Stuck in a conflict! BUT, the house is ours!

G’day mates!

Let’s go on with our house buying adventure!
Our housesitting in Townsville ended and we had about 4 weeks to drive slowly towards the Gold Coast, where my Aunty lives, to do the house sitting for her. She was going to The Netherlands for 10 weeks and we would look after her place. Not a punishment really!! I’ll show you, but we are not there not in this story, still get it? 🤪🤪. This is our perspective ....

Anyway on the way down I wanted to do some gold digging still as that could be one of the last times, so we went to Clermont again where we also had been with Danny on the way up. You have to pass Charters Towers to get to Clermont and in stead of going there again we had our first stop at Bivouac Holiday Camp a few k's before Charters Towers. What a great spot this is!

Great Camp Kitchen....

Cheerful amenities.... 

It was just a shame that the river was so dry....

BBQ facilities at the Camp sites

Clemont;
This time the caravan park was totally packed and we were banned to the edge of the park on a grass site, didn’t matter we had a nice view...

and “nice” visitors.....

During the day, night in Holland, I had time for prospecting and after 5 o’clock (BeerO’clock) the circus started again, emailing, printing, scanning, Skyping, What’s-apping with the real estate, the “Notaris”, our financial adviser, my sister etc etc.

Yes, we have all that stuff in our caravan!

The conflict;

Then our Dutch Notary (actually named “Notaris” and is not quite the same as a Notary here) said to us that we didn’t had to go to the Netherlands to sign the contract unless we could provide a Power of Attorney (PoA), made by a Public Notary here together with an Apostille (I’ll explain later what that is). He even send us the concept PoA in Dutch with the message “ it has to be like this but in English”.

Together with my big friend “Google” I found some Public Notaries on our way to the Gold Coast and started calling. The first three Notaries said we had to provide the a PoA in Dutch, he would witness us signing it, we then get the Apostille and send it up. I told that to the Dutch “Notaris “ and he said “no it has to be in English”. For us that sounded illogical as well as the Notary here, (the one who eventually helped us) said: “I don’t have to know what’s written in that Power of Attorney, you buy the house in the Netherlands so it is logical that it’s in Dutch and that you understand what it says, I only have to witness that you sign it! We have done these things before! And I can’t make a PoA for you in English as I don’t know the rules in your country!"

Again I told that to the “Notaris” but he kept on saying “no, in English”. To make a long story short: the Notary in Rockhampton and I agreed; I send him one in English, he checks if it looks good, we make an appointment to come and sign and so we did. I just put the Dutch PoA through, again my big friend: “ Google Translate”, emailed it to the Public Notary and made an appointment.

It was only 385 k's to Rockhampton where we stayed at a very nice caravan park at the river.

On the other side of the river we could see the building of the Notary where we had the appointment next day. We gathered important paperwork and went on our way.....

My God, it was like an old English movie, we stepped about 100 years back in time when entering that office. Stacks of files where packed in the office and the whole building and little rooms were so old fashion I really had to laugh. The only modern thing what brought us back into the present was when I had to pay, that went through eftpos 😂😂.
We were so smart to have both PoA signed, the English as well as the Dutch one so nothing could go wrong.

They even offered to arrange the Apostille for us as well but then everything had to go through the mail and we were short in time as the paperwork had to be in the Netherlands at a certain date. We rather keep control and so we had to race to Brisbane to go to the DFAT (Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade) at the Australian Passport Offices and get the Apostille which is the legalisation of the Notary's signature, pfff.

Of course we celebrated this first important step with a nice meal at the Criterion Hotel....

We had a stop in Maryborough as is was too far to drive in one go. Maryborough an historic city on the Mary River now noted for its connections with Mary Poppins. Its a very nice place with beautiful buildings....

Helen Lyndon Goff, the famous author of the Mary Poppins books, was born in Maryborough....

We also had a good time at the Mary river at the Wharf....

Then we had a stop at the Caboolture Showgrounds and we could go by train into Brisbane as on the 6th of August we had the appointment for the Apostille, luckily we could wait for it and send it to the “Notaris” in the Netherlands straight away, express and registered. It was all in time!

On the 20th of August the transfer of our house was a fact, everything was signed, my sister was handed over the keys and the house is ours!

They are all looking after it very well till we go back and be there to take over.

We still had some time left and we could go earlier to my aunt but we had decided that it would be better to sell our little house in wheels in the time we would do the housesitting! The timing was just better as it is before the big holidays and we had the great opportunity to clean it well and unpack it.
Of course we wanted to postpone that moment and so we decided to go back up a bit to Beachmere just to relax a bit and recover from all the stress. But that's next.......

Cheers!