| Good to know
Notarised preliminary agreements
Signing a preliminary sale agreement before a solicitor offers a valuable benefit. The vast majority of solicitors arrange insurance to cover the accidental death of the buyer. |
This insurance, paid by the solicitor, is arranged at no additional cost to the vendor or the buyer.
In practice, how does it work?
A vendor and a buyer enter into a preliminary sale agreement before a solicitor public.
Shortly afterwards, before the official deed of sale is signed, the buyer dies in an accident. The death must not be due to an organic cause (heart attack, etc.), but must be the result of an accident (a fall, etc.).
If the death is accidental and the heirs of the deceased wish to continue with the purchase, they will be the beneficiaries of the insurance.
The sum insured covers the sale price plus any related expenses, fees and conveyancing costs, less any amounts already paid prior to the death. There is, however, an upper limit of 250,000 euros per notarised agreement. If the sale price is greater than 250,000 euros, the heirs must make up the difference themselves.
Conversely, if the heirs do not wish to continue with the purchase, the insurance will be considered null and void, and no one will benefit from it.
When it was introduced in 1998, this insurance covered the bulk of the cost of the sale. However, with the recent surge in prices, 250,000 euros falls well short of the total costs. In most cases, the heirs will have to pay the difference. Nonetheless, this insurance payout does greatly ease a tough situation.
|
