Am I free to sell to whoever I want to?

[Adrian]

While visiting some friends in a small village near Limoux last month they recounted a tale of woe concerning a man in their village who (for a host of reasons I won't bore you with) had sold his property to his wife for a knock down price. The people in the village had taken a dim view of this and had apparently invoked a law that states that the commune has the first right to buy any property put on the market. Thus the commune now owns the house and the man is substantially worse off than he had planned to be.

I realise that there are tax evasion issues here but would have thought that these were best dealt with by the tax authorities rather than the mayor. I can also see how it may work in a small rural village but if it's a measure to combat fraud how would it apply in, say, Paris?!

I have never heard of this 'law' and wonder if anyone knows whether it is a national law or a local regulation. I was not aware that anyone in our commune knew our house was for sale when we bought it - in fact our neighbours once stated that they would have made an offer on our house had they known it was for sale.

Adrian

[Teamedup]

LAST EDITED ON 18-Jul-04 AT 05:39 PM (BST)

Read Sue and Pete's thread on the Paying Cash post.

[quelque]

I forgot what it is called but we were told that part of the process and the reason for the average of three months to buy a house is that the commune has first right of refusal at the agreed upon price. If they do not want to purchase the property then the sale could go through. We were told that this was quite rare and usually only taken up if the property was needed for road expansion, airports etc. Maybe in this case if the price was so good they couldn't refuse.