Buying a Spanish Villa Part III
An Inheritance
I think all great adventures come with a certain amount of trepidation. While the purchase of Casa Durillo filled me with excitement, I was also filled with a good amount of anxiety.
Are we making the right decision?
Are we going to spend all this time and money and later regret it?
Have we really thought this through?
I think many of us can relate to feelings like this when making a big decision. But no great reward comes without risk, right? Though Chris and I both had our worries, one fateful meeting squashed them all.
Once the initial paperwork was signed and in the faithful hands of our realtors, the owners of the home asked to meet with us. We set up a meeting at the villa for the following week.
We walked through the courtyard and onto the vine covered terrace where we first saw Juan and Debra. Juan, a Spanish man in his 70s, speaks very little English. Debra, on the other hand, is a Minnesota native who fell in love with a dark-haired Spaniard and uprooted her American life to spend her days with him in the Spanish countryside.
They had lived in Casa Durillo for over 20 years, becoming its second owners after purchasing it from an Italian family who built it in the late 1960s. Over time, they lovingly renovated and updated the villa, making it their own. Debra brought a photo album to show us how the property had evolved through the years and across seasons. She pointed out images of a once-thriving garden where she grew all the ingredients for her favorite Spanish treat—gazpacho. Together, she and Juan had planted the fruit trees that now flourished in the lower orchard.
At one point, Debra looked at us and exclaimed, ‘Where have you guys been? We’ve been waiting for you!’ She told us they had always hoped to see children running around the property, a family truly enjoying it. The fact that we were fellow Americans probably helped, too.
As our time together came to an end, Juan took Chris’s hand and led him around the property, showing him how things worked and pointing out details he wanted him to know. Chris felt honored and later remarked that it was like holding his own grandfather’s hand.
When it was time to say goodbye, we embraced warmly. Juan and Debra had poured their hearts and hard work into Casa Durillo—it had been their home for many years. Our hope was to honor that legacy as we stepped into ownership.
The paperwork took a few more months to finalize. Buying property in Spain is similar to buying in the U.S.—just slower. 🙂
You put down earnest money, get a home valuation (appraisal), and schedule a survey (inspection). Then comes signing a mountain of documents (thankfully, digital signatures exist) and making the deposit. We handled most of this from our home in California, navigating it all through emails, WhatsApp messages, FaceTime, and a mix of Spanglish—or maybe Cast-lish?
For a while, we only told our family. We were still unsure if something might happen at the last minute to derail the sale. Buying a home in another country felt uncertain and unpredictable
Finally, in late October 2022, the sale was final—Casa Durillo was officially ours! The keys were handed over to our realtor, who would keep them safe until we could return. That night, Chris and I poured ourselves a glass of Spanish wine and officially renamed Casa Durillo Villa de la Luz—’Village of the Light.’ We toasted to our next great adventure, grateful for the journey that had brought us here.
None of it would have been possible without our incredible real estate team, who patiently translated and guided us through every step of the process. And, as is typical in Spain, some of them have become like familia to us.
