Tag Archives: Selling a house in Norway

Sold!

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, , , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 05:37/19:50 Daylength: 14hr13min

It still feels like a miracle. Just over a year ago, I was sitting in a hotel room, bidding on a house with trembling fingers. The house had been on the market for six months. I couldn’t really understand why it wasn’t selling. There were some aesthetic problems. The previous owner had painted one of the bedrooms black and lilac and covered one wall with mirror tiles and there were more screw holes in many of the walls than seemed ideal, but it seemed a nice house and it was positioned well, half way between Finnsnes, with its fast boat connections to Tromsø and Bardufoss, which boasts an airport.

Black and lilac walls with mirror tiles
Before – Black and lilac
After: Blue and grey

A couple of suggestions had been made by colleagues as to why it might not be selling. It is directly beside the main road was one. Though small, it had three bedrooms, but a fast road outside the door might mean children were not safe in the garden. The other observation was that the previous owner hadn’t done much to the house (mirror tiles aside). That comment was made with an attitude that improvement (or as a minimum, upkeep) of a house ought to be a priority for all, and of course, with the hard, hard winters, that is a lot more important here than in other, gentler parts of the world.

I already had plans to build a fence. John had learned how, so I would only have to pay for the materials. The fence was mainly for Triar, but in future, if I sold the house, it might also keep children safe. In my head there were two other immediate plans. Firstly, I wanted a bigger heat exchanger. The old one didn’t sound like it was functioning properly. Secondly, there was an air vent on the roof that was leaking. Those were the most pressing problems, I thought. The two worst bedrooms would also be decorated before we moved the furniture in, because that was easier than shuffling everything about. As well as the black and lilac room, there was one that was painted an aggressive pink colour.

Beyond that, if I was going to sell, it would be years into the future, I thought. There would be years to plant trees to damp the sound of passing cars and tidy up more generally.

But as regular readers will know, last winter was harder in many ways, than I ever could have predicted, and the decision was made to move back to Scotland. So then I was faced with having to sell the house a long time before I’d ever thought I would, and with not a lot of time to do it. I considered holding onto it and renting it out, but then, as I discovered last winter, if your roof falls in because you didn’t clear the snow, you might find your insurance doesn’t cover it. And if it was hard to sell while I was still living in it, how difficult might it be if it had been rented out for a while and not looked after?

So all that has been in my head over the past couple of months and I found myself driven to get it looking as good as I possibly could. Since contacting the estate agent, I have painted the ceiling in the hallway, painted the garage, painted all the white railings on the front and side of the house and (with Trude’s help) cleaned and stained the wooden deck outside the front door and the veranda. Add on a deep clean inside the house and a major declutter. I haven’t pushed myself that hard in many years, and as the day of the visning came, I could only hope it was enough.

In Norway, houses are normally sold by auction, often on the day after the visning. I didn’t ask until the last minute, but I was pleased to hear there were six interested parties who came to look at the house on the day. Still, it wasn’t a certainty anyone would bid.

I misunderstood the process somewhat. I thought that nobody could bid until midday the next day, so I was disconcerted when the estate agent called me at around nine in the evening on visning day, to say that the first bid was in. It was way too low and the date for taking over the house was the first of October. The agent seemed to think it was a good thing, but it was too late to discuss details. What she probably didn’t know, was that before I bought the house, there had only been one previous bid made, months earlier, and for the same amount I was being offered now. I had the idea in my head that the same thing might happen. First of October looked impossible as well. I had been in touch with three removal companies, all of whom had agreed to mid-to late October.

After a restless night, I slapped out e-mails to the removal companies, asking if there was any chance they could manage the earlier date. When I got to work though, Trude reassured me that a super-low starting bid was normal. I also came to understand was that the midday deadline was not for bidders, but for the sale. I could not agree to any bid before twelve. This is in line with a Norwegian law intended to make sure all who attend a visning have enough thinking time to consider whether they want to bid.

All was quiet until ten thirty the next morning. The bid that came in then was only a little higher, but what it did mean was that there was more than one party interested in buying. Almost immediately there was another bid and then another. Bid number four was a major turning point. It was for 1,8 million kroner – the same price I had paid a year earlier, and the price I had decided was the level at which I would definitely sell. The date on that one was first December, but all that would mean was that I wouldn’t be there personally for the handover: not a problem.

By now the agent was ringing me regularly. I told her first October was so difficult it might make a difference to which buyer I chose. When the phone pinged again, the date was my chosen date of first November. The estate agent was ringing the bidders as well as me, pushing them upwards and the bids were still coming in. 1,9 million… 2 million… And then a jump I hadn’t expected, right up to 2,1 million.

By this time several of my colleagues were sitting around the table, keeping me company. They’ve probably never seen me so grinning so broadly. Not only had I made back the money I had spent on the house during the past year, but I had probably covered the costs of buying and selling as well. The estate agent rang again to say she thought it would be the final bid, but really it was already way beyond anything I dared to hope for. It was also the first November bidder, so perfect date as well as price.

I have come down a bit since. There’s still a lot to do. I have to get rid of a lot of stuff. John’s things have to be separated from mine. The removal company is now arranged and they will do the packing, but that means we have to be very clear about what is to go and what isn’t. There’s lots of paperwork to be completed so that the importation of my furniture goes without a hitch and doesn’t cost me a fortune in import taxes. I have to sell the car and then get to the airport without it. I am working in the abattoir right up to the day before the keys are handed over, so it’s a logistical jigsaw, more complicated than any I’ve handled before. But it all looks so much more doable now. Selling the house was always going to be the biggest challenge.

Anyway, I had better go now. I have to fill in some UK government forms so that I don’t have to pay tax on my goods as they go into the UK. I also contacted a car dealership last night to see whether they would buy my car. I thought they’d make me an offer, but they’re asking how much I want, so now I have to go and work out how much it’s worth. Steps and steps and steps, but I know I will get there eventually.

And I’ll leave you with a couple more bad moose pictures. I love seeing them, just outside the garden, but they do like to hide behind the trees. Thanks for reading and I hope to see you next week!

Last Things Over and Over

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 04:11/21:29 Daylength: 17hr17min

Things are going well. This week I have painted the last wall of the garage and made concrete for the second time. I am gradually filling a hole in the wall under the veranda, left open when the old air conditioning unit was moved. The house brochure still isn’t done, though I did get the survey report back. The surveyor didn’t find anything nasty, which is a relief, and he’s valued the house at more than I bought it for, which is brilliant. I’m looking forward to seeing the photos. I’ve contacted some removal companies as well, and done my first video survey. Keep on going, one foot in front of the other.

One of the pleasures of working at the abattoir is spending time with Trude. She was born and raised here and properly embraces the lifestyle, making the most of the wildness, living on the edge of the world. She owns and breeds hunting dogs and though she obviously loves hunting, she also works hard to do it ethically. She was recently involved in taking a survey of how many grouse there are in the area where they hunt, so that they know how many birds (if any) they can take this year. On Thursday, she told me that she was going away for the weekend, but that she couldn’t go until Friday as she was involved in judging dogs in a course where they were trained to be frightened of sheep. Picking berries and living close to the land are second nature.

I love listening to it all and it sounds wonderful. Part of the fascination for me, is catching a glimpse into a close knitted community, where the way of life is so different from my own. When I was much younger, I felt a similar pull when living on the edges of the farming community in south west Scotland. Back then, I wanted to be part of it. Now I just listen, enthralled and admiring, as I know it’s not for me, but hearing about it is like a tiny window into a different world.

And of course, in addition to all of that, Trude knows all about maintaining Norwegian houses. One of the challenges for me, in living here, has been that people tend to be very self sufficient. Getting people in to decorate or do work on your house costs so much that most people learn how to fix things early. There’s a whole lot of maintenance that needs to be done though. Wooden houses in an Arctic climate need to be looked after. There are also some short-cuts that make doing that work faster. I mentioned last week that I had cleaned and stained the decking and the steps up to the front door. It took me quite a long time, spraying on the cleaning fluid that loosens the old stain, scrubbing the wood with a brush, then washing it all off. It was physically hard going and my arms have developed semi-permanent aches and pains. Trude has been keeping track of all the work I’ve been doing on the house (I think she approves) and when I said that, though I wanted to finish the garage, I probably wasn’t going to get the veranda done before my holiday, to my surprise (and happiness) she offered to come round and give me a hand.

I expected she would come round and we would do the job together, but once we had applied the cleaning fluid (with mops on sticks, instead of spraying it on) she brought out her secret weapon, which was a brush attached to a pressure washer. To my bemusement, I was actually left just watching her as she cleaned my entire veranda in double quick time. If I was staying, I would definitely be investing in one of these!

As I go about my life though, I am constantly aware of the changes that are coming. The bank of wild flowers outside my house is in full bloom at the moment. I know, when they die, I won’t be seeing them again, or at least not on a daily basis as I go in and out. The season in the abattoir is almost upon us. I am on holiday now for two weeks. When I get back, Vaidotas and Ernestas, will have arrived and there will be seven Mattilsynet meat inspectors working every day, instead of three of us, working between three and four days each week. I love the life the season brings and the changing of the seasons of the year that goes along with it. By the time I leave in November, it will be cold again and I will probably have seen the first snow. And while it will be wonderful to go home, it is also going to be tough, tearing myself away.

Anyway, I had better go. When I said I was on holiday, what I’m actually about to do is take a road trip, taking Andrew down to his new school year in Stavanger. It will be Andrew’s last time in this house, probably. How odd to be leaving home, to have no home to come back to. I will build a new one in Scotland, hopefully, but obviously it won’t be the same. Before I leave him, I will probably try to buy him some plane tickets so he can come to me over Christmas. Planning and planning and planning. I’d better go and start packing the car. Have a good week all!

Keeping Track

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, , , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 03:42/21:59 Daylength: 18hr16min

I had hoped to share my house sale brochure with you this week, but it hasn’t gone live yet. No word from the estate agent or the surveyor on what they think the house is worth either. Though I probably should have chased it up, it’s just another thing on my enormous list of things to do. I haven’t taken many photos this week, but I did send some to the estate agent: pictures taken from around the house during the year I have been here. If you read regularly, you will have seen them before, but I will scatter them through this post as a reminder of how beautiful it is.

This was taken shortly after moving in, before all the snow came

Things I have achieved this week include painting the third wall of the garage, getting the front door steps and decking around them stained, preparing the house for photographs and having the photographs taken and booking two ferries, to get me from Norway to Emden in Germany and from Amsterdam to Newcastle. I’ve also booked an AirBnB in Amsterdam for two nights and the woman who owns the house we will be staying in has supplied me with the name and address of a vet in Amsterdam. Though Triar has a pet passport and has had his rabies vaccination, he needs to be wormed by a veterinary surgeon between 24 and 56 hours before entering the UK. Doing it myself isn’t enough. I need a different vet and a signature. I haven’t rung the vet yet, nor have I made final arrangements on how to get down to Kristiansand, or all the transfers. Still, at least I have made a start, and the best news associated with that is that Anna has agreed to come over and make the trip with Triar and me. We would have probably managed alone, but it would have been a challenge every time I needed to buy food as there’s no way I would leave him tied up outside a shop and he almost certainly wouldn’t be allowed in most of them.

The whole process of selling the house is further complicated by the fact that I am on holiday at the end of next week and will be away for a fortnight. The estate agent said they normally try for a visning (open house session for potential buyers) a couple of weeks after the brochure goes live. John is coming back from his holiday the day before Andrew and I go away. I don’t want to have a visning when I’m absent, so it will have to wait until I’m back, but the idea of arriving straight back from being away, to get the house organised immediately is daunting. In effect, I have to try to get as much done as possible before I leave. So painting the fourth wall of the garage is non negotiable. It has to be done this week. If I experience a rush of energy from somewhere, I may get the veranda cleaned and stained, but that is a much bigger job, and one that isn’t started yet, so possibly best left for now. I’m having to accept that I’m not going to get everything done, so prioritising is the name of the game.

Polar night over a snow covered mountain scene. Taken from the garden.

Though the house is tidy, inside and out, the garage and the room beside it are in chaos. Some of it will go away with Andrew. When I said I am going on holiday next week, what I’m actually doing is driving him down to Stavanger, to his new folk high school, where he starts on 26th August. We have quite a lot of sports gear, such as skis and diving gear, and he will be taking some of that with him, which is good. Unfortunately, the garage and its attached storage room are also where we have been dumping everything as we gradually did the house and garden up. There is old wood from some horrible decking we removed and a large wooden toy van that was also in the garden. I looked into hiring a skip this week, but it seems the decking wood was impregnated with nasty chemicals and therefore can’t be put in normal waste. I’ve taken some of it to the dump in the car, but am considering how to get the rest of it away.

From inside the house, there are various shelves we have taken down and all the tools that have been used are scattered around. There is John’s shearing equipment and an old mattress from a bed that I need to throw away, which is blocking some other shelves. There’s also the air conditioning unit, that I had vaguely thought we might use in the garage store room, before I realised it had a heated floor.

My favourite shot of the aurora over the barn next door to the house.

When we moved in, the previous owner had left various things that matched stuff in the house, such as tiles and flooring. There was also a bunch of paint tins, a few of which contained viable paint (I have painted the garage without buying new paint, for example) but most of which I have been gradually taking to the dump as the paint has solidified long ago. I guess any of the decorating equipment that she left might be left as it still matches the things in the house, but it very much depends on the new owner. If they demand I remove everything (as is their right in Norway) then I will have to do it. Depending on when the house sells, doing so might be complicated.

Things I haven’t started yet include getting quotations from international removal companies. I need to get three and getting them is quite complicated. The companies require a fairly detailed list of what you want to take, as well as an address where they have to deliver it, which I can’t supply yet and probably won’t be able to do until I actually arrive in the UK. What I want to take is also up in the air. John will want some furniture (probably) as it makes sense for him to move into an unfurnished flat, but exactly which items isn’t certain. The estate agent wants me to leave the white goods, but I won’t know if the new owner will actually want them until we get to the point of selling. I guess I just arrange to go without them and we can dispose of them if necessary. That isn’t especially complicated, at least.

Sunset shot over the late winter snow. Taken from behind the garage.

At least I am looking forward to being on holiday next week, though it suddenly dawned on me properly yesterday that it’s not just a holiday, but is Andrew leaving home. It’s odd for him too, as he will leave and once he’s gone, the house will most likely be sold and he probably won’t ever return. All this feels very odd and still somewhat unreal at the moment.

One thing that past couple of weeks have brought home to me is how much I am going to miss the colleagues I have been working with for the past three years. I have been moving around my whole life. You’d think I would be used to it, but I guess most times I have moved, I have had family with me. This time it will be a complete break from everything and though I am going somewhere where there will be other family and friends, it is going to be hard to make that break.

Anyway, as planned, Andrew and I did go camping again this weekend. We had intended to go for two nights, but ended up doing only one, back in the same place as last week. As we drove back up, I was very much aware that I was driving through another farewell. Next time we go camping (if we do) it will be in Scotland. I will probably be here to see the start of the winter snow, but the short Arctic summer is already showing signs of coming to an end. There are going to be a whole lot of goodbyes and a lot of last times coming up. Next weekend’s blog might be delayed as there will be a lot to do, but I will try to record some of the journey so I can share it with you. Have a good week, all!

More breakfast toasties from yesterday.

Painting, Pets and Pizza

Blog, In Darkness and In Light, Life in Norway, , , , ,

Sunrise/sunset: 03:05/22:31 Daylength: 19hr31min

It feels like a long time since I wrote my last post. Events are whizzing by and I’m just trying to keep up.

Firstly then, the house. The estate agents have been helpful. After weeks of trying (unsuccessfully) to get hold of a plumber, the recommendation from them came up trumps and the plumbing is now (mostly) fixed. There’s an unpleasant aroma in the utility room, but the surveyor, who came on Thursday, located the problem. The drain in the floor should have some kind of cap on it and doesn’t. The plumber had already fitted a new u-bend and now will have to come back to fix the drain, but hopefully that will be it.

Fortunately, the process for selling the house seems to be coming in bite-sized chunks. We cleaned everything inside for the estate agent visit and she gave me various tips for making the house look good when the photographer comes. When I mentioned painting the garage, she said to paint the front first, as that would be in the photographs. The rest could be done later, she pointed out, so it’s now half done and looks a lot better than before. I need to retouch the white paint, but I’m pleased with it.

The surveyor came out on Thursday, so I had to fill in loads more paperwork. Norway brought in a lot of rules a couple of years ago about houseowners having to declare everything they know about faults and problems, as well as about all work that’s been done over time. Fortunately, I knew about the requirement to provide receipts and proof of work done, so I was more or less prepared for that aspect, but it was still a tortuous process.

Before he came, I wanted to get the mouse-brushes in place. I thought it would be a very minor job, but it was a little more complicated than I had expected. Houses in Norway are (mostly) constructed quite differently from the houses I grew up with in the UK. Mine has a small “creep cellar” underneath, walled with breeze blocks, which are covered with a thin layer of cement at the front, but are just painted at the back. There are wooden plugs in the low walls of the creep cellar which are more enough big enough to crawl through. You can’t access it at all from the house, but only from the garden, so when it’s decked with snow, that’s it for the winter. Above the creep cellar, the main walls are made of wood. I’d say the majority of the houses in Norway have the planks laid horizontally, but mine are vertical. There is an overhang with a gap between the wood and the breeze block wall and the mouse brushes, each of which is about a metre long, are usually inserted into that overhang.

Most of the instructions I’ve seen have been for houses with horizontal planks. The mouse brushes are just pushed lengthways up into the gap and that’s the job done. But when I tried to do that, it turned out the overhang on my house was too small, so that the bristles of the brush stuck out the bottom. On inspection, it turned out that, because of the upright planks, there were actually smaller holes that could each be blocked individually, but that meant we would have to cut the brushes into shorter lengths. None of the tools we had were working to cut the wire along the centre of the brushes, so we had to buy a new cutter. Anyway, in case that’s all as clear as mud, or you can’t visualise the brushes or the planks, I took some photos. Cutting the brush first, then looking up under the wall at the hole to be filled, then finally the brush being pushed into the hole.

We also had to pull out lots of furniture and all the white goods so that the surveyor could look behind them. I’m hoping he didn’t find anything too awful, other than the things I already knew about. He and the estate agent will decide between them how much they think I should ask for the house in the first instance.

Early next week, the photographer is coming out. Before she comes, we will need to clean again and there is a bit of “dressing” that I need to do. We have to take down the curtains in the living room and rearrange the furniture, both of which seem rather odd to me. The curtains are cosy and suit the room well, but we have to maximise the light, she told me. The furniture is perhaps more problematic. I forgot, when she said that we had to pull the sofas out into the middle of the room, that the backs of both of them are somewhat damaged. They’re leather sofas, generously given to me by a colleague, and I like them a lot, but having them close to the wall is covering a multitude of sins! I’ll have to pull them out today and have a look. A black marker pen might be my best friend!

One of John’s friends, Bowen, has been coming to cut our lawns once a week. My original plan was to buy the equipment to cut it myself – probably some kind of ride-on mower as it’s big. However, by the time summer came, I knew I was thinking of moving, so I didn’t want to invest in any more equipment. Bowen has been doing a great job and better still, he has now given our lovely guinea pigs a new home. That was one of my biggest concerns as I didn’t want to hand little Brownie and Millie over to strangers, but I know Bowen will take good care of them and he has children, who hopefully will love them lots.

Beyond the photographer, still seemingly a while away, will be the “visning”, when the house is opened up for an hour or two for people to come and look around it. By then, I will have to have the garage finished. In addition, I want to stain the doorsteps and the veranda. I started outside the front door last night, where there are some steps and a raised wooden area beside the driveway. Norwegian weather is hard on wooden verandas, as you can imagine, so I want to do it right. Before you stain the wood, you have to remove any old stain so the new can sink in. This involves spraying on some special cleaning fluid, then removing the stain. I wasn’t sure if there was any stain left at all on the platform. To me, it looked like old wood that had long been bleached, but after the cleaning fluid had been on for fifteen minutes, I noticed there were areas of wood that suddenly appeared to have stain on them.

I started to scrub, thinking I would remove that small area, only to find that my brush was revealing more and more of the original, honey-coloured wood. I don’t know how long it was since it was done, but I feel like I removed about ten years worth of ingrained dirt, revealing some much nicer wood underneath. I sent photos to Wivek, as I was worried that I would have to start again, now the dirt was gone, but she assured me it now looks as it ought to after the cleaning process. Buying my own house in Norway, even for only a year, has been an enormous learning curve. Anyway, front doorstep cleaned, much larger veranda still to go. I know I could just sell the house as it is, but it seems stupid not to have it looking as good as I can manage, before going ahead.

Anyway, with all the work on the house ongoing, it’s been hard to relax, so when Andrew asked me if we could go away for a night camping, I almost turned him down. I like camping, but it can be quite a faff, getting everything into the car and putting up the tent and so on. However, it’s his holiday and the last one before he leaves home and I wanted to spend some quality time with him, so on Friday night, we headed out onto Senja to find somewhere to spend the night.

We had hoped to have a spectacular dinner at Senja Roasters. I’ve often posted about them before but, to our disappointment, they seem to have stopped cooking and now have turned into a glorified coffee and cake cafe. The only savoury food on offer was quiche, which didn’t even come with salad. We were a bit sad, having driven all the way to Stonglandseidet in anticipation, but fortunately, I had spotted a cafe attached to a cabin and camp site along the way. We drove back, fully expecting a fairly typical Norwegian roadside food menu, with burgers and hot dogs, so we were very pleasantly surprised when we saw the menu board.

Andrew suggested we could share a reindeer pizza, so that is what we did. It was delicious!

We drove back down to Songlandseidet to camp. A good while back, I spent a whole day exploring that part of southern Senja with Thomas, looking for reindeer and I had noticed this place when I was there. It was windy and so camping in a field with plenty of shelter from trees was a good plan.

Though I had been unsure about setting out, once we were there, in beautiful, peaceful surroundings, I felt more relaxed than I have for weeks. When I’m in the house, I am constantly aware that there are lots of things that I need to get done.

Lying in the tent, with Triar snuggling beside me, I felt free of all that. We are now planning another trip for next weekend, so there might be another late blog.

On the way home yesterday, we decided to stop for breakfast at the same café to try the toasties. It was a lovely end to our night away. Anyway, bye for now. Hope you all have a good week.