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After 20 years I'm at the point of selling my holiday home in Lassay Les Chateaux, and will sign it over in a couple of weeks. Anybody help me with a checklist of who I need to tell/how, what and when I need to tell them ? I only have electricity with EDF, no phone, and all the rest is eau, ordure, taxe fonciere, taxe d'habitation, etc. Any advice appreciated. Thanks
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I wish you good luck; I’m not saying don’t tell anybody, but be prepared for those you do tell to ignore you. It has taken us about 18 months to shake off the claims for TdH, or payment for a Carte Bleue without a bank account attached to it.
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If you have a french bank account this should be a priority.

The notaire should provide a document called certificate ( or attestation) of sale which may be requested by utilities etc. when you cancel the contract. I can't remember now how I cancelled, but probably registered letter is best.

Our immo sent us these certificates by email.
We only just sorted payment of the TdH, or may TF a few weeks ago , plod. The man in charge of local taxes where we lived was very helpful, I contacted him by email.
To the OP- don't you have house insurance, or other insurances?

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I phoned EDF with the final reading the moment the sale went through. Ditto the water board.

Sorting the rubbish collection switch involved me going to the canton office with something to prove the sale. ( The purchasers were going to have to go in person to sign on.)

The TdH and TF I also told, but they went on taking my monthly payments for at least three months thereafter. Obviously I remonstrated with them, but I just think their wheels grind incredibly slowly. They did pay back all the excess they had taken eventually, though.

But, don’t close your French bank account too quickly! Those taxes were repaid into mine some months after the sale.

In fact, I have kept the bank account open, as I go regularly to France and it is sometimes useful.

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Loiseau - you're right about not closing your account too soon. I meant going to see them and telling them well in advance about your plans. Money for the sale to come and then transferred etc.
We had a very helpful lady agent at CA.

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I so agree, Patf, about telling the bank about the sale. They are SO jumpy about large sums of money coming or going these days. In fact, the notaire gave me a special document with the sale price on, to show the bank to confirm the origin of the money. And I had a similar one (with no mention of price) that I think I had to show to the rubbish-collection office to prove I was no longer the owner of the house.

I repatriated most of the sale proceeds to my UK account (I showed them the notaire's document, too, to explain where this money was coming from). I did it in stages, via one of the foreign exchange specialists, and even then I had to speak each time to my conseiller at the French bank, who was very suspicious of every movement - specially as the forex people were sending my money via Ireland before it reached my UK account!

Loire, I started off with a France-based UK agent (this was early 2017) who produced hardly any viewings. So I moved to a local French agent who had been recommended by some French friends, and she was brilliant; found French buyers within two months. She worked for an agency called Square Habitat.

So I would ask around your local friends, to see if they can recommend someone.
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We sold our French holiday home in January after 12 years.

We used an agent who did most the changeovers for us/buyers; electricity, water. I closed the phone line contract months before.

Today I phoned the bank and asked them to send me an account closure form and they cancelled my card.

We didn't use the French bank account for the transfer of the sale funds, we used a currency transfer company which the notaire sent the money to on the day of the AdV and we were able to choose when to convert to £'s. We had the money in our UK bank within 5 days.
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I had a lady come round today who showed interest - I met her by chance and as I do not have the house for sale with immobiliers with an exclusive mandat, I assume there would be no problem selling directly to her.

But if this happens, which documents would I be obliged to produce for her and the notaire? I assume an up to date Diagnostiques, a plan cadastrale, the proof that I am the owner...... Anything else?

Chrissie (81)
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The energy and emissions report is the one you need upfront.  Then, if the potential goes on to buy, you will need the full diagnostics plus a fosse report if your fosse is older than 2 years old.

The point about not paying for the full report is because some of the certificates, like termites, have short time limits.  If you can dig out the reports from when you yourself bought, you could ask the same firm to do these things.

It was what I did and it was useful and time-saving.  The man just did the electrics and then, when the sale proceeded, he reported on the rest.  PLUS he had a lot of the info from the time before so it was a save-save all round.

Also, time- and energy-saving is using the same notaire for buyers and sellers.  Saves a lot of toing and froing between notaires and a couple of visits plus some phone calls and emails sort everything.  I persuaded our buyers to do this and they also saw the advantage of using the same chap once I explained how it worked to them (they were French so buying and selling houses seemed to have been a totally alien process to them![:-))])

 
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We sold our house a month ago. Thought we would get ahead of the curve and had the diagnostics done well before the sale to avoid any surprises. A week before the signing, the Notiare informed us we needed a diagnostic for the drains connections for the house, even though we were on mains drains (tout à l'egout), certified by the Mayors Office. We personnally went round the various authorities to fiind out if it was true. Some said yes, some said no. One said yes but it was free, another yes but it costs 180€. The only common ground was, for our commune, it was not required until after 1 March. Our signing was mid Feb. It was just the Notaire saying we were to do it, with no legal justification. I went to see her and after a frank discussion, she agreed to put the signing (due by this time in three days) back on track without the diagnostic.

Don't know what it is like in other areas of France, nor how it works in large towns, but its another price the seller has to pay. That is before any remedial work that needs to be done to older 'hors norm' systems. Again, I am not talking about a fosse, but mains drainage.
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I was just about to post a message saying "hooray - no fosse septique! " when I saw this one. Fascinating. We are on mains drainage and this was just a minor mention when we bought the place, so hopefully won't be a problem if we sell.....

Chrissie (81)
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