Paying monthly properties!!

He is advertising on ebay at the moment.

So i see....   on ebay.co.uk under his own name.
Tailor House? He must be in UK then.
I can't find any of his properties on ebay.com

You tried contacting him via ebay.co.uk  messenger ???
I just looked at the advert
So now you have Paul's Home address, Bulgarian Home address, Bulgarian Bussness address (Mowlem), His UK number, his Bulgarian Office number and his ebay messenger.

What with the news today of Heathrow opening up again, he will probably go look at his business emails.

I would give him a ring on his UK personal number...  always best to talk to the organ grinder rather than one of  the monkeys

I don't know Paul personally, and I haven't purchased one of his properties.

However, I am a big user of Ebay, and I actually bought properties in Spain and Germany (and my Bulgarian-registered cars and motorcycle) via the website.

You can usually buy direct from the owner, and get a better price and avoid realtor commissions.

However, there's no mechanism on Ebay for completing the transaction, that has to be done offline in the traditional way (solicitor & conveyancing in the UK, notary in Bulgaria, Germany, Spain).

I purchased both (and the cars/moto) without viewing, but I don't recommend this. It's obviously preferable, if you can, to view before making a final decision.

My main criterion is: does the seller have good feedback (plenty of transactions, all/nearly all without any issues)? If poor feedback or very few transactions, I avoid these offers.

In Bulgaria, you have to use a notary for a legal transaction. The notary is supposed to make some checks of ownership and debts, so there is some diligence done. You can double-check with an attorney, but it's an extra cost that probably isn't necessary if you have a good seller. (If it's a 7,000 euros property, spending 1,000 euros on an attorney to check everything is probably not economic.)

Over my time using Ebay, I have spotted "paulhawtin" (and another regular Bulgaria seller "bulgariadirect") and they've both been selling for many years. Paul currently has 182 feedback with 100% and he's been a member since 2007. He has a separate company (mowlem.eu). BulgariaDirect (offline same name) has been a member even longer, and has nearly 1,000 transactions.

@PottyPolly is a happy client of Paul's... and maybe someone else here has a bulgariadirect house.

Both are now offering pay-monthly properties.

They certainly both appear to be trustworthy sellers to me, and I would be happy to consider their offerings.

They seem to specialize in fairly basic, unrenovated village houses in Bulgaria. Usually with a nice big garden, and private with a surrounding wall. If the village is good, and you want a quiet country life, this could be great! The main issue is that they're unrenovated, so you will need to do quite a lot of work over the next few years.

I've seen a couple of unrenovated Bulgarian village houses, and they are pretty rustic. I don't think I could cope. But maybe a caravan in the garden while you renovate... or maybe something that's had a bit of work and at least has a stove and a bathroom.

To me, it seems like a good way to try out a Bulgarian village property. If you hate it, you've only paid a couple of months of your repayments. If you like it and you're happy, it probably makes sense to pay off the debt and get the property transferred legally.

I haven't seen their contracts, but the main issue with a pay-monthly deal is that ownership most likely legally remains with the seller (but they make an "Immediate transfer of rights and possession"), until the agreed purchase amount is paid off. So there might be issues related to the unfortunate death of the seller (continuation of the contract) or buyer (not part of your estate).

Because the contract isn't (initally) transferring ownership, then the notary isn't involved in terms of checking the legal ownership of the property or the debts. But if they're good sellers, I'd imagine they've already purchased the property from the Bulgarian owner, and made sure there are no debts.

Also, I'm not sure how enforceable a "pay monthly" contract is. I suspect it isn't. So if there is any dispute, I'm not sure there's much recourse. So even with a "contract" it still comes down to the trustworthiness of the seller (and, as I suggested above, it's probably sensible to pay it off earlier and get the property legally transferred). Indeed, I'd be surprised if you even needed a notary to sign the contract, it might even be something you can sign electronically by email, without a POA, and without any travel.

gwynj, you make some very good points.

@ drialardnas, You must get yourself a good Lawyer if you are to buy property here.
The British Government publish a list of English speaking lawyers.  Look here https://www.gov.uk/government/publicati … of-lawyers

The property i'm in now, was not the first place i looked at. 
I found a lovely place in Varna.  I found it on ebay and reached out to the seller (while still in the UK) and got the details.
I then instructed a lawyer in BG and asked him to contact the seller and do "Due Diligence on the property". Make sure you use the term "Due Diligence".  A lawyer is not obliged to tell you stuff they find out unless you have specifically asked for it.
For example....  if you ask the lawyer to check "who owns the house",  and it turns out the sellers Brother legally owns half the garden.... the Lawyer is not obliged to tell you this this because you only instructed your Lawyer to find out "who owns the house".

Also, make sure you find your own Lawyer yourself.  If the seller says "Oh, you can use my Lawyer" ...... don't go there.
In Bulgaria, the same lawyer can represent both parties.  This is not permitted in UK as there could be a conflict of interest.

With the property i was interested in Varna, the ebay advert showed it had 1000 sq/m of land.  However, when my lawyer went to land registry, the sketch showed the house came with only 45 sq/m of land. It turns out, the seller had moved the boundary and put up new fences for the ebay photos, as the neighbouring properties were (at the time) unoccupied.

I pulled out....   cost me 350 quid.  That was the money i paid my lawyer.   But it saved me from buying a house where there would be a bunch of legal fees in land disputes further down the road.
And i did all this via Email, telephone and intentional bank transfers while in the UK.

Paul has contracts for "pay monthly"  and effectively.... you are renting the property until the day you pay the last payment. Get your lawyer to check these documents over before you sign. 

With Paul....   although he is a property developer....   his University education is in Law. UK trained!
That said.  Get your own lawyer and be sure to ask him.... "do you have any connection with the seller and / or are you representing the seller in any way"?   

A lot of this stuff with property purchase in UK is mandated in UK which is fine....   but you are having your hand held and being mollycoddled in my eyes.
A good lawyer will give you peace of mind and.....   you won't have to go around and punch anyone's lights out if you end up with a seller who's a wrong un!

Also. i want to say, i'm not affiliated with Paul Hawtin in any way. I bought from him and he is a pleasure to do business with. That's all.  I would deal with him again and again as he has good people working for him. 
I don't suffer fools gladly....   and i don't mince with my words.  If people mess me around in business....   I make sure they regret ever meeting me. Paul is not in that class, he is a straight up bloke.

Also, you can do a lot of this stuff from UK.   
But remember, with pay monthly, you won't be going to the notary to sign and get your property deeds until you have made your last payment.

So, you are gonna need to budget for £1000 legal fees to be in the safe side.
Good luck, and keep us posted.

***

Please I would like to keep in touch with you regularly concerning buying  BULGARIA Properties via (***) and reaching out to Paul Hawtin on my behalf.My WhatsApp number (***).Please,let's keep in touch.

@stoney2016 I'll never buy another house of eBay I got frauded with two houses on eBay watch yourself on eBay the best thing for you to do is go to announcing place online and do it for an hour's in place I advise you to be really careful on eBay

I bought a house via eBay years ago, it was absolutely fine, and the transaction went very smoothly.  It wasn't one of the pocket-money wrecks that some people get sucked in by, or a "renovated" place with still-wet paint on the walls and polyfilla in the cracks.  It was a reasonable price and since I was already living in Sofia it was easy to re-visit several times to get a feeling for what it was really like after the rosy-light of enthusiasm had dimmed a bit, and I had a reasonable idea of prices and how the buying process worked.  It's now worth around four times what I paid for it, so I think I did okay...

This is an older thread, so I suspect those posting questions have either bought already or given up on the idea.

Having bought my house on ebay, I think one needs to have one's eyes open and be aware of the risks, on ebay like anywhere else. It can work out well, or it can be a disaster. Buying a house sight unseen, there's almost certain to be significantly more wrong with it that you expect. The very cheap houses are sure to need as much again as the purchase price spent on them to make them even weatherproof, let alone comfortably livable. Most likely, more than double the purchase price. The higher priced prettied up ones may have fresh paint and quickly slapped down cement floors leading the unwary to not see where a lot more money still needs to be spent.

I cried the first night in my ebay-purchased house, a pay-monthly cheapie, as a storm raged outside and water poured through the bathroom roof onto a dirt floor. Turned out the seller didn't consider the attached bathroom and kitchen to be part of the house when he assured me that the roof needed no immediate work!

Still, I love the village and love my neighbours and love the location of the house, and I'm slowly turning it into a comfortable, livable, though undeniably quirky home. It's working out for me, and I have no regrets.

But buyer beware and YMMV!

Hi folks anyone know a rough idea on cost of rendering a large 4 bed house close to Sofia

Thank you

@Robertgreen93958

You might want to start a new thread for this, as you're tagging onto an old thread. 🙂

@Robertgreen93958

I assume you're going to insulate it well before you get it rendered?

Bad idea to buy on eBay!

Wow , how people can be so naive.

Please go to Bulgaria and look for properties, see them with your own eyes. Get a lawyer when you need to sign papers of any kind.

Buying a fixer-upper will destroy your life. NOT Worthy!!!!!!

True in principle, although some people do get a reasonable deal when buying sight unseen. I bought my village house and an apartment in Sofia via Ebay but I was already living in Sofia, so I viewed both of them several times; the first time I viewed the apartment I really thought I was in the wrong property!

The house was a good deal, the flat was a once in a lifetime bargain - both from British sellers who'd let their enthusiasm run away with them. Buying without seeing is certainly a huge gamble and I'm not sure I'm brave enough to do it unless it's basically selling for pocket change.

I'm not sure about "destroy your life", that hasn't been my experience. But there's definitely a lot to consider when buying a fixer-upper:

• Not all villages are safe, lovely places full of honest people. Many are, some aren't;
• Make sure you are getting what you think, for many estate agents, every room, including the kitchen, is a bedroom, so a four bedroom house might be two bedrooms plus a bed in the living room and kitchen. Also, for many estate agents, a "sound roof" only means the main house, not the bathroom and kitchen which are often added on the back. Also the photos in some listings are old and may not represent the house's current condition. Even new photos may not reflect current condition, some agents are good at photographing the one nice corner of the room and ignoring the hole in the ceiling behind them!
• The house will certainly need more work than you think. Older Bulgarians endured huge hardships and "liveable" to Bulgarian village standards may not be comfortable for many westerner;
• The renovations will cost more than you expect, prices for building materials have risen steeply;
• Finding reliable tradespeople isn't easy if you don't speak Bulgarian. At least some of the work will be bodged;
• Most village houses come complete with lots of old broken stuff and junk you will have to pay to get removed;
• Unless you're living there, staying on top of the weeds in the big garden is hard work.

Having said all that, despite it being true to my experience, I love my village house and treasure the time I get here. I cried the first night in the house, it was so much worse than I imagined. It's a lot of hard work and expense. But some day in the next few years, we'll have a nice house to retire to, in a lovely village, with wonderful neighbours.

Just an addendum to Jane's very comprehensive post above: even if you speak Bulgarian, and/or have a Bulgarian spouse, finding reliable, and competent, tradespeople is well-nigh impossible nowadays.  It was tough 20 years ago, and it's worse now - most of the masters you'll find are of the "I saw my grandfather do this once, so I'm an expert" variety.  The only competent builder I found was a Dutchman with the most chaotic personal life imaginable, so he wasn't exactly reliable on his frequent "I'm too depressed to pay proper attention to what I'm doing" days.

The other important thing is not to try to get any renovation work remotely; you really need to be on-site all the time to keep an eye on what's going on and to ensure that it's what you want and is being done properly:-a coat of render or plaster can hide a multitude of sins!  Many "builders" have, or will put together, a brigade of workers, most of whom will be Roma, who are cheap to hire but often hard workers (when the boss is watching); unfortunately they're also almost invariably unskilled and clueless.

Be wary of personal recommendations - they're only of value if the person doing the recommending actually knows what a "good job" is and isn't a "Good Samaritan" in disguise; I still remember a British guy I knew in France decades ago who had a crew of British roofers recommended to him by a Dutch architect.  They were expensive, but he was happy to have the recommendation of a professional, and to be able to communicate with them in English.  They proceeded to do the worst imaginable job on his roof - including stripping off the tiles and leaving it uncovered during a previously-forecast two-week period of heavy rain, and not bothering with any flashing after he foolishly told them that he wasn't going to climb the scaffolding as he was scared of heights.  When he mentioned the debacle to the architect the response was "Yes, I know they're pretty useless - but they needed the work, and the money"!

If anyone is looking for a rubbish tradesman, please feel free to Message me - I have a long list of the blighters for you to choose from!

LOL! So true, Jim! Of the four tradespeople I've had work on the house, all recommended by my neighbours, two were totally expert, did a great job , I'd employ them again without hesitation. And two turned out to be obvious pity cases. Some of what they did was good enough, some was a mess. Thankfully the stuff the first pity case totally screwed up was the stuff the last pity case redid and set right. More or less.

I will say it again- hassle, headache, not worthy to wait for the future for  the house to look good.

Save some money, get yourself normal house which you can enjoy immediately.

Everything cheap turns out very expensive in the long run.

If you are skilled builder and can do  a quality work yourself- then  you  are a winner!!!!

I know that this thread's been running for quite a few years but I'm intrigued as to how it ended up in the "Sofia" section - I find it hard to imagine any "pay monthly" properties here. Even going back many years, the normal prices of Sofia property would require monthly payments for many a year!

Someone early in the thread mentioned knowing a guy who knows about property in Sofia. That must have been enough to trigger the automated system to add it. At least, I assume it's automated, because if human, it's a not-too-bright one.

And yes, paying off a Sofia property at £300 a month, the proud new owner will be waiting a long time?

@janemulberry

One-bedroom apartments in any of the decent areas are well over 100k euros these days, so it'll be paid in 30 years or so.  Of course, any seller with an ounce of nous will include a clause to account for increases in value over that kind of time, so the prospective buyer will never finish paying for the property....