It is not because a person is very sick that the sale of his life property would be zero. It doesn’t matter that the buyer knows it and that the seller dies a few weeks later, even judged by the Court of Cassation.
Can the deteriorated state of health of a person accepting a life sale lead to the cancellation of the real estate transaction? As long as the seller is not notoriously condemned by the disease, that the buyer is not qualified in medicine and that he does not know that the life expectancy is compromised in an irremediable way, the sale has not no reason to be canceled, said the Court of Cassation.
So she has rejected the arguments of the heirs of a very ill old lady who had died three months after having sold his house as a life annuity to a relative. According to them, this relative was aware of the state of health which required permanent medical acts and therefore, by paying a bouquet of approximately 1/5th of the value of the property, whereas it would have taken 13 years of pensions to that the price paid corresponded to the total value, this buyer was sure to get an excellent deal. He knew, they said, without any ala, that he would not pay the true value of the house.
Life annuity: zero sale in the event of death from the disease within 20 days
But the old lady who died of a fall and not of her illness who moreover does not did not condemn a short chance with certaintyand its buyer not being a doctor, it cannot be concluded that the sale would be void for lack of ala, concluded the judges.
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For a life annuity sale to be void, without possible discussion, due to the seller’s illness, it is necessary, according to the Civil Code, that the seller dies of this illness within the time limit of 20 days after signing.
(Cass. Civ 3, 18.1.2023, G 21-24.862).
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