bloodyestateagent

I don't think it is that easy for your buyers to pull out. Unless the wall has deteriorated since the time they viewed the property, or unless they included an obscure suspensive clause, then there is no comeback on the wall as far as I can see. Windows overlooking a neighbour may be more of an issue. Did you obtain approval for the windows (assuming they are new)? Even if not, you may be able to apply for retrospective permission. Would be worth speaking to you neighbour & the mairie as you will need to get this sorted in any case. I sometimes think that notaires will let French buyers walk away from their obligations with English sellers. Often if you let the notaire know that you will not be walked over (and are seeking legal advice) they will back off. If your buyers want to walk away they should have to pay you some compensation.

Agree with Dan 100%. Report the agent, even if it was a while ago the prefecture/DGCCRF should still follow this up. You may even get the difference between the valid commission and actual commission refunded. If you let it go it just encourages them/other dodgy agents to try their luck with unsuspecting buyers (normally foreign). For anyone else, check the 'bareme' (detail of agency commission rates) which is shown in the window. If you can't see it then either ask to see it. If you are asked to pay more commission than is shown on the bareme then query it (or walk away).      

Hi Don, Congratulations! If it is the same company that I'm thinking of then this is long overdue. (this company charges a lot more than 1500 euro, more like 8500 Euro) This company preys on peoples insecurities - both the clients and the people that they find to work for them in France. A lot of money is spent on spin and PR, both to attract clients and also to attract people who want to earn a living in France. Once you have paid your fee, be it the 'hand holding' fee or a 'training' fee, they are happy. A lot of people who buy a property and use the service are disappointed at the end at how much 'extra' is actually done for the cash. Most people are just fairly miffed, not many feel strongly enough to investigate further or take legal advice. I doubt if many people who have bought through this company would buy a second time through them. Similarly, the vast majority of people who work with this company do so for less than 2 years. There is a lot of bad feeling towards this company, form previous customers, previous partners and local French agents.There would be a lot of people glad to see this lot go out of business, myself included.  

Can someone clarify or confirm the rules for voting in the French elections? My understanding is that you have to be a French national (ie have lived in France for 5 years and applied for nationality, or be married to a French national) to be able to vote in either the presedential or local elections. Is this correct?

Top ten schools - you couldn't make it up! If you want to send your kids to one of the 'top ten' schools in the country why not stay in the UK and pay the required fees To the average French family there is no notion of the top schools - certainly at a primary and secondary level. You send your child to the local village/town school and then they progress to the local town college. If you are religious or perhaps english and in no way religious then you pay a few euros per month and have your children educated by the local village/town private Catholic school presumably for the kudos of saying that your children are privately educated in France (perhaps in one of the top ten schools for good measure). I'd say that the standard of education across most schools is broadly the same. It really annoys me when I see UK families trying to import the kind of education eliteism that has plagued the UK in recent years. It has no place in France as it would surely cause the same damage to the excellent French education system as has been caused to the UK system over the last 20 years. Rant over (for the moment).  

[quote user="PeterG"]The French vendor prefers to put a property on the market initially for the best price that they can expect to receive for it. Obviously trying to sucker the British purchaser [/quote] It may come as a bit of a shock but the world does not revolve around the British purchaser. A French vendor is still much more likely to sell to a French buyer. Obviously some properties are over priced. Some properties are overpriced in the UK too but we don't assume that the sellers are trying to sucker foreign buyers.  However, it is quite common in France to use a bridging loan and buy your new home before you sell the old one. These bridging loans can only last for a set period of time, normally 12 or 24 months.  If a property sticks at a price, and it draws towards the end of the bridging loan, you can quite often see some significant reductions. Again, it is quite insulting to suggest that French vendors are trying to 'sucker' British purchasers. If you feel this way about the French then why did you decide to buy in France? I wouldn't mind betting that one of the reasons that you have a second home in France is the affordability of property prices here.

Good post!

Hi Deb, We hav 3 kids, close to Cognac so drop me a line if you want to meet up. Most people who move here are older - well past the child bearing age! Good luck with things, MIB

The French vendor prefers to put a property on the market initially for the best price that they can expect to receive for it. If the property is unsold after x weeks then they may reduce the price. Lots of properties have multiple price reductions. To suggest that the French vendor is being greedy is quite insulting. They will often reduce the price till they find a buyer.

You can't hide any defects that you know about. Therefore, if you know that your house is subsiding, and there are cracks showing, you can't plaster over them and expect to get away with it. If you know there is a problem then you have to tell the buyer. As always, the problem for a buyer will be to prove that the vendor knew of any problems. If they have been concealed (as in the example above)  then it might be easier but if there is no evidence that the problem has been concealed then it could be difficult to prove. A lengthy legal battle is likely to ensue so buyer beware still applies. By the same token, buyers have the opportunity to commission a survey prior to making an offer.    

First post, and working for an agent, into the lion's den... 1) Agents don't give precise details for the location of a property. It's true - they don't. In France it is common for the vendor to market their property with multiple agents. Therefore there is not a 'sole-agency' contract between the vendor and the agent - the vendor is free to sell the property to whom they wish. With a property on with  perhaps  4 or 6 local agents  it is very difficult for an agent to keep on top of  who you  have shown a property  to, and more to the point, to prove it. Therefore if an agent were to give the precise details of a property location, and the buyer were to approach the vendor direct,, it would be very difficult for the agent to recoup any agency fee (pretty much impossible in reality). 2) Fee is too high - possibly. I spend a lot of time with UK property hunters. I'd say that well over half the people I see are not in a position to proceed. They either have not sold their property in the UK, do not know which area of France they want to live in or, surprisingly often, have not decided which country they want to live in. Well over half have not decided that they want to buy in the area that I sell property. This adds to my costs as at least half of my time I am spending the day with clients who have not decided if they want to buy a property in s my region 3) Sparce details. Relates to point one. Vendors do not have an exclusive contract with the agent. There are probably 6 agents trying to sell the same property - if not more. With a 1 in 6 chance of a sale it is not beneficial for the agent to spend lots of time drawing up full details of the property - chances are that it will be sold by a competitor. If more vendors opted for sole agency then there would be fuller detailes. 4) Compared to my experience of selling property in the UK the process is markedly different. For example; The volumes are quite different - as an independant negociator I sell around 2 properties a month - I'd imagine that in the UK I'd sell more than this The agent that I work with takes half, of the remainder VAT takes just under 20% and social charges take around 50% of what is left. From what remains I need to pay income tax. As you can imagine, not much is left after the agency cut, VAT, social charges and tax. In fact, I would say that most negociators end up with less than 15% of the total agency commission that you pay. Far from being greedy, most negociators are struggling to make a living in France. 5) As a general point UK buyers need to understand that things do not work the same way in France that they do in the UK. Too often we hear that "well, in the Uk we do things this way and for so much" - this isn't true in France. People who come to live in France and expect to find systems and processes the same as they were used to in the UK will have a hard time adjusting. The French have a different way with dealing with things, being it it from house sales to inheritance to local government to health provision. Coming to terms with all of this is all part of the great adventure of coming to live in France - in my opinion!