Notaires what can they accept ?

[Miki]

A friend and his wife today went to a notaires office to sign the acte de vente.

The agent had said the bankers cheque from the UK would be fine, so off

they went this morning to said Notaire......two hours later I get a

call from them, to say the Notaire will not accept the cheque as it is

not from a French bank and that it is interdit in French law to accept any cheque of this

kind.

Now our friends have paid Nationwide good money to have a cheque drawn

on Euros and made payable to the Notaires name. I realise that a

Swift/Iban transfer would have been easier (although our own friendly

bank manager says a European Money Transfer from one bank to another

named account is best and cheapest, anyone know of this kind ?) but

they had been told this UK bankers cheque (in euros) was very

acceptable but now the French agent is doubting he said it but there is

no way our friends would have done so without asking first.

I drove the 30 miles to see them at the office,  they were quite

annoyed and stressed, as they had obviously hoped to be in the house

tonight. On asking the Notaire as to why he wasn't able to simply pay

the cheque in and see what happened, he threw a rather pathetic wobbly

and said that our friends should have done it properly...sensible reply

really, as that IS what they were told to do, they didn't just make it

up !! He said a few other things suffice to say, I have never known

such a pompous young $£%&£+#@

So now I guess,  it is take the cheque back to the UK and ask if

they can cancel that cheque and get another made out to themselves and paid in to their new

bank account, which I opened with them this afternoon. Cash it back in

at a loss of exchange rate and then send over to the Notaire the 

sum required in euros by Swift Iban, or as their conseillor at the bank

also said, a European bank transfer to the Notaire or their own account.

Any ideas peeps ? and the next time they are over now is in the last week of October and the Notaire generously

has allowed them the extra month but having spoken to the sellers

tonight, they don't care when, so Notaire is continuing with his rather

alluding to grandeur pose of I am the man !

[Will]

I remember when we bought our first French house we wanted to do a transfer to the notaire's account, but the agent just couldn't get details out of the silly woman in time that our English bank would recognise. So the only way to make sure the money went through was to get a bank draft in Euros made out to the notaire, take that with us and hand it to the notaire on the day. That worked perfectly - it was so simple and so direct and we got the proper commercial exchange rate. I wondered why people bothered with inter-bank transfers and currency exchange brokers, particularly when we subsequently saw so many of these only getting through at the eleven and a half-th hour after a lot of geeing-up.

One of the difficulties is that notaire's secure accounts are held at the Tresa Public, and that is not a bank that is easily recognised by a lot of English banks, and neither do the British banks have reciprocal arrangements for inter-bank transfers. So that too makes it difficult to do things 'properly'.

So, Miki, it looks like it was too easy. As with so many things, if it works well, let's bring out rules against it. It does seem like your friends got a particularly good example of a Jobsworth but there are plenty of them about on both sides of the channel. After all, people from Britain buying a house in France isn't exactly a unique occurrence.

So it looks like the only foolproof way is to open a French bank account, transfer the funds into that, then transfer from that to the notaire's account. Lots of delay, and potential for error, when it should be so simple.

Nothing surprises me with bureaucrats on either side of the water.

[Alexis]

How annoying for your friends.

I have been trying to remember what I did all those years ago and I have a feeling I transferred the amounts to my bank account here because I can remember going into the bank and the money wasn't there...

I must have written out the cheques at the Notaires but I don't remember doing so.

[tenniswitch]

I'm sure that when we bought our 1st house in France, we paid using a bank draft (in euros) from our US bank drawn on their corresponding bank in France.

When we bought our second house late last year, the notaire wanted a wire transfer into his Tresor Public account.  Very easy and fast to do (but more expensive for us).

Perhaps there's been a change in the regulations in the past few years?  Or perhaps your notaire is just a bit clueless?  I know that one of the times my husband went to deposit the same kind of bank draft into our CA account, he had a bit of trouble considering the new branch manager that it was, indeed, a check.  Finally got it sorted out, but the man had simply never seen such a thing before.

[Quillan]

I think you will find that it's all done by bank transfer now because it leaves an audit trail for money laundering. We moved ours over to Britline then got overnight interest (not a lot but it paid for the fees) for a month till we transfered it to the notaire. After that we closed our Britline account and opened a local one.

[jamesg]

The notaire we dealt with gave us a RIB and a week to pay the deposit.

We just opened a local bank account and arranged a transfer to that via a British currency dealer.

Within the week we transferred the 5% deposit to the notaire from the local account and 4 weeks later the balance to complete the transaction.

It was probably simple because there was no agent involved with the transaction.  Just us and the vendors visiting the notaire together.

[WendyG]

Some4/5 years ago when we bought the house, I merely opened an account in France, transferred the appropriate amount and bit over to the French bank.  I could not get the Notaire to give me an exact amount to be paid but when I telephoned my bank they said not to worry as it was all in hand, which indeed it was! the appropriate amount being transferred from my account on the day.

Apparently the Notaire and the Bank Manager had sorted it out between them, for which I was most grateful as my French at that time was not much use for such transactions.  The Bank Manager had been recommended to me by a friend, as indeed had the Notaire.

Obviously as I still live in UK I just take cash over in Euros and top up my account as needed, which saves on costs of transfers.

[allanb]

"... it is interdit in French law to accept any cheque of this

kind ..."

I think "nonsense" is about the kindest response to this.  There

is no reason why a notary (or anybody else) should refuse a UK banker's

draft, especially if drawn in euros, unless he felt that it might not

be genuine - in which case he should have said so.  And it is

possible to verify a draft, although you might have had to pay for a

phone call. 

Very annoying, and you have my sympathy, although it doesn't help you.

[Chancer]

My notaire 18 months ago would not accept a RIB transfer (from UK account) and requested a bankers euro cheque.

I can see the changes perhaps due to money laundering but Miki, why can your friends simply not do a Swift transfer from their Nationwide account? Or will the young man not accept any money coming from an English bank in any form?

[Miki]

I spoke this morning with an agent whose sister is a Notaire. He will

ask her today about this problem our friends encountered, or asap but

as I told him, it matters not in reality, as

this particular notaire has flatly refused the cheque. The worrying

thing, is that

he deliberated for nearly two hours, phone calls going to and from the

UK, all verifying the genuiness of the bankers cheque. It had the name

of  Travelex on the top (and drawn through the Nationwide) with

Deutsche Bank in Paris named as the bank it was being paid from.

If it had been as cut and dried as "C'est interdit" then that would

surely have been it from the first minute and no calls would have been

made. We talked this morning and  to be honest, the only answer we

can think of, is that he is young and simply had not seen one before

but swears he asked his local big bod...strikes me as yet another

Frenchman who cannot admit he hadn't a clue but naturally, that would in no way

stop him giving an answer though ! His thinking was bizarre to say the

least, believing the cheque was made out to him was actually from their

own account, he could not see, that to be in possession of it, meant

the bank issuing it, had to have been paid  with funds from

another account (their bank account in this instance of course). He said that a

French bankers draft was OK but said he couldn't take a Foreign bank

draft but told me I was totally wrong, if I had paid for one place in this

manner, our 2nd house (we think 2nd but for sure it was one house) was

paid like this!! Even paying it in this fashion, it is still a very

easy trail to follow, no cash, just one bank paying the Notaire and

easily traceable back to it's origins, so it can't be because of that..

I agree, Swift/Iban is the probably the best and  right way but

that is still fraught with dangers in the time schedule of it all. We were given

a fair amount of compensation in the late 90's for the electronic transfer taking a month and

we very nearly lost the place we are in now. We had every excuse going

as to why it was not with the notaire and in the end the bank in

question could not justify any of its excuses and paid us an agreed sum

in compensation. So like Alex, the funds (substantial, well at the time

they were, holiday home money now !!) were simply not found for all

that time. And also like her, it is hard to remember exactly how we

paid for the ones before our present place !

They are at the moment heading home, they will go back to their issuing

bank tomorrow and see if they can have the cheque in question cancelled

and another one drawn in their name this time, sent to me or direct to

the bank

with a  RIB (Foresee possible problems with a "have we received it

or  not, hang on we will have a look scenario that could last a

while !!) and when cleared, issue a bankers draft (better than a

personal cheque ????) to the Notaire, who personally I would have hoped

to have dismissed after yesterday but the cost may be too much for them

in time, trouble and monetary terms. Failing the cheque being

re-issued, then the cheque may well have to be put back to sterling

(costly) and then re-issued by way of an Iban transfer or the European

bank transfer that I personally no nothing about.

Will you are so right, what should have been an easy transaction, once

again turned out to be a nigtmare. We told them again (and again) last

night about some of the traumas of our own sales and buys, plus some

even better horror stories of other sales we had known...made them feel

better if nothing else !!

If I had been involved from the start I would have ensured that they

had their own bank account opened and up and running, this is obviously

sensible for many reasons, not less the sale but for all the

prelevements they will now need to set up but to their credit, they did

not want to put us under any pressure, knowing how we have to work but

as I said, opening an account is easy enough (as long as the potentail

new client has all the guff required on them at the time of the RV) but

the bottom line is the Agent, now saying he thought it was certainly OK

to do it as they had and in fact had not known a notaire to refuse a

bankers draft from the UK in 20 years, funny how an overnight sleep can

bring it all out in the morning !

The bottle of wine they had ready to seal the deal is now back in the

fridge and the restaurant promised put on ice...........In 4 weeks we

will all laugh about it, or so we told them ....[;-)]

[alnmike]

Last year we bought our house and used a currency broker to SWIFT GBP to Euros into Britline (I know, I know).

We used an English speaking French solicitor to help with the purchase,

who got a RIB from the Notaire. I rang CA who said they wanted a fax by

11 am and the money would be with the Notaire by close of play. And it

was.