Found a French Property for sale? Be careful what you sign!

Browsing through the windows of the Agent Immobilier, you may well stumble upon the French property of your dreams. You are only in France for a week or so and you want to make sure this dream French property does not escape you, so you go into the Estate Agent, make an offer and sign whatever they tell you to sign, and pay whatever deposit they ask for. On the journey home, you start to reflect on things. What have you just signed? It was in legal French, did you really understand it? The Agent said it was OK to sign, and he seemed trustworthy....but he would wouldn't he? Where did you really pay your deposit to? Can you recover the deposit if you pull out of the purchase? Have you committed yourself to harsh conditions? What if the property has something wrong with it?

I hear this scenario on a regular basis, and clients hesitantly approach me realising that they have perhaps not exercised the level of caution they would if they were buying a property in the UK.

Ideally, you should never sign anything that you have not had checked by an expert independent lawyer familiar with English law and French law. You should not pay a deposit without understanding where it is going and what the terms are for holding and returning it.

It can be hard when you are being pressured to sign and the Agent reassures you that everything is OK, but a good agent will not object to you having the contract independently checked, and make no mistake, whatever you are asked to sign will be a form of contract committing you to its terms, whether called a pre-contract or an offre d'achat or a promesse de vente. Get it checked. We can usually check basic documents on a same day basis, so there would be minimal delay. Take advice, get it right, relax and enjoy your dream French property purchase. For more information visit www.frenchlawconsultancy.com or email John Kitching, a bilingual French law solicitor john@frenchlawconsultancy.com or telephone +44 (0)1663 74 54 88