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Failures in property registration in two cities in France led residents to discover, years after the purchase, that they were not full owners of the houses they live in, in cases involving chicken coops, partial demolition, and additional costs of up to 30 thousand euros
Errors in property registration in two French cities put residents in front of an unexpected and costly discovery: although they had lived in the locations for years, they found that they were not, in fact, complete owners of their own homes.
The cases came to light in Calvados and Maine-et-Loire and exposed financial losses and legal deadlocks.
Case in Calvados exposes wrong purchase
In Commes, in the department of Calvados, retiree Dominique Laigre discovered that the purchase he made did not correspond to the house where he lives. According to what he reported to TF1, he believed he had acquired the property, but, in practice, he only bought the chicken coop next door.
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The situation caused him to spend 65 thousand euros for an inaccessible annex building, while the house he lives in remained outside the formal negotiation. The problem was only identified when the notary of the neighbors analyzed the area, at the moment they decided to sell their own land.
Since then, Dominique Laigre claims he has been trying to “recover his house.” To do so, he needed to seek technical and legal support, accumulating new expenses throughout the process.
He reported that he hired a lawyer, costing 1,200 euros, and then a surveyor, for about 2,400 euros. Now, he hopes to be able to repurchase the house for a symbolic amount of 1 euro to finally become the official owner of the property where he has lived for years.
Property registration also affects resident in Maine-et-Loire
In Trélazé, in the department of Maine-et-Loire, Didier Gautier faces a similar problem, but with a direct impact on the structure of his own residence. He lives in a property formed by two buildings connected by a structure and discovered that this connection originally corresponded to a passage between the two properties.
According to him, the error occurred in 1990, when he bought the first part of the property. Didier Gautier stated that the surveyor forgot to include the small passage and, therefore, he does not have the deed for that area.
In practice, the passage belongs to the neighbor. As a consequence, he will have to demolish that part of the house, an area of 10 square meters that includes the kitchen and the bathroom.
Legal rule maintains right of land owner
In addition to the demolition, Didier Gautier will have to bear an expense of 30 thousand euros to rebuild part of the residence. The case was explained by Jean-Baptiste Bullet, notary and spokesperson for the Chamber of Notaries of Paris.
According to him, Article 552 of the French Civil Code establishes that ownership of the land also includes what is above and below it. In practice, he added, if a neighbor builds on someone else’s land, even if only a few centimeters, the owner of the area retains the right to demand the removal of what has been erected on their property.
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