Choosing a notaire

[Mark]

Are there any hard and fast rules in choosing a notaire when buying a house?  An English speaking one would be preferable for me personally, but perhaps not essential, but is it always a good idea to choose one based near the house, both to utilise their local knowledge and for the logistical simplicity, as long as their reputation isn't atrocious?

Given that they're not driven by profiting from the transaction and therefore less liable to be dodgy (I guess? [8-)]), I'm tempted to just look in the pages jeunes and essentially take pot luck with the most local.

Thanks.

[Quillan]

I don't mean this is a funny way but why if you are buying do you want a notaire as normally either the seller or the French agent will have appointed one?

If you intend to use a different one then the fee for the sale, which stays the same, is just split between the two so effectivly your notaire only gets half the fee and the sellers gets the other half. Some may argue that by splitting the fee this way means you may not get as good a service but then having never gone this route I don't know if that is true.

This subject has come up before and I would suggest that rather than pay for another notair you may be better off, if the sellers notaire does not give translated documents, to spend your money on a translator. It is generally believed however that the notaire is responcible for ensuring you understand the contract and if that means translatuion of the contract in to English then they must do this.

I am sure others may have different thoughts on this.

[Nearly Retired (I am now)]

When we bought our house a couple of years ago we chose another notaire from the seller's chosen one and the fee was split - so it was at no extra cost to us. We just thought that by sharing the responsibilities then one notaire might pick up errors / fiddling / or simple lack of thoroughness of the other one.

It didn't seem to do us any harm.

[tenniswitch]

[quote user="Nearly Retired"]

When we bought our house a couple of years ago we chose another notaire from the seller's chosen one and the fee was split - so it was at no extra cost to us. We just thought that by sharing the responsibilities then one notaire might pick up errors / fiddling / or simple lack of thoroughness of the other one.

It didn't seem to do us any harm.

[/quote]

As Nearly Retired has said, choosing your own notaire should not increase the fees: normally the notaires will split the fees.

When we bought our 1st house in France, we started using only the seller's Paris notaire, but after the process had dragged on for several months with no apparent progress, we engaged a highly recommended local notaire who actually completed the property transfer and took his fee out of the money we had paid the seller's notaire.

When we bought our 2nd house in France, we mentioned that we would like to use the same notaire as before; our seller preferred that notaire's brother who works in the same partnership.  That was agreeable to us, so we used only the one notaire.

Bottom line: do what makes you comfortable, but I would seek local recommendations rather than choose someone at random from the Pages Jaunes.

[Mark]

[quote user="Quillan"]

I don't mean this is a funny way but why if you are buying do you want a notaire as normally either the seller or the French agent will have appointed one?

 

[/quote]

Ah, Quillan, that's what I thought!!  But I read elsewhere that it was the buyer's responsibility.  Oh well, another problem solved, and a note to self not to use that particular website again.  Thanks.  

[naps]

[quote user="Mark"][quote user="Quillan"]

I don't mean this is a funny way but why if you are buying do you want a notaire as normally either the seller or the French agent will have appointed one?

 

[/quote]

Ah, Quillan, that's what I thought!!  But I read elsewhere that it was the buyer's responsibility.  Oh well, another problem solved, and a note to self not to use that particular website again.  Thanks.  

[/quote]

 

Both facts are true - the seller has a responsibility to assign a notaire, as does the buyer - for the sale to progress.  It's up to you whether or not you choose to go with the same notaire as the seller.  We have chosen to go with the same one as the seller and all is progressing well (so far) - the notaire also provided a translator free of charge.

 

[Quillan]

There is a mental trap that we Brits subconsciously fall in to when buying our first property abroad which is to think that we need to work along the same lines as we would do in the UK i.e. the seller has legal representation to protect his/her interest and the buyer the same. It is something I too initially found difficult to get my head round.

The notaires job is only to ensure that the property is sold in compliance with French law (tax’s paid, mortgages repaid and all relevant surveys done). He favours neither the seller nor the buyer, he/she is just a government employee. There is no law to say you must use a separate notaire neither is there a law that says you should not. Using the same notaire can and should speed up the buying process because documents do not need to be sent to another office to be dealt with by another notaire. So it's not actually correct that both parties are responsible for allocating a notaire, it's more along the lines of the fact that you don't have to use the same one. It's sort of the utter and total reverse in a way of the UK system. One way that a situation where two notaires may be used by the French is when a property is being bought by one person is from the estate of another recently deceased. The deceased notaire will be dealing with the estate as a whole and the buyer may elect to use the same one he/she is using to sell their current home especially if they are relocating to another part of the country.

The only suggestion I can make is that you ask the agent if they know and are happy with the notaire the seller is using and then inform them that you will comply with any of the notaires instructions and if there are any problems they can take it up with their seller and the notaire. Sort of takes the chance of any hassle out of the equation if you get my drift. Should you then feel unhappy with the response then declare that you would like to use your own notaire which will of course slow things down a little. Other than that just go with the flow as they say. [:D]

 

[Mark]

Super duper thank you very much! [:)]