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Negotiating the Purchase
So as always you never pay the asking price, play the game, haggle and get the most you can for as little as you can so the offer went in to the agent at £26,000 which was £6,000 below the asking price.
Note - Always start your offer at a low price. You should NEVER come in too high. By starting low you give yourself room for manoeuvring during negotiation
The agent got on the phone but couldn’t get hold of the Owner. The Owner being the son of the previously deceased tenants who had moved and now lived in the south of France. The Agent said that he would continue trying to contact the owner throughout the day so we left and went back to our gite to gather ourselves for the journey home the following day. The Agent had our mobile number. We waited in excited expectation. At last a call, but the agent had some bad news. The offer had been rejected which sort of threw me at bit. I hadn’t really considered my next move. I then explained the situation to the Agent and that we were now considering our position in relation to another property we had recently seen (lie of course) but his property was our still our preferred option. I agreed to raise the offer a couple of grand to £28,000 and said that was it.
The Agent called back half an hour later and again said the price wasn’t high enough so I said was there any slack in the Owners Asking price. Yes he said the Owner had stipulated a figure of £30,000 - I thought for a while and pondered
….you’re in France, the agent is effectively working on behalf of the Owner and also wishing to push up his percentage, so I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Would I ever have the chance again to get the sceptical wife over and have all the family on side? No not likely I thought. If I agree to the price I get a house, or should I say houses, at a price under our original costing. I hadn’t played the game that well, had reduced the price a bit but the odds were stacked against me. Property was selling fast in this price range and I knew I had to go for it….
Yes I said that’s fine I will meet him at that price. The deal was struck and the agent went away to put in the offer at the agreed price to the Owner. The call came back shortly afterwards and we agreed to meet up the next day to sign papers prior to our return journey. I told the wife and the kids and all seemed to be happy.
We got to the Agents at the agreed time and the papers were ready for us to sign.
Note – " LE COMPROMIS DE VENTE"
This is the French preliminary contract to purchase. It is legally binding to both the seller and buyer to the purchase. After signing you then have a 7 day cooling off period in which you can pull out if want to. At the end of the 7 days you will need to transfer your 10% deposit by bank to bank transfer.
We were told that we needed a French Bank account to complete the COMPROMIS DE VENTE so not speaking much French the Agent agreed to accompany us to the local bank to open an account. The agent had done this on many occasions and it took about an hour to complete. Most of that time being spent listening to the agent and the young attractive female clerk flirting in French, no bearing on the account but ok it was good that they do this to assist so I had no complaints. With the account opened we returned and signed the papers.
The COMPROMIS DE VENTE had been signed and we would soon be French Property Owners…..Yippee.
Note – After the 7 day cooling period has been completed the notaire will then launch an enquiry / searches with the civic office to find out if they have any requirements for this area. If you are paying cash for a property then the delay between "LE COMPROMIS DE VENTE" and the act of sale will only be approximately 2 ½ months but if you require a mortgage then the delay will be approximately 3 months. After 2-3 months the buyer and the seller must sign a completion contract with the French notaire.
French Property Buying process
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