How I Became A Dutch Land Owner

Dutch Land

I think I might be an adult… Yesterday we signed some papers and now I own a house, a whole house with a roof, walls, doors and other house like bits. As far as responsible adult like actions go this is quite a big one. I am now a Dutch land owner.

The only problem is that the house does not actually exist yet. It will exist but at the moment it is very much in a state of none existence (which makes living in it very difficult). This is because it is not actually built yet. It is going to be built in a few months (which is why we are currently living with my family-in-law). At the moment I mainly own the concept that one day later a house will be built and then I am allowed to live in it.

However, it is not all completely theoretical. We do own the land on which the house is going to be built. This means I actually own a small piece of The Netherlands. Part of this country is mine and there are even important documents to prove it. We own land!

My Bit of The Netherlands

Our land is currently a slightly over grown weed covered field but those are our weeds. Any person or cat who walks through that field is ‘on my land’ and under country side rules I think that gives me the right to chase them off with a shotgun (although I’m English so it is more likely that I’ll chase them off with polite insistence).

This also means we don’t really have to wait for the house to be built. My wife and I can just go to our small patch of field and hang out. No one would be able to tell us to leave. We could have barbeques in our field if we wanted. We can even have field parties. Technically we could set up a tent and start living there already… It just means the builders would probably have to build the house around us when they start.

Either way; I own land! A small part of The Netherlands belongs to me! I am a Dutch Land Owner.

Stuart

Stuart is an accident prone Englishman who has been living in the Netherlands since 2001. Even his move to the country was an unintentional accident, the result of replying to a cryptic job advertisement he found one day in a local British magazine. Since then he has learned to love the Dutch (so much so that he married one of them) and now calls the country home. He started the blog Invading Holland in 2006 as a place to share his strange stories of language misunderstandings, cultural confusions and his own accident prone nature.

21 Responses

  1. thedewaddict says:

    Gefeliciteerd!!!!!

  2. Lucas says:

    A great step in the invasion of Holland! congratulations!

  3. Martijn says:

    Congratulations :)

  4. Voula says:

    Congratulations. I’m also looking for land. Do you have freedom to design the home or is it part of a predetermined project ?

  5. Sharon says:

    You have a daughter. Save the shotgun – you might need it 15 years from now ;) Congratulations on the house, but *Tip* as a newbuild, I really advise you to paint it all before moving in! The plaster dust from our walls kept us all coughing for months afterwards.

  6. MUAHAHAHAHA!!! The Invasion is falling into place!!! One plot of land down…the rest of the country to go.

    If do end up chasing off trespassers by way of a shotgun, it is absolutely crucial that you affect a Southern U.S. dialect. “Git off muh land, or Ai’ll blow yer head off!”

    • Invader Stu says:

      It’s like Black Adder:

      “This is the amount of land we captured today sir.”
      “Excellent. What scale is it?”
      “No sir. This is the land we captured.”

  7. jpluimers says:

    Invading in full swing…

  8. AstridQK says:

    Gefeliciteerd!

  9. Gefeliciteerd! When’s the field warming party?!

  10. Time to change the title to invading Friesland? As you should know by now, holland is just part of the Netherlands!

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