I am sure the house buying topic has been exhausted many times over. We put in an offer on a house and the owners accepted within 12 hours, (maybe we should have offered less haha) but I am wondering how long the process takes. We don’t have to sell our current home before the sale goes through, it’s a cash purchase, funds are in the bank waiting. We just received word last night of the accepted offer, and from there I haven’t a clue what comes next.
Any advice, knowledge, your experiences would be appreciated.
If through an agent, get them to do the donkey work. If not, notify a notaire of your choice to get the ball rolling. Can take 3 months or more from agreeing the sale (compromis de vente) and completion.
Three weeks on this house but it was a new build so straightforward. The first house back in 1989 took from end November to following January to complete on but as there were no ferries in winter back then, we did it via a third party signing on our behalf and then picked up the keys in the February when BF started sailing again. A lot depends on what is involved these days especially the diagnostic report, local investigations like flooding, radon,subsidence and much more plus any planned development by the local mairie/prefecture/government etc. Also SAFER if there is land involved. Your Notaire would have more of an idea that people in other regions.
Once your offer has been accepted you and current owners should sign a compromis and pay a deposit of 5 or 10%. The sale is then set and the house should be taken off the market.
Are you happy with the diagnostics? And are plans in place to sweep chimneys, empty septic tanks and so on? These sorts of things should be discussed preferably before the compromis.
From the compromis there is on average 3 months to final Acte de Vente. Can be quicker if no agricultural land requiring SAFER consent or other slow things. It’s also open to some negotiation for example if current owners have yet to find a new house.
We had our financial team do all the negotiations and such through the agent before putting in the offer officially. And my French fiancé took care of dealing with all of that being my level of french isn’t good enough to do myself.
The owners moved out this week. The notaire takes over from here as far as I know.
I’ve not seen a house in France that isn’t a newer build in such well kept exceptional condition, not a crack in the plaster inside, the basement high and dry. There isn’t any land to deal with, it’s in the city, so about 806m2 garden. new heating, clim, the wc’s and bath/shower rooms all recently updated, and thankfully not in the 90’s like so many of the homes we looked at. The ancient tiles and wood floors are immaculate. They had taken out all the area rugs so the floors were not hidden for viewings. From what we were told and could see in the visits no immediate work is needed to be done, except personalizing spaces.
So I can expect a few months before we get the keys then.
Our experience is very much in line with the comments above. The entire process took 3.5 months from offer to completion on an empty property/us as cash buyers etc. The entire process would probably have been closer to 2.5 months had the sellers not been a couple going through a vitriolic divorce, and on total non-speaks with each other.
As an aside, the judge in their eventual divorce case became so exasperated that he threatened to impose a settlement on both of them if they didn’t come to an agreement on sharing the proceeds of selling their house to us.
A house next to us has been sold for the second time in 18 months. It was snapped up in a few days of the decision to sell in early July, & the Acte de Vente is happening next Thursday, 11/09/2025.
As all the ‘ducks were in a row’ due to the recent previous sale it seemed easy to get things done quite quickly.
Yes especially where guttering and downpipes are concerned. Seen too many terraced french properties over the years with problems from neighbours not having guttering and houses suffering damp coming through the walls because of that problem.
We just bought a house as cash buyers. Signed the achat and got keys last Tuesday Sept 2nd after having our offer accepted beginning of June and compromis signed electronically mid-June. We engaged the services of a very small London based firm (run by a UK solicitor & French qualified avocat and a French qualified notaire) to act as the go between and hold our hands through the whole process as neither of us are French speakers and this is the first house we have bought abroad. Personally we were very happy to have their guidance throughout. We did not get a survey done so fingers crossed for no nasty shocks…….
We were pushing to have the house in time for mid-August but the elderly couple said they needed more time to organise and move and we didn’t feel it was the right thing to do to push them too hard on that. So probably it would have been possible to get the whole purchase done and dusted in 2.5 months but ours took 3. With no issues. Bonne Chance!
I’d be interested (if allowed on the forum) in knowing which company you used. I do speak French but for highly legal/technical stuff would prefer to go down same route as you, just to be sure and also if they managed to expedite the process. How much did they charge?
