une maison dans la campagne
Wednesday, 27 June 2012 05:13 pm
While the house itself is quite happily tenanted and ticking over putting not much rent into my French bank account every month, that money isn't mine; it's owed to my dad's cousin, who loaned my dad money in the last few years of his life, and whom my dad explicitly wanted us to repay. I'd say that if the house remains tenanted for another three years or so and doesn't require any major repairs in that time, I'll clear the debt, but so far the house has only cost me - I haven't seen a scrap of the rent.
The result of all this exhaustion in contemplating the whole thing is that my current impulse is to have done with it all and sell the house - regretfully, because my dad wanted me to have it and a lot of his work went into it, but firmly. It won't give me enough money to buy property here, unfortunately: it's an old house in a depressed agricultural area, and lacks mod cons like central heating and double-glazing. It's actually a moot point whether it'll even sell - I hold out hope, though, from the agent's report that a neighbour expressed an interest in it.
However, another scared Zimbabwean corner of my being is going "oh noes what if SA explodes? A house in France would be a Refuge and a Foothold!" The thing is, on balance, I don't actually think SA is going to pull a Zimbabwe. And if it does and I still have a house in France, all that will mean is that my option is to have a possible option of living rurally in French - as in, speaking the language daily - on no income, which is frankly an even more exhausting prospect.
So my question to you, witterers, many of whom are intelligent people-of-the-world with a firm grasp on geo-political ramifications - do you think I'm stupid to want to sell? Answer on as many sides of the paper as you want.