french auction houses

[bob]

Just wondering if anyone can enlighten me on selling a property on a French auction house/site? are French property auctions similar to UK ones? including fees, reserves and general protocols?

bob

[Panda]

Hello

I have never done this but have considered buying through this method so have looked at the process, most houses are repossessions.  Here is the site I watch, there are FAQ's about the process if your french is up to it!

http://www.encheres-publiques.com/

Panda

[Ian]

Thought I'd just tickle this thread up the league table. 

I too would be interested in anyones first hand experience of real estate purchase at  auction in France.  Googling "ventes aux encheres immobilieres" throws up plenty of general info (process, rights, rules, glossary etc).

Any personl anecdotes?

[Iceni]

I saw the notice on old house going "cheep" so, on the appointed viewing day, we took a look but even at a starting price of €14.000 it was not for me. Despite this I felt that a trip to the auction was justified, purely in the interests of research of course.

Auction day  - after lunching well a friend and I strolled down to the Palais de Justice. Both of us were carrying something that set off the metal detector just inside the bulding. Mine was ignored but his was traced to a mobile phone which then had to be switched off. Most of the handful of people congregated outside room no 2 donned robes (bidding can only be done by an avocat) and several of those looked as if they should have been at school on a Friday afternoon. The door was finally unlocked and we trooped in. Then a bit of stand up, sit down when Mme the "judge" and a crony appeared from a back room. Bundles of files were shuffled back and forth and there seemed to be general confusion and indecision as to how many properties were to be sold and which files were relevant. Mme declined to switch on the microphone, the avocats spoke to her with their backs to the audience - much whispering in the audience, creaking of benches, clack of metal heels on wooden floorboards, rustling of papers etc resulted in our not hearing a word of what was happening. Eventually things quietened down and got under way.

One of the robe wearers, somewhat older the the rest, sat in the "dock" and opened a cake tin. From this he withdrew what appeared to be a miniature guillotine, a box of very long matches and an A5 buff envelope containg wicks about 10 cm in length. Wick was inserted into machine, lit and bidding opened on property 1 at 50.000 despite my not having seen anyone bidding.  I'm not sure whether the wick was calibrated or M was checking his watch but he very solemnly announced "50.000 for the first feu" and after a long interval "50.000 for the second feu" , then a bid was heard for 51.000 so he started again "for the first feu" etc. After the "third feu" another long pause, the wick died and the house was sold. The winning avocat (attractive long haired blond of 17 or so) read out details of winners names address etc from a prepared, typed sheet then handed it to Mme the judge. The keeper of the wick packed his paraphenalia (sp?) back into the cake tin and prepared to leave. Amid general laughter he realised that, despite it being POETS day, he still had work to do so unpacked the matches etc.

Now for the property I had seen. Bidding opened at 14.000 and in increments of 1.000 moved very, very slowly to 32.000. So slowly that part way through a new wick had to be unwrapped, inserted and lit. This also necessitated cleaning one of the breather holes in the wick holder - a biro was produced from the cake tin kit for this very purpose - and in some ways this added a bit of excitement to the selling process.

All in all we had a great time. I am sure that this whole process has changed little since 1792 and we should be grateful that they do not have to sell 50 houses at a session. If you have the opportunity to go along to an auction I thoroughly recommend it.

The above tale may not help much if you want to go down the auction route but it's the best I can offer on the anecdote front.

For more info see www.info-encheres.com.

John 

[Clair]

Worth noting...

"Pour les anciennes procédures, c'est à dire celles

qui ne sont pas soumises au décret 2006-936 du 27/07/06, si après

l'extinction de trois bougies successivement aucune enchère n'est

venue couvrir la votre, vous êtes déclaré adjudicataire.

Cependant, durant les dix jours qui suivent, toute personne peut former

une surenchère

du dixième. Dans ce cas, une nouvelle vente sera effectuée.

Pour les nouvelles procédures, les enchères

sont arrêtées lorsque 90 secondes se sont écoulées

depuis la dernière enchère. Ce temps est décompté par

tout moyen visuel ou sonore qui signale au public chaque seconde écoulée.

Le juge constate sur le champ le montant de la dernière enchère,

laquelle emporte adjudication."

For old procedures, i.e. those which are not subject to the

decree 2006-936 of 27/07/06, if after three successive candles have gone out, no other bid has superseded your bid, you are awarded the sale.

However, over the ten days following the sale, any person may increase on the winning bid by a tenth (?). In such an instance, a new sale will be conducted.

For new

procedures, bids are stopped 90 seconds after the

last auction. This time is counted by any visual or audible means, which indicate every elapsed second to the public.

The judge immediately declares the amount of the last winning bid and awards the sale.

[Madeira Jon]

I'm afraid the whole process would get on my wick (Sorry!)

[Chancer]

A similar experience but pre-auction.

A French friend was given the keys of a property from his "amoureuse taupe" in the notaires office, in advance of when it was due to be advertised for sealed bids or to be sold at auction.  A reserve price equivalent to that of a second hand luxury car had been decided which did not reflect market value but the debts amassed by the previous proprietaire which had been set as a charge against the property. I did not at the time understand the significance of this.

I viewed it with him with for our friend Sylvie as her first step on the property ladder, but he told me that she had already decided that it was too much work for her and her boyfriend.

 I however was captivated, it was 1/2 hour before I was due to leave for my ferry and a couple of weeks before I was to leave England to backpack around the world but opportunities like this dont come often, it was an abandoned and unloved bar/hôtel/restaurant with six bedrooms on the premiére etage, a partially converted grenier and commercial kitchen and outbuildings to the rear, even without any real  knowledge of local values I said "I wannit!"

We went straight to the Notaires office and set the ball rolling, I offered the full asking (reserve) price and I gave power of attorney to my friend, a couple of days later I was told that they were going to invite sealed bids and possibly put it to auction, I played hardball and said that they had 24 hours to reconsider and accept my offer or it would be withdrawn, -  luck was on my side.

The whole conveyancing process took less than a month and I was in South Africa when I learnt the good news of my new destiny in France.

I have since found (from a succession of dissapointed would be buyers) that it was massively underpriced, several of them have told me how much they were willing to pay and asked me were the rumours true of how much that lucky English B******* had paid? Naturally I keep quiet.

With the system being skewed towards repaying the creditors rather than getting best value for the borrower/owner there are definitely bargains to be had but before auction, my experience of auctions being that unless something is badly presented, no-one has looked at it or very few bidders in the room property usually achieves the true "market value".