Hello. We are selling our house in France that we have possessed for 20 years. We are using an Immobilier who managed to sell it straight away. The compromis de vente and deposit paid on 20 April. We are in England and as far as we knew, all was going well until the Immobilier informed us yesterday that a small parcelle of land is not registered to us and is holding up proceedings. The original notaire involved in the selling has retired and has a successor and our old notaire (who is not now involved) are supposed to be sorting it out but are apparently not. Can anyone advise please.
Welcome, @Emerald.
I’m a little confused by the reference to three notaires: the original one. his successor and your old notaire.
But that’s probably the least of the problems here.
Were you not present for the signing of the compromis? If not, that’s unfortunate, because I would expect the notaire to ensure that what you were selling and what the buyer was expecting were one and the same thing.
However, the buyers should have ensured that what was in the compromis was what they were expecting.
Your immobilier is the best person to advise you what to do. Presumably the notaire knows who owns the missing parcelle and also knows the buyers’ attitude to the discrepancy. Is it significant? What exactly do you mean by “holding up proceedings”? Have the buyers said they won’t proceed? Why did they sign the compropmis if it showed the wrong information about what they were buying?
This happened to my best friend in France. He and his late wife bought a parcel of land in the early 80’s right opposite his MIL to bank for future retirement home building. Several years down the line and when getting the land re-measured by a géometre as the neighbour wanted to put a hedge in (previously no one really bothered about the talus) and so the measurements could be put on the cadastre. However during the process, the cadastre for the parcel of land showed a piece approx 3m x 4m right in the middle of the piece my friends owned. Seems the farmer who they bought it off used to have an animal shelter on it and it was registered as a seperate parcel. My friend went to see said farmer and between them and the Notaire they drew up a document to give my friend total rights to all the land and the farmer was not bothered, 12m² is not worth the bother. Maybe this is the answer to the problem in that the original owners can be traced and sign a waiver document giving you the whole rights to the land involved.
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How could the seller, the Immobilier and the Notaire all not know what land was included in the sale?
If I was the OP I’d start by checking his purchase document to see what parcels of land he actually bought.
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Well, the agent immobilier probably because most of the ones I have encountered rarely go and check that kind of thing, especially with rural boundaries, and the notaire probably because they don’t do a detailed check either. They all take for granted what appears on the cadastre, which may be completely out of date.
When we bought 2 parcels of land that adjoin our house, I’m pretty sure everyone just looked the other way as to where the upper limits really were - currently defined by a barbed wire fence on top of a small cliff, but somehow there is a strip of land which I believe belongs to the farmer at the bottom of the cliff and which extends for some 20m or so in an oblique line to the barbed wire fence. No one has ever said anything to anyone about it, the seller certainly said nothing, the notaire rubber stamped it, but inevitably, I will probably need to sort it out and have the geomètre come out and measure it properly when it comes to selling up the property at some stage.
When we put our house up for sale we were asked for a copy of our purchase document including the plan which had the marked boundaries, this differed from our fenced off garden so prospective buyers knew exactly what was included in the sale and what wasn’t. The bit which we didn’t own was bought in a separate transaction to ours during the acte de vente rdv.
What the OP is now experiencing could have been avoided but is not uncommon.
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If I was you I’d do that now. I’ve a bit of a shifty neighbour on our left, luckily quite a way away, who took a few liberties felling our trees about fifteen years ago, before we moved here permanently. We subsequently had the bornage done and agreed ASAP and we haven’t heard a squeak from him since. Better to have these things settled IMO.
Is the successor to your original notaire (who’s retired) processing the sale?
Thanks for all replies.
The successor to the old notaire who processed the sale to us is not involved and it seems they are the one dragging their feet.
One can imagine why, his predecessor, your original notaire, may have screwed up. Our land is in three parcels and I remember our notaire taking us through the cadastre map carefully.
In your shoes I would be following this up daily with both notaires.
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Thanks John. Yep. They are all dragging their feet. Difficult for us as we are in the UK till next month. French passable but not fluent enough for phone calls.
Could the acheteurs buy it as is if we offer them a bit of compensation to sort it out? Do you think? They are a young French couple who are desperate to get in.
Regards Lesley.
Anything is possible. It would require redrafting the documents, and new signatures of course.
Could your immo not help? S/he is the usual means of communication between buyer and seller. Could you discuss possible solutions with him/her?
Will do. We’ll see if we can reimburse rather than knock off the asking price. May be easier?
Thanks again.
No successor likes to find skeletons in the closet they bought.
Possibly, though the main documentation will still need to be amended.
Our experience was that the notaire merely reused the last contract, amending (most of*) it to reflect the new parties.
*He made Mrs Porridge French, and couldn’t grasp the idea that the location of our marriage (rather than being one of the ceremonies) was a church.
Bon courage. All things are possible!
Yes, no matter how fluent one is technical, legal and medical matters all have lexicons of their own. Maybe float the idea of leaving that parcel put of the deal with the Notaire. It might get the couple in quicker and you could always flog it to them when the the mess is sorted out.