…said my husband a few weeks ago.  With the recession being what it is, and his business being vulnerable as it’s not providing what most people would consider a necessity, we have to think about what we do if the worst case scenario has to come into play.  Hence Germany.

Not that Germany is exactly a bad thing if it comes to doing it.  I love the country, S has some family from there, I still have a friend from uni in Hamburg and H is young enough to pick up a new language before he starts school there, should he need to.  It could frankly be a hell of a lot worse.

It was at this point that I started wondering why he was thinking of Germany in particular - after all, France makes more sense in so many ways, not least because I’m bilingual French/English and am used to working in France.  But there was method to the madness: since I also speak German, S had idly had a nose around some property web sites and discovered that there’s a lot of cheap properties for sale in the former East Germany within an hour of Hamburg and Leipzig.  He’s found one in particular that he likes the look of and that we could buy for the princely sum of about 5,000GBP.  

The only catch we can see at this stage, having not viewed the property or been able to get surveys done etc, is that the building is listed.  But the roof looks sound, the windows seem to be intact and the house next door has had a loft conversion at some point in the last few years, so we’re hopeful the town planners are reasonable people who would prefer the property to be lived in and cared for than left vacant, unwanted and a bit of an eyesore.

So this evening I’ve started looking at what the implications of listing are for us and come across the lovely Anna’s blog.  Having had a nose through, I’m full of admiration for Anna and her husband, not least because they’ve actually gone the whole hog and applied for historical monument status.  It’s a step further than I would risk taking it, because so much depends on whether your local monuments people are practical about things, or whether they’ll insist - for example - on lime plaster with hair from a specific breed of horse or goat to match the original.  

Having started the evening with absolutely no clue about what we might be getting ourselves into, Anna’s blog has definitely made me think the plan is more do-able, so many thanks to her!  Now we just have to see what we can find out about the property and whether there is any chance of being able to see inside of it.  The owners are based here in the UK, and S found it in the listing of a past auction where it failed to sell, so it doesn’t seem to be listed with an agent in the way properties usually are in the UK.  Arguably, for no more than 5K, it almost doesn’t matter what state it’s in, but since we’d be talking about moving the whole family out there, it would be good to be able to make sure that there was running water, electricity and all that good stuff before pitching up with our cases and shiny new door keys.

The more I think about it, the more I like the idea.  The house is in a small town near a lake and a river, not more than an hour from the nearest airport for flights back to visit family, and we would own it outright, having only to pay any property taxes or local taxes on top of the asking price, then sort out whatever the German system requires in the way of income tax and social security payments.  If this is the worst case scenario…

…bring it on!

m xxx