When I was back in London in March to arrange to ship my possessions to Greece, I saw a poster on the side of a double-decker bus. “GREECE – Live the Myth,” it said. Yeah, right, I thought.
Now I am living the myth and it feels a little strange. I have severed all connection to England; I have sold my flat in London where I thought I would spend the rest of my life, and I now live on an island in the Aegean. Even though it has been more than three months, there are still days when I find it hard to believe that I have bought a house in Greece.
My house is on Naxos, the largest and, according to most guidebooks, the most beautiful of the Cyclades. In high season, a fast boat, of which there are usually two a day, takes three-and-a-half hours from Athens. In the winter, the fastest boat, the Blue Star, takes about five hours. There is also a small plane, but, in summer, it gets booked up and, in winter, it’s infrequent. Naxos is remote and it is difficult, though not impossible, to get to or from London in a day.
The island has a population of about 18,000; most of the people are farmers or shepherds. There are some British, and quite a few Germans and Scandinavians. Most people in Naxos Town, known as Chora, speak English. In summer, the island is flooded with tourists and, from June to September, it has a carnival atmosphere. In winter, it is virtually deserted. Then, I am frequently the only person at the cinema, which opened last year. Those who can afford to leave, to return to Athens or Switzerland or London or Copenhagen, do so.
I am going into this degree of detail because I want to give some picture of what life is like when you actually live here. Yet the decision to leave London was not difficult. The city hadn’t been kind to me: I had been stabbed by a care-in-the-community schizophrenic and, more recently, raped by a man who broke into my flat and attacked me when I was sleeping. London was expensive, ugly, noisy, dirty and scary.
When people ask me, “Why did you choose Naxos?” I say, “I didn’t. Naxos chose me.” I first came here 20 years ago to visit a friend who was cat-sitting for an English lady. I still have letters from her, which make it clear that we were, even then, discussing the possibility of my buying her house. But I was thinking in terms of a holiday house. It didn’t occur to me that I would ever live here full-time.
But I kept coming back. I liked the size of the island and the fact that I knew it. My father was British ambassador in Athens in the 1960s, the time of the junta, and, though
I couldn’t really speak Greek, I knew enough to imagine that I might one day learn it. For four years since 2000, I had been spending summers here. I had rented part of a house in the Kastro, the old town. But, last year, when I spent my first winter here, I realised I wanted a place of my own.
I didn’t want a modern house or to build in, say, Aghia Anna, a beautiful beach resort on the south coast. But I never dreamt that I would be able to afford a house in the Kastro. Naxos was the seat of the Duchy of the Aegean and various Venetian nobles built grand houses here; these don’t come up for sale very often. There are at present two Kastro houses for sale, and the asking price for each is about €1m (£675,000). The house that I bought had been for sale for more than two years, but I had never bothered to find out what the owner was asking, because I had assumed it would be out of my reach.
I saw an old house that I liked in the Melanes Valley, but it was derelict and I was told that it would be almost impossible to buy as it was a former convent and owned by the Catholic Church. Under a law passed in the 1940s, peasants were given the right to acquire land on which they had worked over a certain period of time, but not the houses to which the land belonged. This house was such a case, hence its state.
Then, before Christmas, an English friend came to dinner with her husband. “I’m thinking of buying Max’s house in the Kastro,” he said. “Can you afford it?” I asked. “It’s not expensive,” he said, and told me what Max was asking — about £200,000.
I worked out that, if I sold my flat in Camden, I would be able to afford it. Sure, I could find a shed in the middle of nowhere for £30,000, but I didn’t want that. I wanted a beautiful house in the Kastro and I didn’t want to live in London again. My friend’s husband wasn’t serious so I felt free to go ahead.
My London flat was valued at £325,000, three times what I had paid for it 10 years ago. It went on the market in January and, within six days, I got an offer. The putative buyers agreed to up their offer and we settled on £310,000. I had imagined that it would take much longer and had been prepared not to be in the Greek house before September.
The most complicated aspect of buying a house in Greece is that there are two prices: the actual price, which is what you pay, and the so-called “objective” price, which is what you pay tax on. There are tables drawn up by the tax office that specify how much the tax will be, depending on a number of factors (where the house is, access to roads, and so on). The most frightening thing is that you do most of it yourself, so I found myself constantly drawing enormous sums of cash from the bank and handing them over to the tax office, the lawyer, the notary, the vendor and so on.
You do not exchange contracts, nor do you put down a deposit, because, if you were to do so, in order for it to be legally binding, you would have to reveal the actual price of the house, and be taxed accordingly. At any point, up to the signing of the contract, the vendor and, indeed, the purchaser can change his mind. Once the purchaser has paid the tax, though, it is difficult for the vendor to back out. And, once the contract is signed and the “objective” price paid, the house is yours and the vendor has only your word that you will pay the balance.
The signing of the contract took place in May. The legal costs came to just over £2,700. A Greek-speaking friend accompanied me, otherwise I would have had to pay for a translator, though I was surprised how much I understood. My lawyer was also present.
I didn’t move in until almost a month later. Although the house was in good condition, it was amazing how many things needed doing and how long they seemed to take. It had been empty for two years and practically every door and window needed sanding and repainting. The space consisted of 300sq m, two houses, in fact: the upstairs where Max and his wife, Anna, had lived, comprising a huge salone, or drawing room, with a wood-burning stove, off which was a west-facing terrace giving onto a small square; a bedroom with a terrace looking out to the mountains and the sea; a bathroom and kitchen; a dining hall, and a room that I intended to use as a study. This last represented an incredible luxury. I longed for a room in which to write and I was determined that it shouldn’t become a guest room.
Max had apparently used the downstairs as a cellar/ gallery/workshop, and I knew that, in the past, some of it had been rented out. There was a small, dank shower room; two huge, dark but cool rooms; a grotty kitchenette; a terrace painted a hideous mustard colour and, up some narrow steps, a hallway leading to a pretty room, presently full of tools, and a space where a small, rusting bath had been fitted. This led out into a courtyard where the wood for the stove was stored. Max hadn ’t wanted to sell this part, but, realising that I would need somewhere to store wood and that I could make a spare room and put in a lavatory and basin where the bath was, I insisted.
My plan was to transform the big space into an apartment that I could let and to keep the other room for friends. I suspected that one reason the house had been on the market for so long was because nobody could imagine what to do with the downstairs.
Four months later, the house still isn’t finished. I had 220 boxes shipped from England and I can’t finish unpacking till I have more bookcases built. Also, in an attempt to restore the original lines of the house, I have torn out Max’s Ikea cupboards so I have nowhere to put anything. It all seems to take forever, and the catchphrase on most people’s lips is “Siga, siga”, meaning “Slowly, slowly”, though I suspect that a more accurate translation would be “Mañana, mañana”, with all its implications of “never”.
It’s virtually impossible to track down the plumber, so the tap on the new outdoor shower still has to be fitted; the telephone only works at one end of the house and the electrician claims to be too busy to extend the cable. But both big rooms downstairs have had all the damp plaster removed; the new kitchen is pretty and functional; the downstairs terrace has been repainted pink, the holes permitting the ingress of centipedes whose bite is dangerous have been sealed, and I had tenants for 10 days who appeared happy enough.
By next year, it should all be fine.
ON THE MARKET
This four-bed stone house, in Potamia, five miles from Naxos Town, is set in three-quarters of an acre with olive and lemon trees. It is £337,000 with Naxos Realty, 00 30 228 502 6644, www.naxosrealty.com
In Stelida, this 1,076sq ft villa has three bedrooms and two bathrooms, one of which is en-suite, and a garden. It is on the market for £200,000 with Cosmos, 00 30 210 985 1385, www.cosmos-properties.com
Twenty-six villas, each sleeping five to eight people, are being built at Pyrgaki, on the southwest coast. They cost from £161,000 with A Property in Greece, 020 8467 5246, www.apropertyingreece.com
Two miles from Naxos Town, this four-bedroom villa has two verandas, both with a sea view. Still under construction, it is £155,000 through Zoros Real Estate, 00 30 697 796 6825, www.naxosrealties.gr
