The Deed Is Done

We were up bright and early once again this morning for the twenty minute walk along the Keizersgracht to the notary‘s office. There, we met with our estate agent, the selling agent and the notary to run through the koopakte (deed of sale), which we ultimately signed.

We now have a three day cooling off period (or bedenktijd, as it’s called here), in which we can decide to abandon the purchase. If we were to do that, we’d owe the notary some cash for his services, but that’s all. Anyway, there’s very little chance of that happening, as we’ve had all the time we need to think about this as we waited for the day to come on which we would sign the deed of sale.

We have to hand over 10% of the purchase price by 25^th November, with the rest to follow by the time we are due to take receipt of the house.

16^th December is the agreed day on which we will receive the keys and sign the deed of delivery. At that point, it really will be ours, which even now somehow still seems hard to imagine.

Back home, I called the moving company who currently have all of our belongings in storage and immediately booked the delivery of our stuff for 20^th December. That’s the day we’ll finally be reunited with all of the stuff we last saw being loaded onto a lorry in California on 10^th August.

After Wiesje had had a nap, we went to Oost Slaapcomfort to place the order for our bed. We decided to kill two birds with one stone and simultaneously order a bed for the guestroom, too, so we placed an order for a 2000T and a Naturally, both made by Hästens. The funny Swedish ads on Dutch TV fulfilled their purpose, I suppose, and the DVD that accompanied the brochure appealed to me with its thorough description of how these beds are manufactured. Of course, the only real litmus test is to lie on the things, but in that area, too, they more than proved their worth.

In the evening, we met up with my old friend and ex-Sonera colleague, Bas, with whom we had dinner. Tomorrow, we’ll be hanging out with him and his wife, Kylie. It’s surprising to think how many of our friends have actually visited us here in the small amount of time we’ve been back in Amsterdam.