House ownership and rights

[teabag]

Two questions I'm a bit confused about.

1) If a house is bought in one partners' name i.e. the wife, and it is a second marriage with both partners having offsprings from previous marriages, do the offsprings from the husbands' side have any right to claim anything from the house when there is a death of either partner?

2) The house is bought in the wifes' name only so does the husband have to sign to give permission to sell and what happens if he is no longer living in the house and can't be contacted?

Odd questions I know but when I bought the house I was told by the notaire that my husbands' kids would not be entitled to inherit anything from it on the death of either party and if I died first then my kids would only inherit the property when my husband died.  Very confused, I bought the house in my name to try to avoid any problems for my kids as it was all my cash that went into it and I have no intention of letting someone elses' kids who I don't know, have never met getting any share whatsoever of it.

Help, everso please

[andyh4]

[quote user="teabag"]
Odd questions I know but when I bought the house I was told by the notaire that my husbands' kids would not be entitled to inherit anything from it on the death of either party and if I died first then my kids would only inherit the property when my husband died. 

[/quote]

 

Why do you think anyone here would know better than a French expert - aka a Notaire.

As for the first part, and from what I understand your husband's children would be most unlikely to have any claim on a property that legally has nothing to do with him.  The second part is certianly possible under certain circumstances and I would guess that foresaid notaire would have been aware of, or indeed constructed, these circumstances.

[parsnips]

[quote user="teabag"]Two questions I'm a bit confused about.

1) If a house is bought in one partners' name i.e. the wife, and it is a second marriage with both partners having offsprings from previous marriages, do the offsprings from the husbands' side have any right to claim anything from the house when there is a death of either partner?

2) The house is bought in the wifes' name only so does the husband have to sign to give permission to sell and what happens if he is no longer living in the house and can't be contacted?

Odd questions I know but when I bought the house I was told by the notaire that my husbands' kids would not be entitled to inherit anything from it on the death of either party and if I died first then my kids would only inherit the property when my husband died.  Very confused, I bought the house in my name to try to avoid any problems for my kids as it was all my cash that went into it and I have no intention of letting someone elses' kids who I don't know, have never met getting any share whatsoever of it.

Help, everso please

[/quote]

Hi,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    The following applies only if you were married in the UK ( ie.in "separation des biens") and have not changed this since coming to France.

    If the house is in your name only, and you provided the money to buy it from your own resources , there is no question of your husband's children having any claim on it . Even if  your husband contributed substantially to the purchase price , he has no rights in the property, but ,in a divorce, could claim financial compensation if he can prove he made such a contribution.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                  If you die first ,your husband has automatic right to stay in the house for 1 year, and by simple application to the notaire, will have a lifetime right of residence.When he dies the house passes fully to your children .

    Although the house is in your sole name, if it is the family home your husband has to consent to the sale. If he was no longer living there, this would ,presumably ,not apply.

                In view of what you say , I don't think you have any need to worry, PROVIDED you have a french Will specifying that the house is to go only to your children, and excluding your husband from any part of the OWNERSHIP of the house. If you die first, and intestate, he could aquire a proportion of the title which would pass to his children eventually. The life interest to which the law entitles him is extinguished at his death, and ,as the notaire said , the property then passes fully to the children, who ,at your death would have acquired the "nue-propriété", or"bare-title" only.

[teabag]

To Andyh4

Thank you for that reply but I don't think there was any need to have been quite so abrupt.  I don't consider that others on this board would know better than a French 'expert', I only wanted other peoples' views. Unfortunately not all Notaires seem to read from the same hymn sheet.  A Notaire in a different department informed one lady that she could not sell the house she owned without the permission of her husband and because he wanted her to keep the house he refused to sign anything.  They are not divorced, separated or even thinking about it.  He is away a lot on business so she wanted to move to a smaller house, closer to a village but although the house is in her sole name she can't sell it without his say so.  Although she asked at the time of purchase if there would be any problems on selling, she was repeatedly told that the house was in her sole name.  It's only since trying to sell that she has come up against problems. 

I have heard of absent children trying to claim rights to property that was nothing to do with their parent, mostly French, but I assumed that if they were trying to make any claim then there may have been some loophole for that to even be considered.  Hence the reason for the question.

I am still not too comfortable about the house selling.  If something is in my name and I have paid for it, then I should be allowed to dispose of it as I wish and not have to ask permission to do so.

To parsnips,  your very kind reply much appreciated

I certainly was not made aware by the Notaire that my husband would need to sign anything for me to sell my own house and I did ask several times but the whole thing seems very biased and unclear.

[Clair]

[quote user="teabag"]A Notaire in a different department informed one lady that she could not sell the house she owned without the permission of her husband and because he wanted her to keep the house he refused to sign anything.  They are not divorced, separated or even thinking about it.[/quote]

That is because they are married and the house is the marital home (domicile familial).

Under French law, she cannot deprive her husband (it works the other way too) of his marital home and needs his agreement to sell, even though it is her property.

[teabag]

Thanks Clair for that info.  Only trouble is that in that ladys' case she had already bought another smaller place so she hadn't actually deprived him of anything.  The only reason she put the house in her name was apparently because he had another house somewhere in France which he sold and she didn't have to signe to give permission.  Gets complicated this law business, I think each department operates slightly differently anyway but c'est la vie.  Never mind, we choose to live here so we have to play by the rules.

[krusty]

Have you met "teapot " .........I think you two would go well together [:D]

[teabag]

Probably would, need the milk sugar and biscuits as well though[:D]

[mooky]

Oh don't start me on this again. yesterday I applied for power of attorney to the notaire as I am going home to UK next week, and don't want to be there at final signing. Again I had to give form to my estranged husband or ask him to be at the signing although he has never lived in the house. I brought it with my money and he has never given me a penny when I lived with him, for a whole year. I don't use his name, don't want to know anything about him. I still had to grovel. The napoleonic laws are disgusting. Good luck

[teabag]

It's ridiculous, the men apparently don't have to have the wifes' permission to sell the house, they just get on with it if it's in their sole name.  I keep being told it works both ways but even a French lady in the village had her house sold and she could do nothing about it.  She didn't have to sign to give permission.

When this house is sold (if it ever sells) the last thing I'm going to do is buy anything else here.  It's not worth the hassle.  I also understand that if one partner has debts the other partner is equally liable even if they know nothing about them. And if a house is in one partners' name and the other has debts then the house, bank accounts, everything from the partner not in debt can be seized.  I'm just hoping that isn't right because if it is then that really is draconian[:@]

[Scooby]

This is what 'going back to like Britain was in the fifties' is really all about.  Ok there were 'nice communities' back then but there was also high levels of poverty (and I mean real poverty), overt racism and a totally male dominated society.  Give me the 21st century any day!