mimi

I recenntly put an offer on a property of the full asking price and assumed that the buyer was legally obliged to sell the property to me. The seller is selling her property through a notaire not an estate agent. Th e notaire said that he was having difficulty contacvting the seller to tell her of our offer. When he finally contacted her (1 week after we put our offer in) she said she had already promised the property to some-one else Do you think thats legally acceptable or have we got a case to say that she should sell the property to us. Please advice

We've recently bought a plot of land with a certificat which outlines the possibility of building two buildings. We would like to build on the land when funds allow us to. We are probably looking at a time scale of two to three years. Do we need to renew the certificat annually or should we now wait until we are ready to build and apply for the permis de construire?

Thanks for your response. We have spoken to both the estate agent who sold us the property and to the mairie. Both of whom told us that it would be impossible to get planning on the barn as it is situated on the flood plain. The annoying thing for us is that there are other houses located nearer to the river than ours and which are definitely on the flood plain. Apparently the river flooded about 10 years ago and the legislation was brought in then. Obviously this rule only applies to new developments. It is definitely on the 'zone rouge' as we have seen the land registry map. Interestingly we are able to build a swimming pool on the 'zone rouge', which is why we're thinking about applying for permission to renovate and turn into a 'studio'. Any ideas?

I have bought a house with a large wooden barn (100m2). The barn is on the flood plain and we are told that we are unable to change the barn into living accommodation. We would like to rent out the house in the Summer months, but we would like to use the barn for our own accommodation. Obviously we would like to do so legally!! The barn does need to be renovated - the roof needs to be re-tiled and the wood cladding needs to be replaced. We would also like to put in electricity, water and drainage. We have thought about asking permission under the pretext of using the space as an artist's studio and then at a later date adding simple accommodation. Would this be legal or is there another way of using the barn as a temporary Summer residence? We have also thought about putting a 'non-permanent' structure inside the barn, but again we don't know if this would be legal. Any help or advice you could give would be very gratefully received.