Hi,
a friend of mine asked me to check on her property as she is in Germany and asked me to ready it for a real estate agent and check on her uncle’s biederman furniture. She said someone might be there but the woman had agreed to leave if she could show all the proper papers of ownership and that the woman had no legal squatter rights as she already had another address. Believing her, I took keys to the house. I went six times and saw signs of people but no people. One time the papers I was supposed to show them vanished. my friend asked me to retrieve them and clean up. So I went inside, no furniture, just a bunch of belongings. No idea who except possibly that woman mentioned. I scooped up three items that might prove the identity of the trespasser and took them to the police (not gendarmerie) and they told me to 1) not go back 2) hold onto the items as they wouldn’t hold them 3) give them my name and number. Three days later, the gendarmerie come to my house and accuse me of criminal offenses of trespassing and theft. They tell me I’m going to jail. Fourteen days later they slap me with a court order and two criminal charges of fraudulent trespassing and fraudulent theft. I had zero idea that my friend, a german lawyer, would ask me to do anything not above board.
Hello and welcome to SF. Sounds an utterly terrible situation, but I’m not clear what question you are asking and, in any event, I think that you need better legal advice than you will get on an Internet forum, however well intentioned the members.
Does your own house insurance include legal advice? Many do.
Otherwise there are ways to legal help, like this
Bonjour Guillaume.
I am new to ‘survive France’ in a desperate attempt to get pointed in the right direction to make a complaint or get access to ‘citizens advice bureau’ regards a 12 year long inheritance case of my grand mother.
I am now travelling to St Tropez to force a response from the lawyers.
Merci, Candice
Bonjour Candice,
Please feel free to contact me (guillaume.barlet-batada@gunnercooke.com) and my assistant Aurélie (aurelie.auffray@gunnercooke.com) and we can schedule a free initial conversation.
Kind regards,
Guillaume
Good to have you back on SF Guillaume!
Have only just noticed this old thread but I have a specific query re notaires.
I have a notaire who is handling my late wife’s succession. Started off very good but then he transferred me to another office further away and made an appointment with the female there. She was very chatty and helpful and promised to move things along if I provided postal, rather than email, addresses for Fran’s 3 children.
She also said that, although she was not sure, she thought that the time allowed to elapse was not 10 years but only one or two. She would check with their advocate and get back to me. Also to confirm or otherwise her view that it was possible to force the successors to take part, accept or refuse, within a much shorter length of time. Failing which they would be eliminated from the whole thing.
I provided the 3 addresses the same day by email, as soon as I got home, but to date, some 3 months later, have received not even an acknowledgement much less a definitive answer. So a couple of weeks ago I went into the main office in the next town and asked their advice at the same time while providing copies of the 2 emails, one month apart, I had sent to the woman handling the case. I was told that someone would contact me. So far, nothing. I am totally fed up with this behaviour.
In the meantime I have consulted a local notaire for free advice related to the circumstances and have received exactly what I wanted. He also arranged and completed the purchase of some land to me adjoining my property. At the moment I am waiting for movement on the subject of my access to the lane as the one I have had for 33 years actually goes across a neighbouring property, owned by the commune. But that is of little importance for several reasons.
So, my question is, can I transfer the succession thing from the first notaire at his office 15 kms away and his other office 33 kms away, to this much more acceptable notaire only 4 kms away? If nothing else I can call in and prompt updates as I pass his office at least twice a week.
Not sure if this is possible or, if it is, how to go about it. An approach to my now preferred notaire for him to do all the movement work, a bit like changing from one bank to another, or to the original notaire who has not demonstrated acceptable communication skills?
Any thoughts gratefully received. 
I found this, @David_Spardo
Thanks very much @Porridge that is brilliant and the most important thing to know is that a transfer is possible. I did love the first sentence in the English version of that document though ‘hanging a notary is a common situation.’ 
I think the first step is to make a rdv with my new notaire to make sure he is willing and let him advise me on all those steps required. If I have to contact the current one, rather than being confrontational, I can merely point to my advancing years and the increasing difficulty I have travelling such distances for appointments etc..
Certainly in the UK, when changing solicitor, people almost always merely instruct the new one and give him/her an authority to send to the old one for the transfer of papers.
If it’s the same here - your new one will know - then that will make things simpler.
Yes, that is the important bit and I will call in and make an apointment as I pass tomorrow. 
Bon courage and bon notaire!
A bit of advice please on another matter. Is there anything in French property law which gives advantage to custom and use over 32 years?
We bought our house in 1993, it had an unfenced and undeveloped garden and only one means of entry because the land stands well above the small chemin passing it.
The only means of entry was between it and the next property by a common slope.
My very good neighbour has got herself wound up on seeing the preparations for our new remotely operated gates in place of the one already in use.
She rents her house from the commune and says that ‘her’ land reaches right to my fence, in other words the the 5 metres or so that I have to traverse to get to my gate from the chemin is ‘her’ land and not, as we have always accepted, a shared access.
The Maire mentioned this some months ago and, after seeing the notaire, agreed that we should give official sanction to my right of access. This I did and the matter is in the hands of the notaire.
Pending that, is any credence given to the fact that this access has been in place for 32 years and that there is no easy alternative available?
It was apparently so obvious in the first place that neither the estate agent nor the notaire of the day, thought it necessary to put into words. The alternative would have meant considerable alterations to cope with the steep bank and have required a slope some 50 metres long inside the garden and the displacement of a log pile and several vehicles. Also, with not enough space to turn, exiting vehicles would have to reverse blind onto the chemin.
While I await the notaire, I just wondered if accepted custom and practice over so many years held any sway in French law. 
Long time since I studied property law and then it was English. Try looking up : “Servitude par prescription”
Wow, that was quick, as was the answer. NON. Thank you though for that. 
Oh well, if they insist on blocking my passage, I’ll sell all the vehicles and re-institute the pedestrian gate at the other end and, as I get older and more decrepit, see what the wonderful aides make of that.
It is a great pity that she is making a meal of this, we have been great friends on both sides over the years, including us borrowing money on their behalf when they were on their uppers, and paying interest on it, and receiving re-payment over a year later, without interest and many other small services on each side.
Gemini thinks the following
Based on French law regarding property rights, specifically concerning a right of way (servitude de passage), the situation is complex:
1. General Rule: No Acquisition by Long Use (Prescription Acquisitive)
- A right of way (servitude de passage) is generally considered a “discontinuous” servitude (servitude discontinue) because its exercise requires a human action each time (walking, driving, etc.).
- Under Article 691 of the French Civil Code, discontinuous servitudes, even if apparent (apparentes), cannot be acquired by prescription (long-term use), even after 30 years. They can only be established by a title (e.g., a formal agreement written and published, often in a deed of sale or a specific notarized act).
Therefore, simply having used an access for 32 years, in itself, usually does not give you the right to a servitude de passage through prescription.
2. Crucial Exception: Landlocked Property (Enclave)
The fact that “there is no easy alternative available” is the most important element in your situation. If your property is considered landlocked (enclavé), meaning it has no access or insufficient access to the public road:
- You have a legal right of way (servitude légale de passage or droit de passage pour cause d’enclave) established by law (Article 682 of the Civil Code). This right cannot be refused if your property is indeed landlocked.
- In this case, the 32 years of use becomes relevant under Article 685 of the Civil Code, which states that the location and the method of the right of way for landlocked property are determined by thirty years of continuous use (L’assiette et le mode de servitude de passage pour cause d’enclave sont déterminés par trente ans d’usage continu).
In summary of the exception:
- You don’t acquire the servitude itself by prescription (it’s granted by law due to the landlock).
- However, your 32 years of use establishes the exact path (location) and the manner of use (e.g., on foot, by car, etc.) of this legal right of way.
Conclusion
- If your property is not landlocked (i.e., you have another possible, even if inconvenient, access to the public road), the 32 years of use does not automatically give you a right of way under French law.
- If your property is landlocked (the common legal definition of enclave), the 32 years of use is a strong argument to legally fix the access to the one you have been using. You would still need to follow the proper legal process to formally recognize and enforce this right, which usually involves paying an indemnity (indemnité) to the owner of the land you cross, unless the landlock is due to a previous division of property.
Surely what she says is irrelevant.
Well it’s not her land, I thought you and the Mairie are getting the access sorted, after 32 years your neighbour is now getting her knickers in a twist for nothing.
Yes, thanks all, pretty much what I have gleaned but it has been in the hands of the notaire for a couple of months and the Maire is aware of that so I hope that an agreement will be reached giving me the rights officially which I always thought we had from the moment the place was sold to us, with no doubts in anyone’s mind where the only access possible was.
I have always thought of this little piece of land as a shared access from the chemin between 2 houses, in much the same way that the 4 houses just up the lane also share one access between them, rather than part of the rented garden of one of them.
In 1993, somebody else lived in that house and, behind it, there was a fence which, if we had thought about it, was if anything the limit of their garden in the same way that the fence which we later constructed, was the limit of ours. Each with a little bit of shared access from the lane.
Ditto @wozza - if she is just a tenant then she has no horse in this race - it’s between you and the commune (as represented by M. ou Mme. le Maire) to sort out.
Like all things legal it will probably take a bit of time.