By the time we arrived back in the UK we had made a decision. We were going to put an offer in on the chateau. We considered the sheer amount of work needed and reflected that in our offer. We emailed the agent and waited with baited breath. The agent had informed us that the house was owned by several parties and decisions may take a while. This did not stop us checking our emails more regularly than is healthy for a decision. We hoped to come to an agreement before heading back to France for our family holiday so we could visit again and begin to make plans for the future.

Days turned into weeks and we heard nothing. We contacted the agent to say we would be on holiday for two weeks but we could be reached by email during this time. Again, radio silence!

We arrived back in France for our holiday to our favourite gite and tried to put it out of our minds but it was starting to feel like there was a problem. It had been six weeks since we had submitted our offer and we had heard nothing …….nada! ……..rien!.

During our holiday we were contacted by an agency that had shown us a property last year. They had a new listing they felt might interest us and it was only half an hour away. It couldn’t hurt to take a look.

The location of this property was delightful, surrounded by fields as far as the eye could see and ten minutes from our favourite town. As we followed the agent up the narrow track towards the pretty farmhouse there was an air of peace and tranquillity. It felt like time had stood still.

The house was really lovely. A traditional farmhouse with pretty yellow shutters Set in beautiful well maintained gardens with outbuildings, a pool, a pond, a small well presented gite and picture postcard views.

The whole family liked it but there were two issues here. The first being that the advertised square footage of the house included the tastefully renovated but separate gite. This meant the living space in the main house might be too small for our family. Secondly, there was the small issue of the elusive chateau.

I felt conflicted by this house, it was stunning and on paper had everything we had asked for and more. It was actually a blessing that the main house was too small as that made the decision easier for us. Sadly this fantastic house was not for us.

On the final day of our holiday I contacted the agent from the Chateau and was informed that our offer to buy the chateau had been accepted subject to providing a mortgage in principle document. We discovered the email informing us of this languishing in the spam folder between an offer of free electric toothbrush and a voucher for 50% off christmas decorations.

What a way to end our holiday! We were going to buy a chateau! We promptly contacted the mortgage broker we had used last year on our first attempt to buy our French dream home. We sent all the necessary documents to get the ball rolling. We were so excited!

When we applied for a small mortgage less than twelve months ago we were offered a huge amount of money that we simply didn’t need so imagine our surprise when we were informed that we now couldn’t lend enough to buy the chateau. In ten short months French banks had changed their lending criteria significantly. There were also fewer banks that would consider an application from a non French resident and in short we were back to square one again! Once again, the dream was in tatters.

Storm damage

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