French Property - a Buyers Guide to Purchasing Property in France

The Compromis

This document is the document you will sign agreeing to buy the property at the agreed price. It is signed by both vendor and purchaser and sets out all the details of the purchase price and fees.

Once signed there is an initial 7 day cooling off period, where the purchaser can pull out of the sale with no penalty. After this cooling off period the contract is binding for both vendor and purchaser, and a deposit is payable. The deposit is usually 10% of the purchase price.

The Compromis is a legal binding contract and to withdraw could result in your 10% deposit being lost. There are however classes that can be drawn up in the compromis that could allow withdrawal under certain circumstances, such as being declined a French mortgage.

To have the compromis drawn up you will need your passport, marriage/divorce papers, relevant details of paperwork if you are taking out a loan to purchase the property.

You should seek advice once you receive the compromis and if necessary have it translated by experts before you sign.

Surveys and inheritance advice

Once the compromis is signed and you have paid your deposit the Notaire then begins searches on the property, checking land boundaries, public rights of way, checks for termites are carried out as well as lead and asbestos checks. The Notaire is responsible for ensuring these are carried out and the vendor is responsible for these costs.

Unlike in the UK France does not always have surveys carried out on properties when sold. You can find surveyors in France who will offer this service, or alternatively a registered builder is often called in to offer his opinion. These are things that should be dealt with before your initial signing.

French Law with regard to inheritance is a complicated affair and you should consult legal advice on this matter.

The final signing

This is carried out in the Notaires office, if you are not able to be in France for the final signing it is possible to arrange power of attorney and have someone sign on your behalf. See legal representation on this matter

Ideally you should have seen the property on the day of the signing as there is a clause stating “sold as seen on the day of signing”. You will need to ensure that the transfer of the balance of payment has arrived in the Notaires account in time for the final signing, this date will have been agreed with the vendor in advance and it is obviously important that this is met, otherwise you could lose your deposit and more importantly the sale of the house. The sale can not be completed unless the money had cleared the Notaires bank account.

French Property Site - property for sale in France, with direct links to real estate agents.

http://www.frenchpropertysite.com

There is something emotionally charged about the buying and selling of New York high-end real estate. How else to explain the juggernaut of reality TV shows about high-end brokers?

After 30 years of marriage, Sharon and Michael Newman decided it was finally time to move from the Catskills to New York City.

On blocks near Kissena Park streets are quiet, houses are small, and the electricity that charges the atmosphere in downtown Flushing is nowhere to be found.

A five-story, seven-bedroom house in Brooklyn Heights has sweeping views of New York Harbor and the Manhattan skyline.

Demand is so intense that there are waiting lists in some buildings, and a few landlords report that eager renters are even bidding up rents.

Sales at the very high end of the market barely missed a beat in the recession. But that prosperity hasn’t yet trickled down.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

For a century, Roosevelt Island housed a grim penitentiary. It was demolished in the 1930s.

More borrowers are opting for fixed-rate loans with terms other than the standard 30 or 15 years, especially when it comes to refinancings.

Two more glass skyscrapers are added to a group of towers on the waterfront of Long Island City.

Insurance coverage for a co-op unit; when a tenant is ‘blacklisted’; a co-op is smaller than estimated.

The market for $500,000-to-$600,000 houses in Westchester has become especially active.

A shaky real estate market means more sellers are providing buyer concessions, from gift cards to help with paying property taxes.

Houses of worship are adaptable to residential and other uses as congregations dwindle.

The settlement reached last week over questionable mortgage practices by major American banks hardly cracks the iceberg that is the foreclosure mess.

Under the settlement, nearly two million Americans could benefit from mortgage relief from the nation’s biggest banks.

A cold war-era satellite relay station is for sale in California after a Silicon Valley mogul gave up on plans to turn it into a weekend home.

How can I make my front porch more appealing to buyers?

Court hearings meant to protect New York homeowners from foreclosure are hopelessly slowed by endless paperwork and requests for additional information.

The Bay Area and Silicon Valley expect the windfall from the Facebook stock offering to make their in-demand region even hotter.

The house, designed by the architect Eric Fisher, looms over the street like a big industrial arm.

A town house in Dallas, a midcentury modern in Rhode Island and a Tudor in Denver.

Prices in some parts of the country are still off by as much as 25 percent from their 2007 peak.

Trinity Church is the largest landlord in Hudson Square and is part of the effort to rezone the area to residential from manufacturing.

Rising oil prices and a boom in shale exploration are leading companies to add office space in the Houston area, most notably Exxon Mobil.

Ms. de França is the president and chief executive of Douglas Elliman Development Marketing, which focuses on new residential developments.

Meet the real estate broker’s interns: an ambitious group willing to do anything, earn nothing and wake up early on a Sunday to fluff the couch cushions at open houses.

A Flatiron condo, a Midtown South co-op and a Brooklyn Heights carriage house.

A four-bedroom ranch in Montclair, N.J., and a four-bedroom colonial Cape in Babylon, N.Y.

Homes in Dallas, Rhode Island and Denver.

Compare the cost of renting and buying equivalent homes.

For recently divorced men, a new breed of decorators offers help navigating a strange new world.

Plants that light up the winter garden can be found at Broken Arrow Nursery in Connecticut, which has long been a favorite of gardening geeks.

A sister in need drew the painter Beverly McIver back home to North Carolina, unaware that a new beginning was in store for both of them.

A jewelry designer finds striking new objects for storage.

Timothy Sakamoto and Jochen Repolust are part of the small but growing niche making mobile apps focused on specific works of architecture.

To promote an auction of 20th- and 21st-century design, the interior designer Stephen Sills has created a preview exhibition in an apartment at the Apthorp.

Fishs Eddy now sells plates acquired from the archives of the now-defunct Syracuse China Corporation, many more than 100 years old.

The designer Russell Greenberg creates custom baby rattles with ends shaped like profiles of mom and dad.