With three houses that we loved, confidence was high that our Sicilian dream was well and truly on track.
Then news started to trickle in through the agents..
The triangle house, that tiny little gem in the heart of Modica’s centro storico, had been modified in the 60s, without the necessary permission, and many elements were not ‘regolare’. Honestly I came to detest that word more than any other in my slowly expanding Italian vocabulary. It certainly wasn’t the last time I heard it used. In effect, this makes the house completely unsaleable unless the modifications are undone by the seller prior to sale, or the new owners sign documents confirming that they will carry out the work once they acquire the property. In this case, undoing the changes made in the 60s would mean losing the breath-taking roof terrace, replacing it with a pitch roof. The whole point of that house was the terrace with its vista panoramica of Modica! It was so perfect just as it was. It had been like that for 60 years. My Irish thought process couldn’t make sense of this Italian way – leave the house to crumble and decay if it can’t be sold – that couldn’t be right. But if the plans of your house don’t match the reality of what’s there, then buying and selling becomes a very complicated thing. Our triangle house was looking very much like it was out of the running.
The vast project in Ragusa Ibla threw up a few problems of its own. Firstly the scale of the project and the very challenging accessibility for builders meant the work would take 12 – 18 months. We were banking on being ready to at least partially open our B&B business in time for next season. Eighteen months living solely on our pension would mean things would be tight, with a lot of money going out and very little coming in. Also, a wander around the locality brought home the challenge that living at the top of a hill brings with it. The views might be stunning, but with very limited parking close by to the house, the thought of lugging shopping up those cobbled streets in the heat of an August day, seemed rather daunting. It occurred to us that maybe we were too old for this house, with the scale of the renovation and the incline of that hill. Despite really liking the owner and really loving the house, Ragusa Ibla was becoming more and more unlikely to be ‘the one’ as reality hit hard.
And so, the beach house, which had always been the number one, became cemented in its pride of place at the top of our wish list. We had hired an architect to come look at it, help us figure out how to overcome the elements that weren’t regolare in this house and advise us if there were any structural problems that we hadn’t spotted. The agent had made us aware that a Nordic couple were also interested but that as yet they hadn’t made a formal offer on the house. It was a complicated sale involving a liquidator and the banks but we were hopeful that following the architect’s once-over we’d be putting in an offer. We arranged for him to meet us at the house on the day before we were due to fly home. Just after midnight the night before, I heard Fabri from the other room – “I don’t believe it, this can’t be right” At exactly the same moment my phone pinged with a notification from Idealista, the property website. Our beach house had been removed, was no longer available, the listing had disappeared. That made a hat-trick. Three houses chosen from 34. Three wonderful opportunities. Three became two, became one, became none.
As the saying goes, we had fallen seven times, but I shouldn’t have worried… Fabri doesn’t give up that easily.
He went back to Francesco, our agent for the triangle house. I was fascinated by the way Francesco spoke Italian – it was almost choreographed, a dance, a full-body workout. Even as he drove us to viewings, his hands moved wildly to emphasise every point, making what seemed like only the briefest moments of actual contact with the steering wheel. “Tell the seller we’ll rent the house for 50 years (for less than half of the asking price)”, Fabri instructed him… That way we could renovate, leave the terrace as it was, own it for our lifetime and even pass it on to our children when we were gone. It would be our future grandchildren that would hand back the keys fifty years from now. Francesco didn’t seem at all fazed by this suggestion so there was still a glimmer of hope for this little gem.
The house at the top of the hill in Ragusa Ibla, the one that made our hearts scream ‘YES’ and our heads run a mile, kept niggling at us…. Maybe we could make it work. With the grants and bonuses available to us the cost of the project was negligible; the owner a former employee of the commune who specialised in the restoration of old buildings, very kindly offered to support us through the whole process. I think secretly he’d have loved to have undertaken the project himself. He saw the passion we had for the original features and unbelievably sent through photos from another project he was working on. Would we like him to salvage the floors in that house to use in his as part of the reno? Such incredible generosity and kindness… it was hard to let go of the prospect of what this house could be. We’d figure out the hill, get fitter out of necessity if not by choice. We desperately wanted to put Ragusa Ibla back on the table but deep in our hearts we knew we had to walk away.
Thankfully, at the top of our wish list, by a long country mile, was the beach house at Pozzallo. It wasn’t because the house was particularly beautiful or the town as charming as others we’d seen. But this house offered us a truly wonderful lifestyle and that was its trump card. A pool, a garden, plenty of space, 2km from the town and a mere 800m from the beach. Trying not to panic at the disappearance of the listing online, Fabri got to work. He made calls, sent emails, checked his facts, contacted the liquidator and lo and behold, our cancelled appointment was reinstated. The agent met us and it turned out he knew the architect well. The two of them chatted away with Fabri while I ambled around the property visualising exactly what I’d do with the kitchen, the type of dining table I’d like on the veranda and what pieces of furniture from home would work in our new house. Fabri got an opportunity to talk frankly with the agent and to let him know that we wanted this property. He got to ask what we would need to do to secure it. And so it came to pass that later that evening we put an offer in, €20k more than the other possible buyers had suggested they might offer, and we left it in the hands of the agent. We were really doing this, buying a house, leaving Ireland, setting down roots in this beautiful place. Now all we could do was wait….
Three houses found.
Three houses lost. Almost.
With a powerful show of perseverance, ingenuity, problem-solving skills and the power of making connections, my italiano was the one that brought to mind that powerful message of resilience and hope…..
“Fall down seven times, get up eight”. Our offer was accepted and the house in Pozzallo was ours.
