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7 day cooling off period...how to use it when you want out?


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Hello,

We have signed a compromis de vente and now the recommended letter is on the way to give us the 7 days cooling off...we are really thinking about getting out of the sale at this moment due to various reasons I wont get into right now.

Can anyone tell me what I should do when I receive the letter from the estate agent? Do I send one back and to who? Notaire or estate agent or both? And does the date that I send the letter count or the day they receive the letter back? Because we are not in France it will take 3 days for the letter to arrive.

What should be in the letter?

Thanks for the help!

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You need to send a recorded and signed for letter stating you want to come out of the sale, within the 7 day cooling off period, to the person who prepared the compromis, be that estate agent or Notaire. Your 7 days starts from the day after you sign for your recorded letter which you say is on its way, containing copies of all the signed paperwork. If there are two of you buying, you both need to do this. Better to send it as soon as your 7 days starts then there can be no misunderstanding.

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P-D, I do like your post.  I think you do "owe"  it to the vendor to make personal contact.

I haven't yet sold a house in France but, certainly, with our last house in the UK , we had no fewer than FIVE disappointments.

The first "potential" buyer let us down precisely one day before completion and cited "change of mind" as the reason she pulled out.

At the time, it wasn't so much her pulling out that we minded, it was the fact that she didn't have the gumption to ring up and say sorry but I no longer want to buy your property.  THAT would have made all the difference (especially as we'd entertained her, her son, her surveyor, her builder on separate occasions and she gave us to believe that all was going well until the very end).  THAT was what was the hardest bit to swallow.

So, yes, I do think you should make personal contact and not just do it through some letter or through the immo.

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[quote user="Judie"]You need to send a recorded and signed for letter stating you want to come out of the sale, within the 7 day cooling off period, to the person who prepared the compromis, be that estate agent or Notaire. Your 7 days starts from the day after you sign for your recorded letter which you say is on its way, containing copies of all the signed paperwork. If there are two of you buying, you both need to do this. Better to send it as soon as your 7 days starts then there can be no misunderstanding.

[/quote]

What happens in the case of known postal delays? For instance there haven't been any postal deliveries here since Wednesday (too dangerous to send the phut phuts out).

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Thanks for your answers...obviously we are informing the agent...

Does anyone have an example of the kind of letter we need to send?

and also...because of all the snow...what happens if the post men does not deliver my recorded letter on time? Is it the date that I send it that counts as prove or when it arrives? How do I know for sure it will arrive on time in case of any weather delays etc...? Any help would be grateful!

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You only have to inform within the 7 days and recorded delivery is not an actual requirement nor the only possibility.

Every Immo has email and I doubt there can be many Notaires who don't have it too so why not email them both to say you are withdrawing and requesting an acknowledgment by return. Once you have received that then job done and no possible question that they have been served notice in time. By all means still send a recorded delivery letter (you want International Special Delivery actually) but if they have already acknowledged it by email then it will serve no useful purpose except perhaps to aid your peace of mind.

All you have to say is that you are withdrawing, nothing more.

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Update:

We did send out the recorded letter on Monday as soon as we received the letter for the 7 days. I also have emailed the estate agent to inform her about this, so she knows the letter is coming and can contact the owners (we had no contact with the owners). This is now 4 days agao and I have not heard anything back, no email, no telephone, nothing!

I guess the estate agent is not happy with this result...

Is it normal not to hear anything? Should I just be waiting now for the recorded letter to be delivered and proof returned to me?

Anything else I should do?

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