LA NOTAIRE

M. Racinet came by to pick us up to go to the notaire to finalize the sale of his garage. We had agreed to use his notaire because her office already had the dossier from when he bought his house and the garage. Jenny Willis came with us to help with translation.
When we got to the notaire’s office in Saumur she was still with another client. We had to wait in the waiting room. We exchanged pleasantries then got down to business. We had already agreed on the price but there were some details that concerned us. The garage does not have the traditional ardoise slate roof but rather a composite cement tile roof with embedded asbestos fibers. We were worried that removing this roof could be costly because of the environmental regulations. We were hoping that he would agree to pay half the additional cost of removal of the asbestos but he only agreed to get estimates and negotiate again in the future. The second issue involved a complaint by another neighbor whose property adjoins the garage. This neighbor claimed that there was moisture demage in his house because of the maintenance of the roof. As we were getting into a more heated discussion of that issue we were called into the lawyer’s office for our meeting.
The notaire, Mde. Chalopin-Barré was very precise. She went through each point of the sales contract and our “état civil”. Everything was in order. She reiterated that we were buying the garage “dans état” or as-is. We tried to bring up the complaint of the other neighbor but M. Racinet was having none of it. Things got a little heated again. Finally, we agreed that he would have the garage inspected to ascertain the probable cost of repairs that would mollify the other neighbor. Everyone took a deep breath and pulled back from the brink. We shook hands and wrote the deposit check.