Confusion About Selling My House In England whilst buying in France

[PaulT]

As a layman, the difference between buying in France and the UK is:

The Compris (Fr) and Exchange of contracts (UK) are one and the same thing apart from the Compris can contain clause suspensives that if certain things are not met, i.e. planning consent, mortgage offer etc you can get out of the purchase. At exchange of contracts you are locked in.

Signing of the Compris takes place very close to the start of the process. Exchanging contracts takes place very much into the process. The seller will be required to fill in pages and pages of answers to questions. The buyers solicitor will find something that the sellers solicitor recommends can be overcome but taking out insurance (escapes me the actual name at the moment) which is not doubt a commission earner for the solicitor. All of this can take months during which the buyer might have had second thoughts or seen something that they prefer so the sale is off.

We sold an 11 year old house in the UK to purchase in France. As I say, as a layman, you would think that having originally been sold only 11 years ago there would be no problems but the buyers solicitor made a meal of it. Having taken 2 days to sell it took over 2 months to exchange. The house in France, less than 2 weeks from saying we wanted it we were signing the Compris.

The legal eagles might argue that there is no difference but to the ordinary person there is:

France - buyer committed, subject to clauses to purchase, seller to sell very early on.

UK - buyer finally commits after months and can pull out at any time prior, buyer can also decide, during these months that they will take the house off the market (maybe they have a higher offer).

[Barbel Bob]

Hi again,

Thanks to all who took the time to reply, very interesting to say the least!

We have decided to wait until exchange of contracts before going further with the French house, hopefully someone else will not of come along in the meantime to snap it up !

This will mean going into rented accomadation for a few weeks, how i wish the UK would do a contract compromis at the start of the sale also.

Thanks again!

[Paul Bradford]

Hi Barbel Bob,

Over lunch with our very nice Bank Manageress the other day (she took us out because we did her a favour!), we were talking about mortgages in France. She told us about a type of mortgage that is very similar to a bridging loan. It is available for up to two years, with no penalty if you pay it off. It is designed for those who have found a house, but have yet to sell their main residence. This was with Banque Populaire.

Hope that helps,

Paul

[Llwyncelyn]

Gardian read the post!

 

Quite simple.

There was a dialogue between the relative systems.  I still prefer and for obvious reasons the UK system warts and all.

Within the UK you can of course withdraw at any time prior to exchange but in language that we all understand upon exchange one Solicitors rings the other and says that he is able to send or hand deliver or by DX to let them have their copy of the contract and the other side does likewise. Thus exchange and 10% deposit gets paid or an undertaken is given to the other side.  Again a further exchange or exchanges can take place on the same day and thus the 'chain' comes into being.

Thus the following day both parties know exactly what they have been committed to or to be blunt they should know somewhat earlier than exchange.

About six weeks later and say conventionally on a Thursday or Friday the balance of the purchase price takes place the guys at the DLR get their share the Solicitors theirs the Agents theirs and everyone gets their keys.

Guardian please do not criticise the opening posting posted a question which had direct relevance to both systems.

Read it again and prepare to admit to defeat.

I was only dealing in isolation with the UK system and which I do hope you will concede I have some knowledge and not the French system and to which you may have superior experience and knowledge?  That being the case I would of course accept your positioning.

 

[Sunday Driver]

I can't think of anything else to say here - I've been totally mugged by these tedious outpourings of the minutiae of the UK conveyancing process. 

I expect we're all houseowners here, so we already know all of this stuff....[8-)]

 

 

[Gardian]

[quote user="Llwyncelyn"]

I was only dealing in isolation with the UK system and which I do hope you will concede I have some knowledge ........

[/quote]

....... as you so frequently tell us.   I rest my case.

Most importantly, the OP seems to have got the advice he needs about the situation over here.

[LEO]

Thread now dead!

[Panda]

Someone keep Llwyncelyn busy whilst I type this please..

Hello

Not wishing to resurrect the dead but want to ask Barbel, have you found a place with a lake or did you give up on that idea? 

We took a bridging loan (pret relais) when we bought and sold recently, it was cheap, interest rate was the standard variable rate and it was easy to arrange.  You can have the loan for up to a year, might be worth it if you have really found your dream home. 

Panda

[Barbel Bob]

[quote user="Panda "]

Someone keep Llwyncelyn busy whilst I type this please..

Hello

Not wishing to resurrect the dead but want to ask Barbel, have you found a place with a lake or did you give up on that idea? 

We took a bridging loan (pret relais) when we bought and sold recently, it was cheap, interest rate was the standard variable rate and it was easy to arrange.  You can have the loan for up to a year, might be worth it if you have really found your dream home. 

Panda

[/quote]

Hi Panda,

Running the lake was the ideal, but the reality was my budget would have been blown out of the water (no pun intended) if I was to buy a lake and house, with the lake the required size to make a living. I have taken a lot of advice from the "good" posters on here and I have decided to go for the B&B option. I know the B&B will not make a living for a family of four, but I intend on getting the business up and running and then I will go and find some work.

The bridging loan will be a last resort as all is going according to plan at the moment and I am hoping I will not need it.

Cheers

Bob

[LEO]

[quote user="Barbel Bob"][quote user="Panda "]

Someone keep Llwyncelyn busy whilst I type this please..

Hello

Not wishing to resurrect the dead but want to ask Barbel, have you found a place with a lake or did you give up on that idea? 

We took a bridging loan (pret relais) when we bought and sold recently, it was cheap, interest rate was the standard variable rate and it was easy to arrange.  You can have the loan for up to a year, might be worth it if you have really found your dream home. 

Panda

[/quote]

Hi Panda

Running the lake was the ideal, but the reality was my budget would have been blown out of the water (no pun intended) if I was to buy a lake and house, with the lake the required size to make a living. I have taken a lot of advice from the "good" posters on here and I have decided to go for the B&B option. I know the B&B will not make a living for a family of four, but I intend on getting the business up and running and then I will go and find some work.

The bridging loan will be a last resort as all is going according to plan at the moment and I am hoping I will not need it.

Cheers

Bob

[/quote]

Hi Bob, what you are now proposing makes good sense and, I wish you success  with a wee bit of good luck thrown in you ought to prosper!

kind regards,

Leo

[David]

[quote user="Sunday Driver"]

 

My simple point in response to the original poster's enquiry was that a UK house sale was not a 'done deal' until the contracts were signed and exchanged.  Any 'offer' accepted before that has no legal standing and can be withdrawn right up until the moment that the contracts are signed by both parties.  That is the fundamental risk faced by the OP in their situation and the simple essence of this thread.

 

[/quote]

I enter this thread with reluctance, particularly as it appears to be dead.  However, for the benefit of future readers of this thread I must clarify one aspect of "UK" house selling law on which you are all wrong, and which may confuse future "UK" sellers.

I quote the above from Sunday Driver as an example.  This statement is not correct.  While it may be correct for England and Wales, (and it is essentially correct for the OP who referred to England) the system in Scotland is entirely different and more akin to France.  In Scotland any offer is made through solicitors and is fully legally binding.  Thus in Scotland the house sale is a "done deal" when the offer is made and accepted.  There are get outs, but these are based on unsatisfactory legal documents such as searches.

In this thread, all references to the UK actually refer to English law thus, for this thread only, the term "UK" should be taken to mean "England and Wales".

I have said this before on this forum, but it falls on deaf ears.  The systems in England and Scotland are totally different, thus all references to house sales should clearly say which country is under discussion, and the term "UK" should not be used.

David

[Sunday Driver]

[quote user="David"]

I quote the above from Sunday Driver as an example.  This statement is not correct.  While it may be correct for England and Wales, (and it is essentially correct for the OP who referred to England)........

 [/quote]

The OP was based in England so the basis of the discussion was the English procedure.  The use of UK as a generic term avoided having to refer to 'England and Wales, except for Scotland' each time when explaining the differences between the situation in the UK (sorry, on the lower end of that 'offshore island') and in France....[;-)]

I expect that any Scottish residents reading the thread would already be aware of the different house buying/selling process in their own country.

Is this thread dead now?

 

 

[David]

SD,

You could of course have simply said England or English if you wanted a generic term.

I was trying to clarify matters for those people who may not know the difference between English and Scottish law, for example vendors, both French and English, who are asked to accept a clause suspensive.

You stated

Quote

Yes, you can always ask for a clause suspensive, but it's unlikely that such an open ended arrangement would be agreeable to a seller, given that he'd be obliged to turn away more substantive offers whilst waiting for your nebulous house sale to materialise.  I certainly wouldn't offer one to a UK buyer in those circumstances.

Unquote.

Your comment refers to English law, and I suggest should have stated "offer one to an English buyer ...".  Under Scottish law the matter is very different, and it seems to me, that a clause suspensive for a Scottish house sale could be attractive to a seller who would not entertain a clause suspensive for an English house sale.

As I said, I was reluctant to enter an apparently dead thread, but I wished to correct innaccurate information for the benefit of future readers.

David