Case Study: Buying Property Privately In The Charente – Part 1
Conversations with Sue C: Buying A Home In Charente
Let me introduce Sue, a client of Healey Fox, who is buying buying property privately in Charente France, her third time buying in Europe! Sue owned a house in France twenty years ago, after selling that she bought an apartment in Spain and now she has sold that in order to buy a house in France for her retirement. Sue has agreed to talk to me regularly so that I can write up her experiences of buying a property in France to help and inform others who are thinking of embarking on the same adventure.
My first question to Sue was to ask her how she made her decision on where to buy, when to buy and what to buy. My first surprise was that Sue had no intention of buying a property in France at the moment as she had decided to wait to see what happened with Brexit. However, when this very special cottage popped up on her Smartphone she was hooked! Another surprise was that Sue had also not intended to buy a house in France in the same area as her previous one but the one she fell in love with is in the lovely part of France which she had loved the first time around. And finally, when it came to what to buy there was no discussion – it was love at first sight when she saw the cottage on the Healey Fox website.
Step 2 was for Sue to speak to Healey Fox about the property, which was being sold as a private sale. For Sue this meant that she would not have the services of one of our partner French estate agents to show her around and assist with the purchase but neither would the price of the house have to include the French agency fee which at the lower end of the market can add 10% to the price. For this purchase the owner will only be paying Healey Fox 2% for marketing their house but both Sue and the present owners will have to be more proactive in sorting out the sale. Af the end of her chat with Healey Fox, Sue had arranged to view the cottage she had fallen in love with plus two others with our French estate agent in the area. Also, to ensure she wasn’t wasting time on her viewing trip she found another property with a different agent and she arranged to view that one too.
Step 3 was the decision making process which was really simple for Sue. Her judgement when viewing the house on her phone had been totally correct, it was the one for her! It is being sold by an English owner so even though Sue has good French language skills, the purchase negotiations were simple and aimiable. Currently the owner is in France instructing a Notaire to commence the sale and purchase process. Sue has decided to use the same Notaire as the owner to simplify the process and will be going out to France in a few weeks to meet the Notaire and to discuss buying some of furniture with the owners.
Sue is still at the start of her adventure of retiring to France and most of the time is full of excitement about her new life, but I am sure she would not mind me saying….she is also a little apprehensive from time to time!
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