Lascoux

Thanks for that link Clair. Effectively it is considered delived by the Post Office at first presentation to an address whether or not anyone is there. So the Post Office fulfills its part. "La lettre recommandée avec avis de réception. Elle fait la preuve de la date d'envoi du courrier et de la date de réception par le destinataire." Thus it gives proof of the date of sending and receiving the letter, but would the date it is written be considered the legal date of the notification for date sensitive issues ?

I have heard that the effective date for legal purposes of a registered letter in France is the date that is stamped at the Post Office and NOT the date it is received and signed for. Can anyone confirm this.

No it's not an expensive house, it's just the very high fees charged by French estate agents to sell a house. This is really the cause of many problems, because the commission is so large, it leads to a lot of unscrupulous tactics. Paying a commission of up to 10 per cent is not unusual in France. In UK we are looking at 1 to 1.5 per cent commission.

Yes, this is the sequence of events. We had an offer from the estate agents only 5000 euros under the asking price. We had not accepted this offer at the time, but were considering it. Then out of the blue came private buyers in response to one of my internet ads. The rest is as you have stated. The notaire has seen all emails etc and has come round to saying it's up to us which buyer we choose. But he does point out that the losing side could pursue it further. Basically notaire not wanting to commit himself. The estate agent stands to loose 12000 euros commission if we go with our private buyers, so he is trying all tactics to coerce us into accepting his buyer, although under our english 'first come first served' it's our private buyer who offered the full asking price first. We informed the agents by registered letter as per the contract that we had found a buyer, but estate agent seems to be saying that since no Compromis was actually signed at the time, then an actual sale did not take place. This appears to have given him the time to get his buyers to increase their offer. Under our contract, if the estate agent finds a buyer at the price we were asking, then we are obliged to complete the sale with them. Yes they did eventually find a buyer at the price we were asking, but AFTER our private buyers who got in first with the offer at the asking price, but nothing was signed at the time.

One other point. I agree with peoples comments that if the estate agent does the work he is entitled to his commission, but as far as I can tell from a legal perspective, this commission is payable if the estate agent 'introduces' a client to a property. Everything seems to depend on what is meant by 'introduce'. I would have thought that my paid for advertising and sending photos, plans, inventory and answereing questions about a property and saying exactly where the property is, amounts to 'introducing' someone to a property. This whole thing would not be an issue except for what has happened as explained in my previous post.

Thanks for comments. I agree that normally the buyer pays the estate agents commission, so there would be no problem. Unfortunately, what has happened here is I had another buyer who approached me privately and offered to pay the full asking price. I naturally accepted this and the same afternoon we all met in the notaires office where details were taken, but nothing actually signed. The estate agent is claiming that if I sell to my private clients, then he is entitled to his commission even though at the time his clients did NOT offer the full asking price. In the time taken for the Compromis de Vente to be drawn up for my private buyers, the estate agent has been able to get his clients to raise their offer to the asking price. So I am now piggy in the middle. If I sell to my private buyer (who was the first to offer the sale price), then the estate agent has threatened to come after me for his commission. On the other hand, if I sell to the Esate Agents clients, then my private buyers are threatening legal action. When I see the notaire I have more or less decided which buyer I want to sell to, but I am very interested in hearing comments, suggestions.

I have a contract (sans exclusivite) with an estate agent and am also trying to sell privately via internet etc. A potential buyer initially contacts me directly and I send them many photos, plans, inventory etc, but when this buyer wants to view I am back in England. This buyer then (unbeknown to me) views via the estate agent who now wants to claim they are his clients and says they have signed a ‘bon de visite’ with him. I thought an estate agents commission was payable only if they had ‘introduced’ a client directly to the property. In this case my work had resulted in the buyer becoming aware of the property. In fact I had ‘introduced’ the buyer to the property myself. The estate agent seems to think that I have nothing signed to this effect, but he has a signed and stamped ‘bon de visite’. I only have email proof that I have dealt with this buyer directly before they became involved with the estate agent. So can  the estate agent legally claim these buyers to be his clients and be entitled to his commission in this case ?