Home buying- France

Yup!  It has happened!  I bought a house!!  It was actually, probably almost 2 months ago but these things take time here so I just kept it under wraps until I knew more.  But I just learned this week that we have a closing date (Oct 24^th!) so time to bring you up to speed!  So I guess technically I haven’t bought the house yet but I am pretty far down that road with no intentions of turning back!

As with so many things, I have made some discoveries regarding how different real estate sales work here than in Canada.  To be transparent, my Canadian experience is a little limited.  Over the years I owned 3 homes in my native land but two were built for me while the last, my beautiful old home in Saint John, was the only home I actually bought “used”. 

Incidentally there are no restrictions to my buying a house here.  If you have the money, your residency status doesn’t seem to matter.  There’s going to be a ton of paperwork regardless! 

Let’s start here; there are 3 realtors in my town.  The larger of the 3 I preferred not to deal with.  Over the years I had some very lackluster help from them in securing a rental, and although their manager speaks English well, because of their past service I was less inclined to deal with them.  The 2^nd of the two seems to be a one woman show, and she won’t allow any of her listings to be shown by another agent which makes it difficult if you have an agent you want to deal with.  The third is a husband-and-wife team.  I think he is the only licensed agent of the two, but I am not 100% sure of this. 

When you find a house you want to see, it is the usual drill.  You contact the agent, they arrange a showing time that works for all three parties (the agent, the seller and the buyer).  The most notable difference is that you will probably view the house when the owner is at home.  Yikes.  Feels awkward to me, opening drawers and cupboards when the owner is there but according to Francois, the logic is this- “Who knows the house better than the owner if you have any questions?” Okay, that makes sense but when you are used to filtering all the questions through the middle person, the realtor, it does take a little adjusting to not feel like you are snooping!

It is the responsibility of the owner to have all the paperwork regarding work done on the property.  The tradespeople will be on the hook for any faulty workmanship for ten years from work completion, regardless of whether the home has changed hands.  And if that tradesperson is no longer in business, chances are they had insurance which remains in effect for the work they did.  Now this is a cool plus as a buyer.  And as a homeowner it means you must keep very good records and receipts because if and when you sell your house you want to have all of this to turn over to the new owner.  Otherwise, if they find faulty workmanship years down the road you could be on the hook for the remedy!

Certainly, you can put conditions on an offer although asking for non-built-in appliances seems to be a rarity.  You might say that the offer is subject to financing but your offer would probably be considered quite unusual if you asked for the fridge to stay.  Or the garden furniture.   And chances are the house already comes with an inspection report, as the seller will have arranged to have had that done before putting their property up for sale. 

Lead in the paint and/or asbestos in the shingles?  No big deal apparently, as long as it is noted in the inspection report where either of these two hazards are located so you can take care when doing any work in those areas. 

And don’t even think about putting a closing date in the offer.  There is no such thing; when the paperwork is done, the transfer is ready to be made.  And the paperwork process rests less with the lawyers and more with the town administration who have to give it the stamp of approval.  (I am not even sure what that means in terms of work that they do, just that the offer will make its way to them and eventually pop out the other end as, hopefully, approved.)  Not having a closing date means one also has to be very fluid about planning utility hookups, movers, vacating current accommodations etc.  But I guess for French people this is the only way they know it to be done so it seems quite usual to them. 

Lawyers work on a government set up payment schedule, determined by the value of the property.  Ditto the real estate agent who must show the house price both with and without their fee, which by the way, is payable by the buyer.  If two rival real estate firms are on the property, one with the listing and one doing the showing for the eventual buyer, they split the commission.  Same thing with the lawyers’ fees.  If one lawyer does it all they get the fee and if the buyer and the seller each elect to use their own lawyer, the prescribed fee gets shared 50/50 between the two. 

I know this was all sort of technical and non- emotional, but I also know some of you are curious about all things French and how the processes work and how they are the same, and differ, from what you are likely used to.  I will write another post about the house itself because I am so excited!!