Vendor backing out

[tiara]

Hi,

I am new in the forum and would appreciate any help or comments concerning the problem we are facing in our process of buying a house in France. We signed a pre pre contract with the owner at 31st December 2010. On the paper was stated the property, the price and the size of the land. After lot of other difficulties the vendor found out that the septic tank is not according to the new rules set in the 1st of January 2011 in France. Now she wants to back out from the entire deal by sending us back the check we gave her as a deposit. She claims that she is not responsible for the new requirements of the septic tank since the contract was signed last year before the new requirements were set in. According to her she can’t anymore sell the property for the agreed price. We have not yet signed the ‘Compromis de Vente’ because the paperwork from behalf of the vendor has not been completed (amongst other things because of this septic tank issue). Has anyone had similar experiences? Does the vendor have a right to back out? Can we force her to sell or are we entitled to compensation if she backs out? We really like the house!

[Will]

I'm afraid I don't entirely understand where the seller is coming from here.

The requirement, as I understand it, is for a report to be produced on the drainage system, in the same way that reports are produced for asbestos, lead paint, termites etc. The fact that the septic tank doesn't meet current standards doesn't mean the house can't be sold, just as if asbestos was found, for example. It's merely so that the buyer is aware that work will need to be done to bring the drainage system up to scratch - this can be at the buyer's expense or it may be possible to negotiate a lower price to take this into account. If every house sold in France had to have the latest drainage then it would be impossible to buy and sell the restoration projects beloved by British buyers. The requirement has been in place for some time in certain areas, and since January it has gone nationwide.

See http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/2388926/ShowPost.aspx and http://www.french-property.com/news/build_renovation_france/septic_tank_surveys_2011/

I'm also a little mystified that you say you gave the seller a deposit cheque; the deposit should always be paid to the notaire, or in some cases the agent will hold the deposit.

You should discuss this with the agent (if you bought through one) and/or the notaire handling the transaction. If the seller pulls out at this stage then you should be able to force the sale or there may be an entitlement to compensation in addition to return of the deposit. However being entitled to compensation and actually getting it are rather different things...

[tiara]

Will,

Thank you very much for your quick answer and for the attached links.

We did not use an agent. Our notaire nor hers have been very active in trying to conclude the deal or advising us. The cheque was more of a guarantee that we will proceed with buying of the property. Now we have it already back because she want's to back out from the deal. According to her she has already made so many concessions. Therefore we think she will not agree to a lower price because of the septic tank.

If anybody else has any experiences about having septic tank installed or adjusted, we would be happy to read from you!

Tiara

[pachapapa]

A SPANC forum which I frequent has a section devoted to anecdotes. On the topic of assainissement diagnostiques,this one is very recent.

If you think about it the comment by the Notaire is well founded when one considers the legal situation of buying without a diagnostic inspection.

Ce matin appel à d'un Notaire afin d'établir un diag pré-vente.
Une fois le RDV pris, on parle un peu et j'apprends qu'une maison qu'on avait pas pu diagnostiquer jusqu'à présent s'est vendue hier (cette maison etait habitée l'année dernière, et est habitable).

moi:"Pourquoi ne nous avez-vous pas prévenu afin qu'on fasse un diag necessaire à la vente???"
notaire:"Ha ben là y en avait pas besoin vu qu'y avait rien du tout..."
[:D][:D][:D]

[idun]

Sounds like your notaire hasn't been active at all.

What usually happens is that the deposit is taken and put into a sort of clients account at the notaires when a compromis de vente is signed.

So you should have signed a compromis de vente, did you do this? If you didn't and just gave a cheque, well it is very odd and no wonder they thought that they could drop out at any time and give you your cheque back.

You didn't both need notaires either, it is you who pays all the fees anyway, not them, even if they use a different notaire, the notaires split the fees between themselves.

[Pickles]

[quote user="tiara"]We did not use an agent. Our notaire nor hers have been very active in trying to conclude the deal or advising us. The cheque was more of a guarantee that we will proceed with buying of the property. Now we have it already back because she want's to back out from the deal. According to her she has already made so many concessions. Therefore we think she will not agree to a lower price because of the septic tank.[/quote]

Hmmm ... time for a reality check here. Unless you can get a third party (eg the notaire) to explain the property market situation to the vendor in one-syllable words, you are really hitting your head against a brick wall. Think about it ... the person who you wanted to buy from now does not want to sell - for whatever reason, be it financial or whatever, and regardless of whether the vendor has misunderstood the situation.  Do you REALLY want to try to "force" (probably too strong a word) someone to sell you their property?  Given that you do not have a compromis, then you don't have the "right" to enforce any agreement to sell to you. If the vendor took it into her head that you were getting the property at an unfairly low price, then what do you think is the risk that the vendor might in some way exact "revenge" on you, via hidden damage to the property? Some people might do just that.

There may be other things going on here ... for example, in quite a few areas, the local authority (commune) may have decided that everyone has to be connected to mains sewerage, and the cost of that may be significant - and non-negotiable. There may be other issues yet to be revealed by the other required inspections.

I would strongly advise you to think VERY hard about this, and personally I would take it as a sign that you would be better off finding another property to buy - it is not as if there is a shortage ... Walk away, before you invest too much emotion into what could easily become an expensive money-pit.

Regards

Pickles

[mint]

Pickles, you took the words right out of my mouth!  What you have pointed out amounts exactly to my own thoughts.

As for the OP, I think that you are lucky to have been given some sort of "reason" by the vendor, even if it's just a trumped up excuse.  My own househunting efforts have been so well documented on the Forum that I hesitate to recount them yet again and bore everyone stiff.  Our last disappointment consisted of the vendor sending an email (not a phone call) saying "due to unforeseen circumstances, K and I (yes we were on first name terms) have decided to withdraw our house from the market".

I don't know why you have handed over a cheque and not yet have signed a compromis (that is, if I understand rightly what you have said).  I personally do all the research first (I mean OH and me and not just the diagnostic results):  we drive around, go round to the mairie, look at any Development Plan, find out where are situated the nearest pig farm, sewage treatment works, lorry park ect, ingratiate our way into the local bar to chat to inhabitants, ask lots and lots of questions of the owners, agents, pose questions here on the Forum BEFORE I'd even make an offer.

And, as Pickles has said, do you really want to "force" the vendors to sell to you?  Do you not mind the resentment, the bad feelings, the possible gossip to the surrounding neighbours, the possible malignant actions as described already by Pickles?

Buying a house has to be a win-win situation where everybody (including the notaire) has a smile on their faces and all is concluded with good feelings on all sides.

Would you really want to "win", for the vendors to "lose" because what satisfaction can you gain from that?

Lots of properties out there, bargains if you are prepared to put in the groundwork and you will end up with something that you can buy without angst and without doubts.

Good Luck in your search.

[Mikep]

We've looked at quite a few properties for sale, and frequently get the impression that the last thing the vendors want is to actually SELL the property. Could it be that they want to be able to "prove" a low value (maybe for divorce or inheritance)?

"Yes, Taxman, we put it on the market at 100k euros and nobody bought it!".

We had one case where we drove 50km to an appointment to view quite an expensive property, and the vendors weren't even in! The time had been suggested by the vendors a week before. They never contacted us afterwards to explain or apologise.

[tiara]

Thank you for all of your responses!

Indeed, we have considered the situation having a vengeful seller and possible gossips and bad feelings spread around in the neighbourhood. That is why our enthusiasm about the purchase is also subsiding. However we still wrote the seller a letter today in which we ask to see the ‘diagnostic d'assainissement non collectif’ in order to be able to consider the situation and to possibly find a friendly solution to it. If she does not agree to letting us see it, it is clear that her reasons are only excuses. Our notaire did tell us, tough, as much as that the pre pre contract which is signed is binding her too. If nothing else, at least we have learned from this incident. And maybe we should indeed be happy if we get out of it without further costs.

I am not sure if I understood pachapapa correctly, but is there somewhere a forum concerning SPANC questions? If so, would you be able to add the link here?

[pachapapa]

[quote user="tiara"]Thank you for all of your responses! Indeed, we have considered the situation having a vengeful seller and possible gossips and bad feelings spread around in the neighbourhood. That is why our enthusiasm about the purchase is also subsiding. However we still wrote the seller a letter today in which we ask to see the ‘diagnostic d'assainissement non collectif’ in order to be able to consider the situation and to possibly find a friendly solution to it. If she does not agree to letting us see it, it is clear that her reasons are only excuses. Our notaire did tell us, tough, as much as that the pre pre contract which is signed is binding her too. If nothing else, at least we have learned from this incident. And maybe we should indeed be happy if we get out of it without further costs. I am not sure if I understood pachapapa correctly, but is there somewhere a forum concerning SPANC questions? If so, would you be able to add the link here?[/quote]

There are a number of forums organised for SPANC professionals to exchange views and experiences; they are of course in french and fairly technical and full of acronymic terms, for example FSVD indicating a sand filter with vertical fluid movement and subsequently drained.Probably very boring and marginally incomprehensible without a knowledge of sewage technical french.[:D]

The moral of the notaires reply to the SPANC official is that if one has NO treatment whatsoever then it seems rather an unnecessary expenditure to commission a diagnostique to establish that there is "rock  all" there.

[Mac]

We bought our property last november and didn't find out until we turned up to sign the final paperwork that according to the mayor of the commune the property had 'no drainage'. This was a surprise to us and the estate agent who had not been informed of this although the notaire had the letter which was dated July. After a lot of phone calls we discovered that what the mayor meant was that the drainage did not comply with the new requirements due to come in in January. The vendors then agreed to go halves with us on the estimated cost of the new system and we eventually signed for the property about 3 hours later than planned following the notaire receiving e-mails from the vendors agreeing to her holding back part of the sale price.

The mayor of the commune was also the head of the local water board and I suppose he has quotas to hit as I understand that he is insisting that all older properties sold have 'no drainage'- not just those sold to foreigners.

[wastetech]

Mac was lucky.  We have had several people who have bought properties with 'no drainage', thinking that they could install it later, only to find that they did not have enough land/yard area for the fosse drainfield or sand filter and no watercourse nearby for a microstation to discharge to.

Composting toilets only deal with toilet waste and they would still have the greywater to treat and dispose of with no land to do it on.

A house with no possibility of sanitation is not worth much.