Sale of my son's holiday home in France

Property & Home
1

Hello everyone, I’d appreciate some thoughts or guidance please.

My son & daughter in law own a small house & barn in France as a holiday home. A couple of years ago they emigrated to Australia from the UK to start new careers / life out there. They kept the French house pending clarity on whether Australia would work out for them. Having now settled in / got citizenship and made some decisions re their future there, they’ve decided to sell the French property.

So, given that they are out there and it’s not quick, simple or cheap to come back to make arrangements, what in practical terms can they do to complete the house sale process remotely or using us (my wife & I) as their agents? We too have a holiday home in France (so not there permanently).

Ideally they need English speaking agents but what are the issues and constraints that they / we will need to overcome to market / sell the house. What documentation would be needed to allow us and / or estate agents to undertake the marketing, energy etc assessments, sale agreement, legal process via Notaire, receipt / distribution of proceeds? The house is mortgage free.

Obviously we are familiar with the buying process ourselves so in essence, what can / can’t be done without them coming back from Australia?

Thanks in advance for your thoughts.

Regards
Adrian

2

Everything!

Except possibly clearing the house for sale but perhaps you could do that for them.

We recently sold a flat in Paris, which is 400km from where we live. Apart from one trip to collect a few things we wanted to keep everything was done remotely.

The rest of the stuff we arranged remotely for a local charity to go and get everything (a friend locally had the keys to let them in).

Then the estate agent dealt with clearing out the basement and getting a cleaner, organising the diagnostics, doing all the photos and marketing, setting up notaire, and handing over keys, etc etc

We did a procuration with the notaire by email so didn’t need to turn up for the actual signing of the sale.

Estate Agent charge a healthy percentage (I think it was 5%) so you can “persuade” them to work for this.

Notaire where they bought the house should have the deeds.

The issue they may face is getting the paperwork together to make sure notaire doesn’t apply the whole of the cotisations sociaux on the sale, and having to pay extra for a fiscal representative (required for non-French residents).

3

Where is the house?