Sept 06 - Nov 07; Buying a place in Fez.

Hi Finn, now as you are learning, begining anything is far from easy, and, as we found out, our attempts to buy a house in Morocco, which ultimately landed us (all) in Fez, was far from as easy as it might sound. I had previously looked in Marakesh and Essaouirra, which were fun, beautiful but far too expensive.

Both are great towns and I particularly liked Essaouirra, it has a great, chilled out feel, added to by being by the sea. But much as I looked and looked and looked, I couldn't find anything that seemed value for money...and this was supposed to be Africa!

Thus we started looking in fez. I have to admit that after more than 30 previous visist to most of Morocco, Fez was possibly my least favourite city, prefering Tangiers, Marrakesh, Essaouirra all being preferable. But Fez was still relatively cheap and given that we were focussing on tourism, clearly a significant tourist site.

We came over to Fez several times without really knowing what we were looking for and put in offers on several places that we really liked. Unfortunately with all of these either the owners eventually decided not to sell, decided to double the price just as we were about to buy or agreed a price with us but sold it to someone else when they offered more.

It was such a thankless almost horrid task, walking round houses in various states of disrepair, with multiple families often very poor. Certainly it was intersting, but too often felt uncomfortable. It was great to visit some very lovely houses, but I don't think I can I say I enjoyed it.

Though I'd be lieing if I complained too much...it wasn't all so bad.

And then we found Tazi!

At the time we bought Tazi we’d just been let down again and for the umpteenth time when trying to put pen to paper and actually purchase a house we really liked. We’d arrived in the country with a bag full of cash to put down as deposit on the house that we’d negotiated buying with a reputable foreign estate agents here. Unfortunatelt they didn’t manage to tell us that the house had been sold to someone else the day before we’d arrived and thus having taken a 05.00 nightmare Ryan Air flight to Fez, we soon found ourselves houseless. Oh we were pissed off...sorry Finn, but there are times when you’ve just got to call a spade a spade!

What to do, we had only booked to come over for a couple of days and were now completly deflated. Not wanting to give up, we spent our time trying to organise to see other houses and restarting the thanklass task of kissing a million toads in the hope that one turns in to a beautiful prince/ss.

As you may know by now, there’s never an easy house to see in Fez and we must have trudged up a million stairs, only to return forelorn and more dispondent. We were on the verge of giving up when a guy came out of a small alleyway and spoke to our Simsar (estate agent..or snake if you take the literal translation!!!) he wanted to sell. We went in and it was packed with people, seemingly half the families in Fez lived here and we were only able to look in some rooms because either they were shut, or they only had single women in, or, or, or! But, pragmatically, it had it all. Enough rooms, details, a good location and a great view...but there was something, just something that wasn’t quite right..but what the hell, we’d come for a house and here was one that we could buy.

We visited it again, never managing to see every room, but finally negotiated with the owners and accepted to buy the house.

Having signed a compris de vente, several weeks later we finally made it to the lawyers offices to complete on the sale. Everyone arrived amid a flurry of profuse shaking of hands, smiles and greetings. Could this finally be it, were we finally going to get to buy a house...even if it was one we were so unsure about?

Of course there was another hitch,. In the negotiations and discussions, the lawyer advised the family that they had to pay a large amount in taxes. This sent them in to uproar.

Now you have to imagine the scene. There we were in the lawyers offices, nothing too grand, more slightly stayed and dated, with the significant members of the Saloui family; the eldest son, a largish man who reminded me no little bit of a slightly over weight Moroccan version of Colombo, (he stars in an American detective series, that you may never see) along with dirty raincoat, dishevelled hair, stooping gate and droopy mouth.

His brother, who is deaf and mute and his aged mother, who unfortunately had eyes that managed to look to different corners of the room and which as such gave you only the slightest of clues as to wehther she was talking to you...or the person opposite, a well dressed and refined female lawyer, Pascal our dapper French estate agent and I, trying my best to follow as much detail of the preceedings in French and Diriga.

All was going well untill....

.... news of the taxes that the family had to pay were explained and the room exploded in to animation, volumes soared and hands and bodies were thrust and hurled in every direction. Obviously the news broke first to the mother and Colombo, with the mother screaming like a wounded banshee and wildly eyeing myself, Pascal and the lawyer all at the same time, despite our sitting many meters apart!

In the mean time Colombo was frantically gesticulating in sign language to his brother who responded with greater gesticulation and animated grunts, over the screams of his injured and all seeing mother. The brothers’ (and I’m sure mothers’) groans were presumably further incensed by the fact that he wasn’t the best looking guy on the block and that a significant part of this money was going to ensure that he was able to get married, and here Finn, possibly more so for this young chap, there’s no sex without marriage!! I felt for the chap...and I’m sure, given the circumstances, he felt for himself on no few occassions!!

Anyway, this continued for ages, with all participants in the conversation being permenantly out of sinc with the others, and with neither the lawyer, Pascal, nor myself ever being totally sure if Mother was talking to whichever one of us. Colombo swung between signing for his brother and translating for me and Pascal, to which the lawyer would invariably add the detail, which was usually significant at odds with that made by and through Colombo.

At times the brother would lurch forward to grunt at one or other of the lawyer, Pascal or I, only to be pushed out of the way by Colombo who by now was signing to everyone in the room, when not fanning or comforting his collapsing mother, whose head and wayward eyes now lolled around the room with increasing furiosity.

Each time the lawyer tried to explain something, Mother and Colombo would react either individually, directly to the lawyer, or increasingly as the spectacle developed as one heaving, wobbling mass from the Mothers chair with Colombo desperately comforting the increasingly appoplexed Mother, whilst trying to send appropriate signals to the wide eyed and desperate Groom To Be, which invariably lead to his lurching towards the lawyers table in desperate grunts, I supposed he’d hoped to have kept for his now endangered nuptials.

The omnipresent plea from the family of poverty and the need to avoid paying the government it’s pound of flesh, eventually rescinded with The Brother and Colombo finally engaging in an intense and completly focussed spate of hand jiving, beside a mother who had by now almost completly collapsed and was merely wimpering in her chair whilst as ever managing to see everyone and everything all at once.

A quick spurt of diriga from Colombo to his mother saw her shoot up straight and within seconds five eyes sprang out towards me,. The room hushed and Colombo spoke.

“You must help us”

Startled almost as much by the sudden lull in activity, as having all bar one, eyes on me, I replied rather sheepishly “Really? How?”

“You must give us a present. You must pay our taxes, we cannot afford them!”

Now we had paid more than we had bargained for dar Tazi or Dar Slaoui and I at least was not going to pay another cent, in fact I’d rather have just let the whole deal drop there, as I was far from sure that I wanted the house anyway. Which is what I informed the group.

Again the room errupted in to a cocophany of yelps, grunts, groans, moans and waving of arms and eyes. Amongst the ensuing comotion I noticed the lawyer increasingly looking towards Pascal sitting opposite me, who had been a rather passive, if amused, observor in the whole preceedings. At intervals the Mother did the same (though obviously ensuring that she never took an eye off me), followed, after a further burst of hand movements by the brother and Colombo, as the group huddled closer and closer together.

And then the eyes, with the exception of the one the mother had focussed directly at me, completely turned towards Pascal. There was silence. Colombo spoke to the lawyer and she in turn to a now very attentive Pascal.

“You must pay them something Pascal.”

Incredulous he replied “why?”

“Because if you do not, ultimately they won’t give you your fee and you will have to take them to court to get it. Obviously they are not saying that to you, but it is clear that that is what will happen. The buyer won’t pay and that only leaves you!”

I must admit I laughed to myself and imagined what prospect such an example might have if it could only stand a chance of working in the UK. For a moment Pascal hesitated and then the reality dawned on him, he was now negotiating how much of his fee he was going to keep, just as the Slaoui’s were negotiating how little of their earnings they were going to lose.

That I thought was between them and decided it was best that I left the room. I never did discover how much Pascal paid. I didn’t ask, and he wouldn’t have said. I finsihed my part in the proceedings by adding my signiture to that of Colombos’ and the finger prints of Mother and the brother, of whom I have a final image of his grinning almost manically, and was that a slight dribble of saliva dripping from the corner of his mouth!!

I did however receive a belated bill from the water and electricity companies for unpaid bills from the previous occupants.Obviously I queried these stating that they were not mine, only to be informed that I was now the owner of the house, and it’s debts and that I would be cut off if I didn’t pay. I could of course speak to the family I’d bought the house off and try to pursuade them to reimburse me....I didn’t bother with that one!

So we finally bought our house in Fez. It had been a long and tortuous journey that everyone told us was only the beginning and which, having signed over our money and walked in to the house, left me wondering why had we done it?

When I told my friends, it received a mixed reception...



Beccie of course took it all in her stride...



And me, I went off to celebrate...



But there Finn is another lesson in life....sometimes you don’t get what you want, you get what your given, and sometimes you struggle for something and wonder why you bothered and at other times something just drops in to your lap and you wonder where it came from and why it ended up on you. And sometimes that’s fine and sometimes ...it isn’t.

That’s not to say you shouldn’t do your damndest to try to get what you want, and keep trying until you get it...but if that really doesn’t work, well look for the next best opportunity and see what comes in it’s place...and then hope!

Ummm....... and there ends that lesson for today!