Finding the original permis de construction

[Sue Buckle]

Please can anyone help? We are selling our house in France and had accepted an offer. Then our estate agent said that there seemed to be no record of the extension work which had been done. We purchased the house in 2001, from someone who had bought it in 1994. All the extension work had already been done, and was probably done by the previous owners, so between 1981 and 1994. We did not ask to see any permits when we bought, because we assumed (! now we are learning!) that between the estate agent and the notaire, we would have been informed if there were any irregularities.

No-one seems to be able to tell us if our house is actually legal. The mairie don't want to trawl through boxes of paper, and have asked us when the work was done. As it was well before our ownership, we don't know. The notaire, who has prepared the sales act for this house twice already, says it isn't his responsibility to check for proof of building permits.

Does anyone know how we could go about finding out if the extension work has actually been done legally?

Any thoughts would be very much appreciated. It looks as if our buyers are going to drop out now, and we'd like to be a better position next time.

Many thanks.

Sue

[Quillan]

Your need to go along to your local DDE office with as much detail as you can (knowing the previous owners name is a great advantage). Some charge an admin fee to get a copy.

[Sue Buckle]

I am going to sound like a real idiot now, but what does DDE stand for?

Also, I am resident in the UK, and won't be back in France until the end of the year, when whatever office it is will undoubtedly be closed for Christmas and New Year!

Thanks very much for the advice so far, though. I have previous owner's name and the ones before that!

Sue

[idun]

It stands for :-

Direction Départementale de l'Équipement.

[Sue Buckle]

Thank you very much. I appreciate your help. Google.fr here I come!

Sue

[Jay]

[quote user="Sue Buckle"]I am going to sound like a real idiot now, but what does DDE stand for?

[/quote]

Not so much an idiot. I have lived in France for quite a while and never heard of them. There seems little point in posting initials and assuming everyone knows what they mean.

[Chancer]

Be firm with your estate agent and tell him/her to stop pi55ing around looking for problems that dont exist and get on with selling the house.

If it were the Mairie, the Notaire or the DDE then that would be a different matter.

Its not an English immobilier by any chance?

Editted, I failed to read your posting properly and missed the bit about the buyers pulling out.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Jay"][quote user="Sue Buckle"]I am going to sound like a real idiot now, but what does DDE stand for?
[/quote]

Not so much an idiot. I have lived in France for quite a while and never heard of them. There seems little point in posting initials and assuming everyone knows what they mean.
[/quote]

You would not really come across them unless you require some form of planning permission as it is they who will grant it. Going through the mayor is normally not required although it is considered a courtesy.

I don't think there is a general website for them, I think each department has it's own website and some don't even bother. Perhaps the OP's department does have one and perhaps they can do this online. Another 'trick' is to get the agent to do the work for you if your English is not up to scratch.

One way possibly to find out is via your Tax d'habitation (TDH), like if you know how many square metres your house is (and subtract the areas that do not attract tax) and compare against what your TDH says you should be paying for. If you are paying for less area it's questionable that there is a permis. If its all correct then your answer to any question about the extension is that no you don't have a copy but it must be OK because you are paying TdH on it.

[Sue Buckle]

Thanks, Jay. I managed to find the DDE for the Var, who then passed me on to someone else, who told me that they don't archive anything over 10 years old.

Our local mairie has a secretary who doesn't think it is her job to rifle through dusty boxes and find out whether or not a permit was originally granted. I have offered to do it for her next time we go back to France!

I will definitely look at the taxe d'habitation. Thank you for that suggestion.

Sue

[Sue Buckle]

Good idea! It is a French estate agent, and we think he raised the whole issue in order to get us to drop our price a bit more. He has shot himself in the foot!

Will pursue the mairie, as it seems they are the ones who should help us out. But I'll suggest the estate agent liaises with them.

Thanks very much.

Sue

[Sue Buckle]

Jay, I have a copy of my taxe d'habitation, but there is no mention of the size of the house. It is 66 sq.metres.

I can see that the valeur locative brute is 1579, so I think this is the rental value. But I don't know what to divide it by to work out if we are paying the right amount.

Can you help?

Thanks,

Sue

[Will]

You may find that the query has been raised by the notaire dealing with the sale - I don't know how far this transaction has progressed. So much work has been done on houses in France without the necessary permissions (by the French as much as - if not more than - the British) that a lot of notaires automatically check the planning status of all houses that go through their system, as I understand they are supposed to do anyway. I have even heard of some initiating a sort of retrospective planning application in order to ensure that everything becomes legal and above board. 

Edit - I've just noticed that you said the notaire isn't accepting any responsibility. I would question this, because I have always understood this to be one of the comparatively few 'searches' that the notaire is expected to carry out.

 

[Sue Buckle]

Thanks, Will. I'll try sending an email to our notaire again. The first time I spoke to them, they said they couldn't possibly go and visit every house they act for. But I also thought they were the people who are supposed to do searches. It seems to me that a lot of people in this system get paid large sums of money for doing very little!

Sue

[Sue Buckle]

According to my best friend, who lives in the Pays Basque, it is absolutely the notaire's duty to check out all building permits, so I've written to our notaire pointing this out. I'm also wondering what we do if we find out that we happen to have used an incompetent notaire? Clearly from other discussions on this forum, they vary massively in terms of quality.

Sue

[woolybanana]

Perhaps lazy?

[Mikep]

Would it not be simpler (and much quicker) to ask the Maire for a short letter confirming that the Commune does not anticipate any legal action? I'm sure there is some period beyond which they cannot raise objections - unfortunately I don't know how long.

[Sue Buckle]

Thanks for that suggestion, Mike. I think that is a very good idea, if I can get the mayor to do it! I spoke to him yesterday, and he grudgingly agreed to look through their archives, but this would be a much simpler solution. I'll see what I can do.

[Emma]

Hi Sue

Whare about in france is your place, and have you any pictures

[Jay]

[quote user="Sue Buckle"]Jay, I have a copy of my taxe d'habitation, but there is no mention of the size of the house. It is 66 sq.metres.

I can see that the valeur locative brute is 1579, so I think this is the rental value. But I don't know what to divide it by to work out if we are paying the right amount.

[/quote]

That was

Quillan's suggestion not mine - perhaps he can clarify?

[Sue Buckle]

Hi Emma, the house is in the Verdon National Park, in Provence. The nearest big town is Aups.

If you would like to see some photos, please email me.

Sue