In the first meeting with the notary we also talked about setting up a new company, from which we want to buy the houses and land. Maria told us what steps we had to take to set up the company (a Sociedad limitada (S.L.) in Spain). The first step was to go to a gestor with a list of 5 possible names for our company, that had to be checked in the Registro Mercantil Central, if the name already existed or in pronunciation is close to an existing name. They would reserve the first name for us, that was original enough. Our list was: Ardbol Tierr Ardbol suelo Ardbol Globo Ardbol grond Ardbol bodem We expected to get our first name, because we didn’t expect anybody to have ardbol in their company's name. And we already had ardbol.es, so it must be unique. So we went to a gestor in Burgos, since we were sleeping there. Maaike googled for gestor and found about 20! We had no clue which one to take so...
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Now we had our N.I.E’s we could, could start our next quest, doing business at the notary. The very next day we had an appointment at NOTARIA DE BRIVIESCA to talk about the contrato de arras, we call it the temporary contract, for the houses and the land. It is a contract where we agree an what would be bought for what price and on what conditions. Maria, the notary, explained to us what was in the contract, this was all in Spanish, but still it was very clear. She talked slowly with the words not connected, which made it much better to understand. If we didn’t understand some part she tried to say it differently. There were some parts which are logical in a contract, besides that there were three points which we wanted added.: That we wanted to take over Marcelino’s water permit for getting water from the river We wanted to make sure that if there are any debts on the properties, they will stay for Marcelino and not for us Marcelino wanted to add a clause that if h...
At the end of February the kids had vacation so we could go back to Spain. We had a lot of things to organize like the N.I.E. To get there we took the train and off course checked the weather before. It seemed to be quite cold. While we like warm and sunny weather of course but it was also good to know what the winter is like. Expecting cold weather but we did not expect that it would be snowing: From San Sebastion we took again the train to Vitoria. A nice ride with even more snow. As Barcena has no public transport, what would you expect for an abandoned village, we have to rent a car. We now use an app and most often we rent the same car. A small one with four doors is perfect for us. The only downside is that it is petrol we hope it will be able to rent EV for a reasonable price soon too. For now it is okay especially because Spain does not have many chargers yet. We off course also needed to visit our favorite bar in Miranda. We really like it that we g...
After the deal was, yet again, a done course we got into contact with the notary in Briviesca instead of using online firms as we wanted to promote the local economy as much as possible. The communication was in Spanish so we let Yasmin do it for us. The first thing which became clear was before doing anything official we needed a NIE. A NIE is number which the government uses for registration. So we went online to figure out how this could be done. There were quite some posts of people asking how this was done and a lot of replies of how difficult it could be. There is a form which needs to be filled. Which sounds easy but many where send away because of one mistake. And some things seem clear like an address but are not. Did we need to fill in our dutch address or an address in Spain? There were different stories about that. As it is possible to get a NIE in the Spanish consulate we first tried that. When there would be a problem we could return any day until all was fine. Also it co...
We already thought we had a deal . We had 59 houses with 6 ha of land for about 340.000. Which was just a bit over our budget but we agreed on it. Then there was a complication that one landowner wanted an amount which was much too high and that an other only wanted to sell his land with an additional 5 houses. As we already were a bit over our budget we needed somehow that Marcelino would agree to take the extra amount. As we expected this would be a bit complicated we wanted someone to make a phone call to close the deal. Yasmin did not feel comfortable doing negotiations so we asked the guys of biomimicry granada to make the call. They were happy to do it but they assumed it was real estate work and for that wanted a real estate fee. For us it was just one call so we did not agree on it. As we were out of options we decided to write an email. As we had no financial room we needed to find some room to lower the price. As the land was from other parties I assumed it would...
Rebuilding the ruins will start with... rebuilding the walls. And as I want to use as much local products as possible I have started to look around. In our October vacation we took home some dirt that we have found. A bit from the mine and a bit from the hills. I have not asked what kind of rock the mine is mining but I expect it to be some sort of lime (chalk). So it should be possible to use it as a mortar and plaster. So, to have some fun I tested out the lime and the dirt from the hills to see how it would hold in the dutch rain. For this I made a small frame and added the lime first. I only added water to it, nothing fancy. I brought less material than I expected so I only used one frame for now. While letting it dry I pressed it several times to make it compact. When it was done I added some of the red dirt to half of the frame I was using so that I could see the difference. I then put it outside to stand in the rain for some weeks. At first, I put it in an upr...
The closest village to Barcena that has a restaurant is Lences. So we went there. It is a small town where they have really nice paella in a restaurant with really friendly staff. They did not have a vegetarian option (yet) so we went for the seefish. It was served directly from the pan. We tried to eat as much as we could but still we only managed to get to about halfway. The waiter had expected this; he had a doggy back ready. So we ended up with enough rice for the rest of the vacation. I forgot to take a picture so we will need to do that next time. We did take some pictures of the town though, as an inspiration for our project. Some houses are really simple, just the rocks and mortar in between. Some are nicely plastered. And Some have a combination of both, which is logical as the plaster is fragile so on the second floor with an overhanging roof to protect it from the rain works best. Have a look at it for yourself.