When dream apartments become a nightmare to purchase

I hope I'm not tempting fate by writing about this a few days before I actually move. After months of searching for a bigger apartment, a public auction notice caught my eye last November.

The flat was behind the Hotel de Ville, with a view of the Seine, and was in a mid-19th century building sold by the city of Paris.

My dream apartment was on the fourth floor without a lift, had virtually no electrical wiring or plumbing. The parquet floor looked like someone had taken an axe to it, but none of that matters when you have a coup de foudre.

Auctions at the Chambre des Notaires haven't changed since Balzac. You deposit a cheque at the entry and they stick a number on your clothing. A woman sits next to the auctioneer at the head of the crowded, ill-ventilated room. When the bidding stops, she cries out "premier feu" and snuffs out a candle. If there are no further bids, she says, "deuxieme feu" and extinguishes the second candle. The process is known as "buying by the candle".

I asked my notary, Maitre Jean Pluvinage, to do the bidding for me. He raised his hand, and as I heard figures shouted out in dizzying succession, I had a visual image of my life's savings washing down a drain. When he reached the limit I'd set, Maitre Pluvinage turned to me. In a split second I decided; keep going.

"Deuxieme feu", I heard, without realising the flat was mine. At least it was for nine days, until the nondescript Frenchman who kept driving the stakes up lodged a bid 10 per cent higher - legal gazumping.

It took a couple more months to find another flat I liked, in better condition and at a more reasonable price, though without the view. It's in a graceful old building, centrally located near government ministries. By this time, I was thick-skinned enough to ignore the previous owner's teenage son. As the estate agent cringed beside me, he announced: "I've held black Masses in this room. I made satanic inscriptions in blood here."

The three legal stages of buying an apartment in France, l'offre, la promesse and l'acte, involve endless signatures, geometrists measuring and studies of asbestos, lead and termites.

In my case, the promise was the biggest hurdle, because a second estate agent surfaced claiming he had an exclusive mandate to sell the flat, and so demanded half the commission.

A three-hour session in Maitre Pluvinage's office ended inconclusively. At the following appointment, with dramatic flair, the previous owner's notary pulled out a document proving that the shady agency had forged their mandate. The owner fretted that he might none the less be sued. "They wouldn't dare," Maitre Pluvinage answered with bravado. As the young man representing the agency slinked out of the room, my notary called after him, "And remind your boss that he could go to prison."

That left only two more obstacles; selling my old flat, and refurbishing the new one. I wasted months negotiating with an aristocrat who owns a chateau in the country and wanted my place for her son. She seemed to regard the transaction as a kind of blood sport, and added new conditions each time we reached an agreement. Maitre Pluvinage and I laughed over the draft promesse de vente she sent. It would have given her the right to inspect the apartment to ensure I did not take door frames, door knobs and the toilet seat. In 20 years, my notary said, he'd never seen the toilet seat included in a contract.

Habitat was supposed to deliver my new kitchen at the end of June. The shop finally left a message on the builder's answering machine on July 11th, saying the kitchen would be delivered in August - when the builder will of course be on holiday. Habitat's press office said the supplier was British and unreliable, and that they would no longer work with him. They refused to give me his name and telephone number, saying it was "to protect him". I was eventually offered a 10 per cent rebate, but never heard the words, "we're sorry".

I assumed my troubles were due to normal Gallic inefficiency, but two colleagues in Dublin told me of a rattan settee, computer desk and sofa bed they had the misfortune of ordering from Habitat on Stephen's Green. Significant delays in delivery caused the order for the sofa bed to be cancelled; the other items were delivered late.

I've resigned myself to using cardboard boxes for kitchen cabinets until September. In the meantime, friends and my long-lost brother have telephoned from Holland, Algeria and California to book the guest room.