Room with a view

Keep your eye on Prize

                        

    Now comes the waiting, which neither my husband  or myself are good at. Buying property in Greece is difficult even on a good day.

First step: Notary office  of Yannis 

 Periklis : seller must go to several offices, some here on Ikaria, some on Samos,  island next to us. Without this paperwork  we cannot close on the property,  we are told it could take up to two months maybe more with covid issue. 

Once notary has these documents he will draw up contract, land certification (deed)

Second step: Lawyers office  of Christina 

who tells us  we must get a  contract & deed from notary  first before we can proceed with her.

Third step :Forestry Department 

We must get special permission that says the property is not on  protected  forest 

land. We ask how do we do that. You must go to  an Architect he then goes to forestry department for permission .They do this by google earth, they make sure property is not in a protected forest, before issuing  a  special  permit. 

Fourth step: Architect 

Kula and Kosta Architects

We all meet at property Kosta reiterates that we must have special permission  from forestry,  could take 2-7 months as there is only one guy who works in that office. We now must wait for  forestry  &Kula Kosta , who will survey the land, as well as doing the design, then only after we receive  permission  from  forestry department will  we get our work  permit to proceed,  begin building. 

Fifth step: Stone builders  

We meet with several Greek & Albanian stone tradesmen. 

If you think this is a lost art, you are only to come here to see for yourself, we are amazed  by their talent, work ethics, beauty of their work.

We have chosen, Micos, an Albanian who has worked next door to where we currently  live. He & his crew  of 5 guys work tirelessly 7 days a week, 8  hours a day  creating beautiful  stone walls,  steps, stone houses.

*Forgot to mention the initial  step which was getting a Tax ID number* 

We were told by our  bank we must have a Tax ID #

This involved waiting 4 hours  in a room with  no air conditioning,  chairs of any kind,  no semblance  of  organization,. To make matters worse, person  running the show was  a very rude lady . When we left her office we both had  a headache traumatized by our  experience , BUT with tax ID  in hand. 

Bank experience  was  made only slightly better,  took four hours  to set up a savings account, was only made palatable by pleasant people, air conditioning,  chairs.  I am sure by now you get the picture. "

 It ain't  going to be easy!

A big  difference over here  we are allowed  to work on the property before a closing takes place. It seems strange to us to, but is considered  quite normal here.

We begin by  cleaning  inside,  we are quite sure goats have  been sleeping here, which would explain  an unpleasant  odor. We are told don't  throw away dried goat poop, its great for your garden you will be planting. 

Can this really look like
Photo below 

                                               

Next was  the yard, in front were 2 beautiful  moira trees.  In spring,  it bears delicious   black  berries only problem is that it drops its berry onto terraces making  a slippery  ununsightly  & gooey  surfaces . Our friend shows us how to  prune but still to keep  these lovely shade trees. My husband  and Paschale chop away branch after branch , reassuring  me this is  how its done here. After they're finished, our tree was totally bald. Sad part of pruning,is  in the spring they will  not  bear any  fruit,  still be beautiful  shade trees, hard to believe as I look at the tree now.  

                                            

                                            

 

  

                                                          

                             

                                             

                                                             

One of many things  that  we  love about Ikaria, everything  is naturally  recycled. As I  already explained  about goat poop. Another example all the branches & clippings are given to the goats, when they are finished  eating all the greens , all that is left is hardwood to be chopped burned in woodstove . This same process takes place year after year. 

Circle  of life

                

Our bumpy Road To the Stone House

            

Covid had paralyzed the world including our flight to Greece.

 Plane reservations  were canceled  then rescheduled four times, countless hours spent  on hold, hours, hours of frustrating  phone calls , then finally obtaining  special  permission  from Greek embassy  to travel to Greece. 

 

By  some small miracle we were able to travel on June 29th before Greece was to close its borders to the USA. 

We arrived in Athens Greece June 30th, our entire plane was led to a Covid testing  site, where we supplied Athens police with our travel itinerary,  our throats swabbed our throats.

 We were instructed to self  isolate for 24 hours in our hotel room, after 24 hours if our tests were  negative we were allowed to leave  the hotel to continue on our journey. 

Finally we arrive  "Ikaria "where our  journey  to find  property begins.   

This is our story. 

            Friends who are locals, help us  on our quest.  They tell us the best way to find property  on the Island,  first we must  put out feelers, at every coffee shop, gas station, bakery, butcher shop, restaurant's, friends of friends, Kafeneios.

Let them know that we are in search of a property for sale.

Making a Game plan

 Word of mouth travel's at lightning warp speed on the Island. We begin to get some nibbles, but nothing solid yet. To cover all our bases, we went the conventional route as well, by contacting the only real estate agent on the Island. 

We followed up every lead, left no stone unturned. 

Eureka, our hard work pays off, we found a house from a local who lives in Pigi village. It was a house with olive, walnut, lemon trees, nice views. Property needed quite a bit of work, as no one had lived there for some 20 years, but we felt up to the task. 

  After some detective work, heard the owner had died left property to his daughters, who lives in Athens. Our friend  Paschale who is a local as well as our best friend here, contacted one of the daughters who had inherited  the property.  She said we have  changed our minds  about selling. Paschale shrugs  his  shoulders , explains that Greeks don't like to sell their properties, to them it's like selling a piece of their soul, it happens often that they  will  change  their  minds about selling

Networking in Coffee shops

This  same scenario had happened  to us once already.  Before we had left States,  Paschale had called said there was a piece of land with a house in an  area we wanted to buy, at a good price, he would go look at it, let us know. When he finally called us back , not good news, there were several family members on the deed, they couldn't come to an agreement whether to sell or not. Another stone wall. 

Another stone wall

 

 

                   Maybe we would have better luck  with real estate  agent. We contacted an agent, she showed us several  listings but we only found one we liked, with amazing  sea & mountain views.  

We were  interested , the real estate agent would arrange a meeting with owners who were coming that weekend, from Athens . We phoned the agent to confirm our meeting, we couldnt believe our ears. Even though it was listed with an agent,  brother had decided he didn't  want to sell after all! 

We are finding  out very quickly,  

that this is not going to be easy .

After looking  at several properties,  running into many dead ends, we hear of a property for sale  in the village of Frantato, Paschale knows the seller, Periklis, he says he has no siblings, children, or partner. All good signs!

   My husband  along with Paschale jump in the car wasting no time . Anything that is worthwhile is snapped up quickly, usually  by another local. My husband returns an hour later breathless come on get in car 🚗 . You have to see this one.

I think you will love it! 

Not wanting to get disappointed, again, I tried not to get my hopes up. We drive up past vineyards,small churches, into the mountains to a pretty property  located in a small village of Frantato. 

 A stone  house that  has sat for over 100 years , with incredible  mountain, seaviews stares back at me.  We look at each other, this is it, this is what we have been searching  for, I can feel it in my bones. I can't tell you why, but this felt different from all the other properties, it felt like it was meant to be ours from very start. Periklis , the owner  was  called that very same day. We put a deposit down.

Neglected Stone house

Goats 🐐  have been 
Living here