How long does it take?

[Bbrown1664]

We are in the process of buying a house in rural france and it seems to be taking forever.

It took 3 weeks from our offer being accepted before we received the Comprimis and now ( 3 weeks after that) we have been told the completion won't be till the end of May!!!

We are cash buyers and the house is being sold by an English couple who live in the UK.

Is 100 days from offer acceptance to completion normal or is someone taking the Micky?

[EuroTrash]

It seems maybe a tad on the slow side but nothing to get excited about. Less than 3 months is good going.

Once the compromis is signed there are searches to be done, diagnostiques to be done, possibly financial things on the sellers side connected with capital gains tax to be done if it's a second home being sold for more than was paid for it. It all takes time. It's not like buying a bar of chocolate.

[Tancrède]

[quote user="Bbrown1664"] Is 100 days from offer acceptance to completion normal or is someone taking the Micky?[/quote]

I received my acceptable offer on 2nd December 2013 ;  communicated the details to the notaire on 4th Dec. ;  supervised the lead and asbestos boy on 17th Dec., who submitted his report very briskly ;  signed the Compromis last Tuesday ;  and am due to complete the Acte de Vente on 22nd April. 

100 days ?  -  Thank your lucky stars you have such a speedy notaire.

[Lehaut]

Our canton of 13 communities has one notaire - she is inundated. Her office has paper everywhere, cannot imagine her workload. Don't think this is abnormal either.

[PaulT]

To quote from 'Yes Minister' and can be very apt in France:

'In the fullness of time'

[woolybanana]

In Spanish, it is manyana, in Arabic, bukhra or even slower, bad bukhra

[Pickles]

[quote user="woolybanana"]In Spanish, it is manyana, in Arabic, bukhra or even slower, bad bukhra[/quote]

And in Irish (attributed to various sources, amongst them Oscar Wilde) there is no word that conveys the urgency of "manana".

[mint]

[quote user="Lehaut"]Our canton of 13 communities has one notaire - she is inundated. Her office has paper everywhere, cannot imagine her workload. Don't think this is abnormal either.[/quote]

Another thing I found out recently and that is why notaires don't reply to emails.  I know there have been comments on the forum about this.  I can fully understand why people write emails instead of phoning:  it's easier than struggling with rapid French conversations on the phone, you can do it in your own good time, etc

I recently emailed a diagnostiques report to the notaire because my printer had run out of ink and the report contained over 20 pages.  When I saw the notaire 2 days later in person and he asked for the report,  I said in amazement, but I emailed it all so that you would have it by the time we met.  Oh, he exclaimed, but I never read my emails, I get so many a day!

So there you have it, do NOT email a notaire!  If he is not too far away, it's easier and quicker to take whatever it is to his office.  Come to think of it and if money is no object, it's probably quicker to catch a plane from the UK and go to his office than to rely on him to read your emails;

And this is the voice of recent and actual experience[8-|]

[NormanH]

I have always had a prompt reply from Notaire's offices, including one last week.

The content on the other hand was useless...[:(]

[EuroTrash]

There are certain people I deal with who cheefully admit that if they get too many emails backed up and they know they'll never have time to read them, they just zap them all. For these people I have taken to giving important emails the heading "IMPORTANT, A NE PAS ZAPPER!" and it seems to work up to a point.

[Pickles]

[quote user="sweet 17"]Oh, he exclaimed, but I never read my emails, I get so many a day![/quote]

I have a sneaking suspicion that "so many" could equal about a dozen, and they'd STILL not read the damn things. Had a similar issue: I emailed through documentation that showed the fees that we paid to the agent on purchase of a property. The notaire produced calculations on the day for us to sign (to sell the property). We squiggled our signatures and THEN I noticed that he hadn't taken a blind bit of notice of the agent's fees. Notaire was most put out that he had to go away and do it all again and said that I should have told him sooner. I pointed out that we HAD told him via email (several weeks previously) and on the phone and that we'd flown in the pervious evening so could not have possibly delivered a hard copy before the day. However, it was evidently all our fault that he hadn't read the documents!