Making an offer for a property that isn't on the market.

[JimmyEveriss]

Hi all,

Me and my partner are currently living with my parents in rather cramped conditions and would like to buy a property nearby (within a couple of km's). We're looking for somewhere that needs complete renovation as our budget is low and we'd like a project.

There are a couple of properties we've seen which aren't for sale but we're unsure how to proceed.

Has anyone here had experience in offering to buy a property in this way? How can we value a property correctly and is it best to approach the owner directly or is there an official body such as a notaire we could use?

Any help and advice appreciated!

[Bob T]

If someone knocked on my door and offered to buy my house, I would send them off with some abuse. If my house were for sale then I'd put a sign up.

[tinabee]

[quote user="JimmyEveriss"]Hi all, Me and my partner are currently living with my parents in rather cramped conditions and would like to buy a property nearby (within a couple of km's). We're looking for somewhere that needs complete renovation as our budget is low and we'd like a project. There are a couple of properties we've seen which aren't for sale but we're unsure how to proceed. Has anyone here had experience in offering to buy a property in this way? How can we value a property correctly and is it best to approach the owner directly or is there an official body such as a notaire we could use? Any help and advice appreciated![/quote]

If it is an empty property it is worth asking at the Town Hall for the proprietors details, and if they know whether they are willing to sell. In smaller villages the Mayor will often know the situation regarding empty/derelict properties.

 

[Beckett]

Obviously Bob T's response suggests that you should proceed courteously and cautiously.

The Mairie would be a good place to start.

[idun]

Before la crise that is just what happened in our village as so few properties came up for sale. People would just go and ask and no one thought that there was anything wrong with it at all and not be rude about it.

In fact it happened to us, tis still a sore point. Must edit there, sore point because of male logic, which sometimes escapes me completely.

[JimmyEveriss]

I'm sure I wouldn't cause too much offence displaying interest in an empty property with half the roof missing... would I?

By complete renovation I meant complete renovation!

[NormanH]

This used to be a fairly normal thing in France when I first came here.

Often the local Notaire will have a good idea about which properties might be open to this sort of approach.

You can get the address of the owner from the Mairies from the plan cadastral

The idea that it might be seen as somehow rude is rather more English than French in my experience.

[Pommier]

I'd ask around the neighbours, bars etc to say what sort of place you're looking for and do they know of anything. Then it's up to any sellers to approach you. 

[Beckett]

[quote user="JimmyEveriss"]I'm sure I wouldn't cause too much offence displaying interest in an empty property with half the roof missing... would I?[/quote]

There's nowt so queer as (some) folk.

[Loiseau]

As said, the best place to start is the Mairie to find out who owns the house. Then contact the owners direct.

We did this with a crumbling property next door to ours - covered in so much ivy we could not see whether it had a roof or not. Of course, once you contact the owners, they will suddenly wake up to the fact that they own something desirable (even if only to a mad Brit), and since they no doubt think all Brits are millionaires, they will put an astonishingly high price on it. Then it's up to you how badly you want it, as to whether you go ahead or not.

On the other side of the coin, I was helping a friend with the transfer (after her husband's death) of a ruin that they had owned for years with the idea of restoring it. But they had never done so and it had stood empty and crumbling for several years. Once we contacted the mayor of the village there, he wrote back to say that he had had two people enquire about possibly buying it. My friend was not interested in selling it, but her notaire did get in touch with the two potential buyers, out of interest, to ask what they were offering; one was offering ten times more than the other! (My friend still didn't sell; she was in the middle of transferring ownership to her sons.)

Angela

[NormanH]

That is exactly the sort of thing I have come across Loiseau

Offering to pay someone for some thing (as long as it isnt an indecent proposition ....and even then [8-)]) never seems to be the  source of irritation it might be to some anally retentive middle class Brit [6]

[Polremy]

Mods - please can we have a "like" button!!

Often - as in this case - I would just like to show my appreciation of a post.

[AnOther]

[quote user="Bob T"]If someone knocked on my door and offered to buy my house, I would send them off with some abuse. If my house were for sale then I'd put a sign up.[/quote]That ignores the first principal of capitalism which is that EVERYTHING is for sale at the right price, your house included [;-)]

[mint]

Strangely enough, straight after we came to France to oversee some work to our house in Charente Maritime, an agent did come knocking on the door!

She had an enquiry from someone who hadn't realised the house had been sold (to us) and was interested in viewing.

At the time, we had not yet moved over our furniture and had not yet embarked on making the house habitable, that is, with water, electricity, heating, etc.

Notwithstanding, we named a price (on the high side as we weren't absolutely sure if the agent was serious or just on a fishing trip) and nothing came of it.

If the price had been reached, however, I would have sold!

And no, Erns, I am not a real capitalist because I don't think I'll sell my present house.  Or, at least, it will have to be an offer I absolutely can't refuse?[:P]

[Mr Ice-ni]

[quote user="AnOther"][quote user="Bob T"]If someone knocked on my door and offered to buy my house, I would send them off with some abuse. If my house were for sale then I'd put a sign up.[/quote]That ignores the first principal of capitalism which is that EVERYTHING is for sale at the right price, your house included [;-)]
[/quote]

and EVERYBODY.

John

[Bob T]

[quote user="Mr Ice-ni"]

[quote user="AnOther"][quote user="Bob T"]If someone knocked on my door and offered to buy my house, I would send them off with some abuse. If my house were for sale then I'd put a sign up.[/quote]That ignores the first principal of capitalism which is that EVERYTHING is for sale at the right price, your house included [;-)]

[/quote]

and EVERYBODY.

John

[/quote]

Sorry not everything and everybody. If that was the case then I would not have given up a decent job in the UK to come here and live on a small RAF pension.

A visitor once stood on my balcony and commented that there may be truffles in my oak wood below the house, I told her that there may be. She said that I should go and look for them as they are worth €1000 per kilo. She could not understand when I told her that I don't want €1000 as I have just enough to live on.

[mint]

Well spoken, Bob!

It certainly ISN'T the case that everything and everybody is for sale.  There are many, many things that money can't buy and clearly, your house is one of them, Bob!

 

[Beckett]

I'm all for not doing stuff for money I don't need ...

but truffles, man!

[JimmyEveriss]

If anyone is interested, we went to the mairie and found out who owned the house (took about 2 minutes, very easy if you know the cadastre ref). The owner was a farmer who now lives about 5km away but still owns the house and the fields leading up to it.

It took us a while to decide how to approach them and after being told by several people a letter would be a horrendous idea, a friend of ours who knew them a little phoned and asked.

She was asked to ring back in three days time so they could discuss the matter. Three days later she was basically told that they are unwilling to sell the house as they were waiting for it to fall down so they could take the stone away and incorporate the rest of it's land into the field (all 500m² of it).

I'm starting to believe what our friends say about french farmers may be true...

Nobody was the slightest bit offended by the way.

[idun]

What do they say about french farmers?

[YCCMB]

We had someone knock on the door asking to buy our barn, some years ago. He was very nice about it. Bizarre, as it was his parents who had sold it to our vendor in the first place. Since then, we've had someone knock on our door asking to buy a pocket-handkerchief-sized piece of land at the entrance to our barn so they could put a cistern in to make a fosse. The same people had acquired, in a parcel of land, a barn which is enclosed on 2 of its 4 sides by our property. They next came round to ask us if we'd like to buy that barn. The woman's opening gambit was "J'ai peur que ça va s'écrouler" ( probably NOT the best way of encouraging someone to buy it..). They wanted to convert it to a habitable dwelling, but needed our land to install the fosse cistern. This would have meant that we would have had to agree to having a droit de passage into our own barn (if we sold them the land) and, when we refused, that was when they tried to get us to buy the barn. They got quite pushy and insistent when we said no to both.