ourselves a cheap car for the journey as we knew that we’d be buying a left hand drive car when we got out to Spain.  And so at 08:00 on Friday 7th April we packed up the car with a duvet, some clothes, dog food and an inflatable pink flamingo.  With Bella and Wilma bedded down in the back we set off on our three day journey to southern Spain.  

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