Hello All, just joined so very much a newbie! Have read with interest the various comments regarding notaires. We’re currently having an awful time with a notaire in the Charente that thinks it’s okay to ignore us, ignore our avocat, lie to us and withhold returning our money. We understand we can make a complaint to the Chambers de Notaires but, realistically, what are the chances of anyone anyone taking us seriously and being impartial? Any advice or guidance would be much appreciated.
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I would like to sound hopeful, but there is a lot of corporatist protection in the legal professions in France, except in the most egregious of cases, and the Chamber would probably be inclined to try and encourage an amicable settlement between you and the notary in question, without necessarily an admission of fault on either side, in the hope of keeping it all under wraps. Obviously, if there has been unprofessional behavior outside of the accepted standards, then you might interest them sufficiently to take disciplinary action. You might also find that you have to go before the Chamber before you can even go to court (I don’t know and haven’t checked, but it seems that is the trend these days, with the courts being as encumbered as they are).
Hello @drew and welcome to the forum.
Does the Avocat know the full story re the Notaire and if so can the Avocat make contact with the Notaire on your behalf…?
Thanks, I agree with you, It’s definitely a learning process, it’s hard to find good and trustworthy notaires
Hi Stella
Thank you for the welcome…..
Yes our advocate has written to him twice so we have applied to the courts to intervene…
Did you write a mise en demeure letter sent registered post (LRAR) giving a fixed time period to do whatever it is that you ant them to do? France grinds very, very slowly and you have to keep pushing but in general you will get resolution eventually. If you have applied to a court to intervene they will quite possibly want to check that you have followed all the stages of complaining.
Hi Jane
Yes, we’ve made several writen and verbal requests including a 8 day warning saying we will be pursuing interest and any charges incurred..
I know the Notaires make a lot of money each year from retaining clients money, They see it as an unwritten perk…
So do banks! In the day of instantaneous transfers holding on to money is a nice earner.
Keep at it, and I hope you get resolution sooner rather than later. You’re doing this not just for you, but for all the other clients of this notaire.
I’m curious as to what thw iasue is.
The return of the funds all stemmed from a house purchase that went wrong, mainly around the seller who deliberately hid defects from the agent and ourselves.
How did you manage to prove they deliberately hid things? The house we have just bought has major problems, but the agent said the owner was naive not duplicitous.
Great question, one we couldn’t answer without going into great detail, but what was uncovered along the journey really opened our eyes to a system that requires looking at.
Hmm… quite possibly correct but, personally, I would prefer to discuss this with a Notaire and not the Agent.. (perhaps you have discussed with the Notaire??)
It was a conversation between us, agent and notaire.
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