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WARNING- DODGY IMMOBILIER. If you have lost your deposit or are in danger of this...


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[quote user="George"]Quillan wrote "Quillan thinks that people who do not share his understanding are "thick." It's a pity when someone feels the need to take this tone. Could it be that he feels the weakness of his case. Makes me think of the Moody Blues lyrics "it riles them to believe that you perceive the web they weave and keep on thinking free."

[/quote]

You really have to go back and read this thread in its entirety before you pass a comment like that. It would seem that others who have done so understand exactly to what I was referring. If a person or persons are told exactly the same thing and have had it explained in the most simplest of ways by several different people and still don't grasp what they have been told what would you call them when you are totally exasperated with them? I think that using the word ‘thick’ in this case was being somewhat charitable. It’s not exactly rocket science.

Actually you have made one of the most common errors in trying to compare like with like when it isn’t. This is France, this is the way it works and I think the majority of agents in France earn their money both during and after the sale. I have yet to buy a house anywhere where I have received such excellent after sales service as I have done in France. Something some countries (like the UK) could learn a lot from. May I suggest that if you are unhappy about the fees incurred in buying and selling in France you seek an alternative part of the world to live in more attuned to your way of thinking as I do not think for one moment the French will change their work practices just for you.

 

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Personally I think French agency fees are extortionate - a 7% fee on a 150,000 euro house works out at 10,500 euros. At 100 euros per hour (allowing for cotisations / overheads etc etc) that represents 105 hours of work.  I can't seem many agents putting in those sorts of hours.  There may be exceptions but for most buyers after care service is connecting electricity and water - barely an afternoon's work.  Some buyers may prefer to do it themselves and save money - its hardly rocket science afterall.

And just because something is French doesn't mean its perfect...in this case the practices of other countries are better.

Kathie

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Well the fee (where  I live) can be negotiated and is normally between 5 and 8%. Working with Kathie's figures the time she quotes is about three weeks of work based on a 35 hour week. It's normal for properties in my neck of the woods to take up to and even longer than a year to sell and from comments made on this forum the same seems to apply in other areas of France. Loads of people come down here looking and all these visits have to be arranged then people taken out to see the houses, emails answered, fax's sent etc. The agent we bought through spend a whole day with us the first time we met him and over all spent quite a bit of time with us answering many questions we had about all sorts of things. If you are buying for the first time in France as an outsider things can appear very difficult to start with and you need a lot of hand holding even if you have spent many hours asking many questions on excellent forums like ours. To some, not knowing the country and how it works, sorting out electricity, phones etc is a bit like rocket science the first time. Now of course since living here for some time it seems all so simple now.

My main point was the after sales service which we recieved and after talking to others in our area we are clearly not alone. We had hunting issues, fishing issues, rights of way issues and several more to contend with and they were all dealt with by our agent in conjunction with the prefecture and local mayor both during and after the sale. My expierences in the UK were that once the contract was signed and the money paid you were left to fend for yourself hence my comments about after sales support.

I don't think the French system in total for buying a house is perfect but thats how its done in France and unfortunatly for some we have to accept it. Too many times have I heard people say 'well we don't do it that way in the UK' or 'we would do it this way in the UK' when as I said again and again its France and thats how its done take it or leave it.

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I'm afraid I have to agree with some of the other posts in this thread, that the immobillier charges are way over the top for the service they offer.

When my husband and I bought our house, firstly we were over charged (we accept that we were a bit green, but surely there should be safeguards against people being ripped off) and secondly we had virtually no help before OR after the sale.

There was no clause suspensive in the compromis, even though we said from the start we would be getting a french mortgage, it took three months (after completition) for the water and electricity to be reconnected (I have since learned that this was meant to be part of their after-care package to help new owners with this sort of stuff) and finally we could never get hold of the immobillier for love nor money (nor phone, fax or email for that matter).

I'm sure there are some very good estate agents out there but, I cannot understand why the fees are so high when it is essentially the owner who sets the price, the notaire deals with the legal stuff and once the compromise is signed it's not as though they have make sure a chain doesn't fall apart like they do in England.

Strangely, we bumped into the ex-owner of our house after we had bought it and it turned out that they got the price that they asked for but, not the extra 10k or so euros that the immo charged us on top (that is on top of the taxes, notaire fees and the immo commission).

I don't think it should be a case of take it or leave it at all.  If, for instance, you bought a washing machine for twice as much as it was worth and then you realised it would only wash on boil and the seller refused to fix it, what would you do?  Complain, of course.  So, why is it that you should not do the same when buying a house and expect some sort of after care?

April

P.S. I live in the same area as Quillan

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The seller would not have got the 10k because thats the agents fee and is paid direct to them out of the total money you have paid and it is done so automatically by the notaire, bit like the notaires fee.

Of course there are some bad agents around, there was one in Quillan, well not so much the agent but a English member of staff working for them who was eventually sacked because she did some very nasty things (sold a plot of building land to a guy without telling him he had no access to name but one). I'm just wondering if you (April) bought yours through this agent, the English round here often refer to her as 'the scottish person' (thats a clue), I believe she now works out of Carcassonne. She has left a trail of quite a few unhappy people behind her. I personally used a totally French agent and had no problems as I said before.

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Can't say that I'm overly bothered about how much the agent takes. It's the bottom line that concerns me. If the inclusive price is acceptable, then I'm happy. All my negotiations through the immobilier concerned the total price inclusive of all commissions, notaires fees and taxes. And when we completed, that was exactly what I had to pay to the Notaire - not a penny more. If all agents worked on that basis it would I think make things much easier for purchasers.
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We bought our house through auction in 1993. The auction part was simple though the transaction took nearly a year due to creative accounting by the english staff member of the immobilier.

To give an example he phoned us on the day of the sale and congratulated us on purchasing the property at the top of our price range. We thanked him and asked for the details to be passed to our french notaire working in London - he commented that we did not need him. Needless to say we had another phonecall that week explaining that they had received ''the final figure'' and it was £2000 cheaper and that we did not need our legal adviser.

We used the chap in London who also later spotted that they were trying to charge us additional fees when the contract was 'acte en main'.

My wife then endured many phonecalls at work and home - due to the nature of my work I was abroad a lot - these phonecalls threatened us with everything including the plague. Having asked them not to contact us but go thru the London Notaire I had to phone the gentlemen and explain that if he phoned my wife once more I would be forced to visit him in France to discuss the matter further. That was the end of the threatening phonecalls.

Needless to say the signing at the Notaires was a quiet affair with no celebratory drink afterwards!!
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The original post from painterman has certailnly touched a raw and lively nerve!...

We have now completed on 5 purchases and 2 sales here in France, since our arrival, experiencing 2 different notaires and 5 different communes.  On our first purchase, conducted mainly whilst going to auction in UK, we too had the misfortune to be involved with a 'shonky' immo, who have several agencies here and employ a brit agent here with the company, for all us foreign ignoramus' she targets.

We were misled, and fell foul of, among other things, wildly differing property measurements made by said immo, to such an extent that, with the 2 other serious issue found on our arrival here, 3 weeks before we could complete (due to agency's incompetence) we threatened to withdraw from the sale.  This was when we saw the true colours of the agent and agency, who variously lied and threatened every which way to avoid being culpable....

But, we were seen to be persistent, and wrote to our new Notaire (in English, sadly!) fully with our concerns, made a rendevous to see him before the completion, AND hired a translator to facilitate a straightforward meeting.  He set a few things in motion to start to resolve things, and on the completion day, we found he had invited the head of the agencies to be present also.  With our translator with us again, there was no missing salient points, and we, with the impartial assistance of the Notaire, eventually left the office as owners of the property but with a healthy sum in compensation from the agency.  

As to artisans being unreliable, we have had many opportunities, now, to obtain quotes for various services, and do try to employ french workers if feasible.  We find them as reliable as in UK, in the main, with some more expensive than working brits here, some less.  What we do find lovely is how they are always, without exception, very pleasant and polite.  As with elsewhere....swings and roundabouts!

 

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  • 1 month later...
Hello,

This is our first post on the site so am a little unsure where to post

this.  I hope this thread is OK.

My husband and I wanted to find a place where we could discuss our concerns and

amazement at some of the antics of some of the so called IMMOBILIERS or agents in France.

We understood that the activities of these people were strictly

regulated.  It seems there are strict regulation but only a handful of

people follow these rules.

We lived partly in Bergerac and were putting our holiday home up for sale a few months ago. 

It is only a small place but represented a substantial investment for us. We

have had it for almost 20 years but are getting a bit too creaky and tired to

make full use of it anymore.

We looked around for an agent and using the net very quickly

found a site (I shall not name it of course) local to Bergerac so it seemed the logical company to use..  The site was produced well and it seemed to us

that the person who owned it was highly professional.  How looks can deceive.

The woman on the site presented a plausible figure.  She

claimed to have considerable experience and knowledge of the area.  Her

French was very good indeed ans on first sight she seemed OK.

Within 10 minutes of meeting this person she had begun to tell

us how me must not trust ANY French Estate Agents, in particular she

mentioned 3 in the area, basically slandering them.  She then told us to be very wary of various Notiers and to

only use the ONE she specified.  My husband has spent 40 years negotiating

and dealing with people and his alarm bells immediately began to

ring.....  I wanted her out of my house and did not even offer her  a cup of tea..  Ahe really was utterly nasty.  This was an exceptionally unpleasant person.

Not satisfied with the attack on (what I later discovered

were) people with whom she had a working relationship she then began to bad-mouth other English Agents.  Her attacks were exceptionally vitriolic and

plainly there has been a considerable amount if fighting in the area over house

selling.

The woman valued our house at 110,000 Euros.   We

were amazed as we felt, although small, the property is very well presented in

a lovely area.

When this person left we decided to make a few

investigations.  We have been back and fore to Bergerac from our home in

Kent for many, many years and know many people in Bergerac.  As soon as we

began to ask questions the truth began to emerge.  She is known by several French Estate Agents as the English Witch...   They maintain a relationship with her because, although they know she rips them off and bad-mouths themm she does bring them business they otherwise would not have.  They also ALL assured me her 'Agency' days are numbered.

Now don't get me wrong..... This person never specifically

claimed to be an
IMMOBILIER,

nor did she claim to be RICS or indeed have any single qualification pertaining

to the valuing and sale of houses in the UK OR in France.  She just

presents herself in such a way that prospective sellers will think she has. 

I guess if you go to a hospital and see a man in a white coat with a stethescope around his neck you may well presume him to be a Doctor..... you may be wronmg of course and they can claim not to have presented themselves as such!

She has one qualification, she speaks French and to be fair she does so rather well.

How is it that someone like this can operate WITHOUT A

PERMIT as an agent for selling houses?  She is entirely unprofessional and

is damaging the good name of other Brits in the business.

I would be most intersested to hear of any one else's

experience at the hands of so called Estate Agents here in the Dordogne. 

I am compiling a dossier which I shall present to the appropriate authorities

over there.   Not just on agencies in Bergerac, on all.

If your message has names etc please don't post it on the

public site, this is why I have avoided specifics about the woman's agency.

Finally .... the good news is that we asked for a second

valuation and this also was from a British company based in the Gironde, oddly enough run by a woman who also speaks escellent French.... But this time she was licenced.. 

They sold our house for 245,000 Euros  within 2 months.  They WERE licienced, they WERE qualified and they did not spend 80% of thier time slagging off the French or other agents (Though they had good cause to I suspect).

These  unscrupulous and unskilled cowboys (cowgirls) could have

cost us a fortune... sure I would only have paid her 'Special' Rate of 2% but I

would have lost considerably more....!

My advice.  ALWAYS ASK IF THE PERSON WITH WHOM YOU ARE DEALING IS LICIENCED.  ASK TO SEE PROOF.  It is not easy to get a licience in France and by having one the person WILLL be qualified.  DO NOT accept that the person works for or with others who have a Licience.  Why pay for an extra link in the chain!?

Mary Davies
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Reading this I feel so lucky ! ....When I bought our agent was in the next  village down the road and was very much on the ball !....Money was transferred to the Notaire and into the coffers in Lucon treasury ... Notaire paid the agent.... paid the people I bought the house... from  and at the end of the work paid me back 780 euros as it was not such a big job as he expected .....and his account even showed the cost of every stamp ! . I saw the house in May 2005 sat in with the Notaire and seller and  picked up the keys 18th August .  The Agent explained that was what would happen .....and that was what did ...so no complaints.... and I only wish houses I have bought and sold in the UK had "gone through "  so smoothly !
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