Hi, we are almost at the end of our long and drawn out purchase of a property through the viager system.
It was complex because we have vacant possession.
We now need to draw up a deed of trust in the UK. The current owner wants the amount we will pay in £ no matter what the exchange rate stated, which is great.
The issue we will have is that he’s now worried about what will happen if both my husband and I die before they do or if we default on the payments and wants these clarifying in the english document.
We have explained that the latter is very clear in the French contract and doesn’t need reiterating in the English (they can take the property from us if we miss just 2 payments) But we aren’t sure how to deal with the former issue. The lawyer isn’t being particularly helpful with this and has asked for £500 to draw up the document but we have to tell him the wording of what we’d like.
Can anyone help us? Is there an insurance policy we could take out to continue the monthly payments?
Thank you
Karen
Thanks for including us in the discussion James and good morning to you Karen. On the legal side I cannot advise unfortunately but 2 kind of insurances exists to continue the monthly payment shall something happen to you:
The landlord can subscribe to a ‘GLI’ french insurance (if the house is in France of course) that will endorse the monthly payment should you miss some of them (of stop paying) => That won’t cover him forever but should leave some time to negociate an arrangement (they can pay for up to 1 year).
In case you cannot pay because your income has gone dry there are some policies that can compensate your revenue loss. They are called ‘Prévoyance’ in French that’s roughly an equivalent to a British life insurance but they will only pay while you are ill, if you are disable or of course in case of death but that can cover you both.
If the insurance side is something you’d like to consider I can explain in more details, maybe during a first phone call?