Age limit on French Mortgage

[sclarke2208]

Hi,

As someone who is making the move to France within the next 12 months, is there an age limit for taking out a small mortgage? I will be 60 next August [:(]and would only require one around €30000. Any help on this subject would be useful.

thanks  roseysan

[Eslier]

CA state that mortgages must be repaid befor your 70th birthday. Whether they would be prepared to give you a ten year term mortgage or not is another matter. If the lender insists upon a life assurance policy then at age 60 this might be quite costly so would also be worth taking into account if you are shopping around.

[Logan]

If you shop around your age will not effect the granting of a mortgage. Income will of course. Assurance in France against a mortgage is obligatory and you will usually be OK even past 70 and at reasonable cost if you have a reasonably good health history.

[booboo]

[quote user="Eslier"]CA state that mortgages must be repaid befor your 70th birthday. Whether they would be prepared to give you a ten year term mortgage or not is another matter. If the lender insists upon a life assurance policy then at age 60 this might be quite costly so would also be worth taking into account if you are shopping around.
[/quote]

Might differ in different CA's... On mine it states: life insurance covers you for death upto 70 years old, however a mortgage must be repaid before you turn 80.

[makeiteasy]

Dear Roseysan,

in fact the main reason to know what is the longest duration you could afford a loan/mortgage is in fact the limit of age required by the insurance[8-)] .

What i mean is that for some bank the limit to take out the insurance(which is usually compulsary) varies between 65 to 75 and should ending between 70 to 89!!!So of course your loan/mortgage could be set up for that duration[;-)]And sometime if the insurance provided by the bank doesn't accept a long duration or is too expensive, the bank might accept that you take out your insurance with an insurance company(délégation d'assurance).

[Mel]

Hi Roseysan

It's possible to get insurance (which is compulsory on most mortgages) up to age 70 of the youngest borrower - maybe your partner, if you have one, could be insured for longer than you? A good broker (eg www.bestfrenchmortgage.com) would know his or her way round the insurance issues. If you haven't got a partner, France may not be the best place to set up retirement - it's rather couples-oriented in my view.

Mel

[barryandpat]

Hi,

We came to France in Jan 2005 following our daughter who moved with her family in 2004. I was 65, my wife 62, and I just started recieving state pension, we thought that it would be a good idea to rent a house, and we found one at 500 euros a month, perfect, large, renovated to a modern standard. After approximately 2 years we will have paid out 12,000 euros. So-- we asked our bank, CA, if it was possible to buy our own home, this personal manager is empoyed to deal with english clients, as he has a good grasp of english, he went through our expenditure and told us our limit was a 60,000 euros purchase price.

We started looking at the lower end of the market and found that there is an immense choice of properties from 10,000 up to 100,000 euros, and being DIY enthusiasts since 1963 we thought we could take on anything, within reason. We finally chose a house at 13,000 euros plus fees, and needing lots of work giving us a 100% mortgage of 46,000 euros, this starts in March 2007 when I will be 67, and for 15 years taking me to 82 years old. I will have to pay life insurance and the total payment will cost me 400 euros per month. The bank say that I would have been ok up to the age of 85, so I have another three years left if we run out of money for the restoration.

We will have lots of the problems that forum contributers have had, but after living here for 2 years we have some idea of who to ask and which departments to go to, its very exciting and we look forward to next year.

I hope that our experiences can help someone else, in the same way others have helped us.

 Barry and Patricia

[Chancer]

Celine

Is it compulsary with all lenders to take out a life insurance policy? and if so why, i.e who is it protecting?

I am single and have no dependants, I have never taken out life insurance on UK mortgages (which have always been for a relatively small proportion of the house value). If I took out a mortgage here in France for say 50% of the property value would the bank not retain the deeds and have first call on sale of the property (as in UK)?

I do not want to pay for an assurance that the bank will not need to recover their loan and that would just increase the inheritances of my surviving relatives who would already do very well if I popped my clogs!

[barryandpat]

Hi, I can answer only from my dealings with my bank. The bank CA just seems interested in covering their money lent to the client, so life insurance for the amount lent is all that is required. If I die the insurance pays the bank, they are not interested in selling property to get their money back, that is not their function in life. Once the mortgage is paid after the full term thats the end of it, there are no bonuses or thank you's, the house is yours and the inheritance is left to a notaire to sort out. Notaires seem to take a more responsible attitude than a UK solicitor, in that they will advise a bank if a bad deal is attempted by a seller and purchaser.

Maybe someone else has different experiences?

Barry and Pat