Thank you everyone for the replies. I’ll try to get to each of them. Since I’m new I can’t tag everyone.
Stella - Thanks for the link, some good stuff in there. Yes, there are some similar warning signs. The big difference is that these are the original owners/builders of the property. In theory all the paperwork should be easy. We’ve seen receipts from a lot of the things and they spared no expense for quality. So it seems bizarre they would not have had all the permits.
We don’t know for sure there wasn’t planning permission. Let’s assume for a moment there wasn’t. What is involved in “Rétrospective planning” either for the seller or for us? The extension is 10ish years old so I think it’s beyond any warranty or whatever.
KarenLot - I’d like to think we visited at the worst times of the year. It was raining and cold in October, and foggy, cold and windy in February. You raise an interesting point about the tax fonciere. Would it make sense to go up by 10% in roughly 2.5 years? As far as we know it’s only been on the market for a year.
Nigel - Thanks for the example. We don’t have that level of detail. Maybe we don’t know where to look. Any tips? The ad says 200+ m2 habitable but has an asterisk that it’s not legally binding. The cadastral printout doesn’t show m2 for anything. The “releve de proprietere” doesn’t show m2 for the house, only the land.
Badger - Thanks. They say 200 m2 habitable and all floors have 1.8 m or higher ceilings (including the finished basement). We have measurements of the rooms from the agent. If we subtract the basement, we’re within 5 m2 of the “official” 140. But then the advertised 4 bedrooms doesn’t match, because the bedroom in the basement wouldn’t count. I think.
JaneJones mentioned in the other thread about an H2 form. Is that something we can ask for, to see whether the extension was declared to the tax authority? It seems like the taxes go up a little bit each year anyway.
We’re close to walking away but we feel like we should keep learning the ropes for another week before pulling the plug. As the saying goes, we don’t know what we don’t know. Any other suggestions on documents to ask for, things to see, etc. are appreciated. Who knows, the paperwork could all magically fall into line on time, but somehow I doubt it.