Completion Trip Begins

Although the contract had stipulated at completion date for the Bells 2 complex as the 15th May, there would be a six week period after this for the furnishing to be put in. To be on the safe side, I'd booked flights directly from Glasgow to Bourgas for the 18th July. This seemed prudent, and to make sure I got the flights I booked them a good few months in advance. Unfortunately this meant that I had to pay through the nose for them, which only became clear a few weeks before we were due to leave when the flights came down to half the price I'd paid. Fortunately Barrasford and Bird had arranged transport from Bourgas airport to St Vlas, so that was one less thing to worry about.
A couple of weeks before we left, we got a message from Barrasford and Bird saying our apartment may not be furnished in time due to the St Vlas company that was doing it being a bit snowed under in the area. The message did include the comforting note that Barrasford and Bird would provide accomodation at their expense if the work wasn't done, a nice touch. We were also given some priority since we'd already booked our flights to Bulgaria.
On the Friday before we were due to leave, Barrasford and Bird phoned and told me that most of the work had been done, but a few minor things were outstanding. I, of course, asked for the details and it turned out to be things like an iron, which wasn't a big deal at all. The only thing that bothered me was curtains, and they'd fitted a temporary set to ensure we had some privacy.
We flew out on the Tuesday afternoon with Thomson Fly, which was pretty painless. The flight took just over 3 hours, and we'd been expecting closer to 4, so that was a bonus. The taxi was waiting for us as we got through customs and we were at St Vlas within the hour. It only took 20 minutes to track down someone with a key, and there we were, standing inside our first Bulgarian apartment.

Banks and Couches

After the purchase the contracts arrive. Bulgarian contracts seem to be somewhat brief, not anywhere near the same level of detail you would expect from a British property purchase. There were a couple of pages of reasonably translated Bulgarian, with clauses that seemed to be quite weak and, in some cases, looked unenforceable. The only real concern I had was that the contract had changed in it's content for some key areas from the one I'd seen in Bulgaria. There was a 10% penalty to the builder if the St Vlas build overran, which seemed to have been removed in the final draft. I'd been in St Vlas in January anyway, and had seen the progress for myself, so didn't have too much concern in this regard.
I started looking at furnishing at this point. Although Barrasford and Bird offered a complete deal, which involved a local company (local in Bulgaria, obviously!) who would do everything from the kitchen to the last teaspoon. I'd wanted to shop around a bit though, so I looked at various companies in Varna, Bourgas, Sunny Beach and St Vlas but, short of going out to Bulgaria for a couple of weeks, it proved difficult to source the right material for a beach apartment rental at a better cost. I ended up getting package from Barrasford and Bird, which was fine quality for a breach holiday rental, and upgraded to things like washing machine and coffee maker just to give a more luxurious rental to stand out from the normal package holiday. I'll find out over the next year or two's rentals whether it was worthwhile or not.
While doing this, I had to figure out how the payments were actually made. I appears that this particular builder, while Bulgarian, required payments in Euros. This makes it a little easier to organise since there are a number of companies that deal with this. I used a company called MoneyCorp, who seemed to be just the same as any other number of companies, so I won't recommend them or not. The only strange thing was that the ask questions about the money such as "What is the money for?". I, of course, answer "To buy property in Bulgaria". They then ask 'Where did the money come from?". I, of course, answer "The bank". I assume this is to meet money laundering regulations in the UK, but it did seem like a pointless exercise to me.
So, that was Bulgarian currency sorted out, transferring money to Bulgaria, buying furniture in Bulgaria, all without having to actually travelling to Bulgaria.
I suppose it was only when Barrasford and Bird told me that the furnishing company were going to let them down it became an issue...