"Mind if I make a quick call? What's the code for London?"
My wife and I had come to expect this as an inevitable part of welcoming the Englishman abroad into our home. He comes in, he has a drink or a cup of coffee, he makes a phone call to check that his business has not collapsed during the first few hours of his absence. The routine never varies, and the substance of the call is as predictable as the routine.
"Hi, it's me. Yes, I'm calling from Provence. Everything okay? Any messages? Oh. None? David didn't call back? Oh shit. Look, I'll be moving around a bit today, but you can reach me on (what's the number here?) Got that? What? Yes, the weather's fine. Call you later."
Tony put the phone down and reassured us about the state of his company, which was managing to stumble along without him. He was now ready to devote his energies, and ours, to the purchase of property.
Buying a house in Provence is not without its complications, and it is easy to understand why busy and efficient people from cities, used to firm decisions and quickly struck deals, often give up after months of serpentine negotiations that have led nowhere. The first of many surprises, always greeted with alarm and disbelief, is that all property costs more than its advertised price. Most of this is because the French government takes a cut of about 8 percent on all transactions. Then there are the legal fees, which are high. And it is sometimes a condition of the sale that the purchaser pays the agent's commission of 3 to 5 percent. An unlucky buyer could end up paying as much as 15 percent on top of the price.
There is, however, a well-established ritual of respectable cheating which has the double attractions, so dear to every French heart, of saving money and screwing the government. This is the two-price purchase, and a typical example would work as follows: Monsieur Rivarel, a businessman in Aix, wishes to sell an old country house that he inherited. He wants a million francs. As it is not his principal residence, he will be liable for tax on the proceeds of the sale, a thought that causes him great distress. He therefore decides that the official, recorded price-the prix déclaré-will be 600,000 francs, and he will grit his teeth and pay tax on that. His consolation is that the balance of 400,000 francs will be paid in cash, under the table. This, as he will point out, is an affaire intéressante not only for him, but for the buyer, because the official fees and charges will be based on the lower, declared price. Voilà! Everyone is happy.
The practical aspects of this arrangement call for a sense of timing and great delicacy on the part of the lawyer, or notaire, when the moment comes to sign the act of sale. All the interested parties-the buyer, the seller, and the property agent-are gathered in the notaires office, and the act of sale is read aloud, line by interminable line. The price marked on the contract is 600,000 francs. The 400,000 in cash which the buyer has brought along has to be passed to the seller, but it would be highly improper if this were to happen in front of the notaire. Consequently, he feels a pressing need to go to the lavatory, where he stays until the cash has been counted and has changed hands. He can then return, accept the check for the declared price, and supervise the signing ceremony without having compromised his legal reputation. It has been said, rather unkindly, that two basic requirements for a rural notaire are a blind eye and a diplomatic bladder.
But there can be many obstacles to overcome before the visit to the notaire, and one of the most common is the problem of multiple ownership. Under French law, property is normally inherited by the children, with each child having an equal share. All of them must be in agreement before their inheritance is sold, and the more children there are the less likely this becomes, as is the case with an old farmhouse not far from us. It has been passed down from one generation to the next, and ownership is now divided between fourteen cousins, three of whom are of Corsican extraction and thus, according to our French friends, impossible to deal with. Prospective buyers have made their offers, but at any given time nine cousins might accept, two would be undecided, and the Corsicans would say no. The farm remains unsold, and will doubtless pass to the thirty-eight children of the fourteen cousins. Eventually, it will be owned by 175 distant relatives who don't trust one another.
Even if the property should be owned outright by a single acquisitive peasant, such as Massot, there is no guarantee of a straightforward transaction. The peasant may set a price which he thinks is absurdly high, and which will keep him in drink and lottery tickets for the rest of his days. A buyer comes along and agrees to the inflated price. The peasant immediately suspects trickery. It's too easy. The price must be too low. He withdraws the house from the market for six months before trying again at a higher figure.
And then there are the trifling inconveniences that are mentioned casually at the last minute: an outbuilding that has been lost to a neighbor in a card game; an ancient right of way that technically permits the passage of herds of goats through the kitchen twice a year; a dispute over well water that has been bitter and unresolved since 1958; the venerable sitting tenant who is bound to die before next spring-there is always something unexpected, and a buyer needs patience and a sense of humor to see the business through.
I tried to prepare Tony for these local oddities as we drove to the office of a property agent whom we knew, but I should have saved my breath. He was, by his own modest admission, a shrewd and resourceful negotiator. He had played hardball with the big boys on Madison Avenue, and it would take more than bureaucracy or a French peasant to get the better of him. I began to doubt the wisdom of introducing him to anyone who didn't have a car phone and a personal business manager.
The agent met us at the door of her office, and sat us down with two thick files of property details and photographs. She spoke no English and Tony spoke vestigial French, and since direct communication was impossible he behaved as if she wasn't there. It was a particularly arrogant form of bad manners, made worse by the assumption that even the most derogatory language can be used without the risk of it being understood. And so I passed an embarrassing half hour as Tony flicked through the files, muttering "Fuck me!" and "They must be joking" at intervals while I made feeble attempts to translate his comments into some nonsense about his being impressed by the prices.
He had started with the firm intention of finding a village house with no land. He was far too busy to bother with a garden. But as he went through the properties I could see him mentally becoming the Provençal squire with acres of vines and olives. By the time he had finished he was worrying about where he should put his tennis court. To my disappointment, there were three properties that he thought worthy of his attention.
"We'll do those this afternoon," he announced, making notes in his Filofax and looking at his watch. I thought he was going to commandeer the agent's phone for an international call, but he was just reacting to a signal from his stomach*. "Let's hit a restaurant," he said, "and we can be back here by two." The agent smiled and nodded as Tony waved two fingers at her and we left the poor woman to recover.