Does any subscriber to survivefrance have any experience of making a claim against professional liability insurance?
Below I describe my particular circumstances to provide a specific context but I feel that the general circumstances of making a claim against professional insurance is a question of public interest. (It is of interest both to customers and to the professional paying the premiums).
I instructed an avocat to recover a house deposit retained by the vendor,s notaire. (Both the notaire instructed by myself and the notaire instructed by the vendor agreed that I was legally entitled to withdraw from purchase of the property and that if I withdrew I was entitled to the full return of the deposit paid at a meeting in “my” notaire’s office ) The vendor’s notaire has not returned the deposit. I wrote to the president of the regional notaire council who never replied! I instructed an avocat to act.The avocat was placed in “liquidation judicaire” in January 2018. In late December 2017 the avocat sent me a bill for “additional” work required before the judge published their decision (expected towards the end of 2018) that was paid.
" I" discovered the bankruptcy some three months later!
The avocat “postulant” is continuing the case: he has expressed that my case is strong, his fee is almost half as much again!
I have written to the battonier of the “barreau” of which the bankrupt avocat was a member asking how i make a claim against the bankrupt avocat’s professional insurance for the bill paid in January 2018 and the fees of the “postulant” who is progressing the case. The battonier has not replied.
I am expecting that the notaire’s professional insurance will meet the monies awarded by the court and have “shared” this with the avocats on a number of occasions. Neither the bankrupt avocat nor the current acting avocat have confirmed or refuted that the notaire’s professional insurance would pay.
I assume the bankrupt avocat had other clients. There are other professions that are legally required to have professional insurance e.g. “building assurance decannale”.