01 August 08

Property

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Mile-high buy
ANDREW & JOANNE PATRICK

Before your plane even lands you may have already been sold a property in your dream destination! It sounds farfetched, but that’s what happened to Andrew Patrick and his wife Joanne, from Surrey, southeast England.

The couple were on a fl ight home from a skiing holiday to Sweden, sat beside Roy Smith, who happens to be a director at Grosvenor Overseas Ltd. At about 30,000ft, Smith began telling them all about the Secret Mountain development in Klövsjö, Central Sweden, which he had just started working on.

“Roy became so enthusiastic about Secret Mountain, showing us about 150 photographs he had taken. We were keen to fi nd out more,” says Joanne.

Andrew had spent six months at Uppsala University on a business management postgraduate degree course, and was already a big fan of Swedish culture. So after not too much persuasion, he bought a four-bedroom, twobathroom property with a private sauna.

“The property sleeps up to eight people, so there is plenty of room for our three children who are aged between 16 and 21,” says Joanne. “We spend school holidays and half-term breaks at Secret Mountain, but the rest of the time we enjoy an investment income from the property, having placed it with the holiday fi rm SkiStar, which manages lettings for us.”

The couple paid £144,000 (€181,000) for their apartment, which is located 100m from the ski lift and has a balcony with views of the slopes. The Patricks took a gamble and put down a deposit without even having viewed the property, but Andrew, a human resources director, says the buying and letting procedures were “the most painless process”.

The property required a £1,000 (€1,257) deposit to be reserved off-plan for six weeks, and 25% was paid on signing of the contracts, with a mortgage arranged through the Swedish bank Svenska Enskilda Banken.

The apartment was bought freehold and additional fees that they incurred amounted to around £100 (€126) per month in maintenance charges for electricity used in common areas, snow clearance, refuse collection and other management costs.

FOR MORE DETAILS, VISIT WWW.SECRETMOUNTAINSWEDEN.COM