new house sale

[Lizs]

We are selling up and returning to the UK (family probs. )

We built a new house, completed last Feb. We used a local architect who managed the whole project for us, usinf local artisans. The house is fabulous and now about to sign our sale compromis. The buyers have an English soliciter who is asking that as we did not take out an insurance that we sign to say that in the event of a problem we will be liable (to contact artisans, who have their "assurance decenneles" to put anything right)

Can this be workable?

Surely our architect is there for that purpose, he assured us that he is responsible for the property for 10 years.

Would appreciate any comments or advice

Liz

[Teamedup]

English solicitor? As far as I am aware an english solicitor cannot sort any of this out, only notaires can do that.

And I have never heard of such a thing as asking you to take responsibility. Usually the notaire makes it quite clear that the vendor is not responsible for any problems after the sale.

What has your notaire got to say about this and your achitect, they are the people I would be contacting.

[BJSLIV]

I think this is a question concerning our old friend the Assurance Domages Ouvrages. If I remeber rightly  both Teamed Up and I have waxed lyrical aon the subject of ADO in the past

Regular readers will remember that by law anyone who builds a house is supposed to take out this insurance, and it can cost roughly 2% of the build price. However as there is no check many people don't bother to save the outlay. The purpose of the insurance is as a safety net to cover the structure of the building, and works a bit like the NHBC in England. If something goes wrong with the house they pay up, and if they can, the insurer  recovers the costs from the individual artisans concerned. If you build a house and stay there for the 10 years then its your business. If you need to sell  you need to prove that cover is in place, or that you will accept responsibility, or that you will reduce the price significantly to cover the risk. You are naturally in a weak position as you have broken the law. Any house that is sold before the tenth anniversary "must" have this insurance, otherwise its sale price will be impaired.

Secondly its worth bearing in mind that the sale will be subject to VAT, being less than five years old.

If you sell for 119600 Euros they will expect 19600 euros VAT less any vat shown on the  invoices  from when the place was built. Put another way if its your main residence you wont pay Capital Gains Tax on any profit , but you will suffer VAT loss on the gain. Start finding out those receipts.