If something seems too good to be true…is it?

March/April 2024

We never thought we’d be the kind of people who could ever own an amazing historic property like this, let alone in beautiful Barbados, so we set about our due diligence before we’re committed. That means a survey, right? Our attorney says “Well, usually here in Barbados property is sold as seen”. Our response: “We don’t know what we’re seeing!” Tempting of course to say “Ah, it’s been standing for 300 years so it’ll be fine” but I’ll never forget a Welsh surveyor once saying to me about another old property “Yes, it’s been standing for 300 years…and now it’s falling down!” Thankfully our Bajan surveyor takes a good look around and gives us plenty of reassurance, which is very exciting – now it’s all systems go. Meanwhile our attorney has been doing his stuff and we discover to our delight that not only will we have the right to draw water from a nearby well – we will own the well itself, plus the strip of land leading from it to the Mill. This strip looks like virgin bush, perhaps containing previously unknown species of flora and fauna – we can’t wait to dive in there. Better still, according to the inventory attached to the contract, among much else we’ll be acquiring a ‘weed whacker’ plus ‘ride-on tractor’. Time to apply for a HGV licence?

So: all the threads are pulling together – the place isn’t falling down, we will actually own the land on which the buildings stand plus everything in them, we manage to scrape together the deposit funds and send them across the Atlantic, and hold our nerve long enough to arrive at the magic moment, 10pm BST, Friday 26 April, when we receive the email we’ve been waiting for. The contract’s signed, sealed and delivered. Nobody snatched the property from under our noses at the last minute. Our dream is going to become reality in October. No turning back now. Elated!