I Own A Little Piece Of Greece :-)

From today I am the proud owner of a little piece of Greece.
Here I am standing on the part of the plot that I now own and where my house is to be built. Not sure where exactly I am on my plot - I could be standing in the open fireplace :-) My bit is one of 15 plots that make up the total area that will be built on.
Yesterday I went into town to hand over a cheque to the Revenue to pay the purchase tax due (the tax man always has to be paid first as part of the process) & then took the receipt along to the Notary's office to show the tax had been paid. Then today I have been back to the Notary's office in Zakynthos town, along with my lawyer & one of the owners of the construction company. After I handed over a further cheque we all signed the contract, witnessed by the notary, for my purchase of the plot of land on which my house is to be built. I also paid my lawyer's bill today so the bank balance took a bit of a bashing :-)
Tomorrow I have to return to the Notary office to pick up the deeds & take them along to register them at the Land Registry (which involves another fee to be paid out)
The construction company now has to put in the official application to build my house &, as things stand at the present time, this permission is currently taking over 4 months to come through & that time scale is growing all the time due to backlogs in the relevant department (nothing new for Greece)
Then I also have to meet sometime with the construction company to agree my exact requirements for the house, such as, on which side I would like the entrance etc & we also have to agree the schedule of stage payments that I will make to them at the different stages of construction in order to pay for the building of my house.
So although it's expected to take about 12 months to complete my house, I feel that I can now allow myself to get excited about it. I have something concrete (no pun intended LOL) to look forward to & will be able to watch my new home materialise from start to finish. To be realistic I think I will set my hopes on it being ready to move into in time for Christmas 2008.
Watch this space!!!!!!