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Since my last report I have
mainly been looking to get myself a home and as I've decided that it will
be somewhere in Ontario this hasn't meant it is easy to find that home as
Ontario is a huge Province.
After my meeting with Larry
Hynes in Business Immigration I decided that I should seriously consider
Prince Edward
County which is an island into Lake Ontario around 2 hours drive East
of Toronto on the 401. It's connected to the mainland by a bridge and is a
very pastoral area as well as being a wine growing area with huge
potential. It seemed that the main town of Picton would be both large
enough to have broadband access, which I need, as well as being rural
enough to be a good community.
And so I located a realtor,
one Rob Legge,
representing Royal LePage ProAlliance Realty, who
kindly met me at the train station on Tuesday 9th November and took me to
see some properties in the area. I had previously emailed him and
he'd sent me urls of various properties that seemed to meet my
requirements. The web site for the county gave sufficient information on
the area to make me want to see more.
I should say I was looking
for a detached property with at least 3 bedrooms with the need for at
least one large room suitable for an office. I also didn't want to
pay more than CAN$125,000. (£56,700 or US$104,500).
On the day we saw six
houses and the last one seemed to fit the bill as it has a large enough
room for my office (actually the basement) as well as decent sized living accommodation.
There is also a huge double garage which could be converted to become part
of the house.
While it is in town it is
well located in that I have a wee grocery shop right across the road.
It's around 150 yards to the harbour where there are a couple of pubs and
a further 150 yards up the hill you are on the main street where all the
shops are. It also has a 24 foot overground swimming pool and a very
private back patio to have your BBQ's.
So... have decided to make
an offer for it as that will at least get me started. It will take a
few weeks to get things organised of course as I do need to go through the
usual process of getting a lawyer to check the title deeds, a building
inspector to check the house, etc. You really need that Building
Inspector as he can check the house out to ensure it is suitable for house
insurance. Like has it got copper wiring as old wiring was aluminium
and that carries a high insurance premium. I also need to get a pool
inspector out to see the pool as I wouldn't have a clue if it's in good
condition or not.
The realtor has standard
forms for this purchase and he can help organise the various folk that
will need to check everything out. One thing you should note is that in
Canada once you make an offer and it is accepted, it is binding and you
are bound to it. You can of course make the offer with conditions
such as satisfactory building inspection, title deed search etc.
And so I am now going
through the property purchase process so wish me luck :-)
I also met with an
accountant this week
who seems willing to take on my complex accounts and so have emailed him a
letter confirming what I require. He has also recommended a lawyer
to handle the setup of the new Canadian company who I hope to see later
this week.
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