IIt can be interesting to buy a house in life annuity: you immediately pay only a fraction of the price (the bouquet), and you then pay arrears, calculated, in principle, on the life expectancy of the seller. But the good deal is no longer a good deal when he, like Jeanne Calment, doyenne of humanity, remains alive for a very long time. And that, when the seller obtains the resolution of the contract, that is to say the cancellation thereof with retroactive effect, he considers that he can keep the house, the bouquet and the arrears, as in the next story.
On January 6, 1992, Mr. He pays in cash a bouquet of 440,000 francs (67,077 euros) and undertakes to pay the balance (85,372 euros) monthly, in the form of an annuity (4,300 francs, or approximately 655.53 euros per month, or 7,866 euros per year).
In principle, the million is reached in less than eleven years (85,372: 7,866 euros = ten years and nine months). But the sellers are strong, and it’s Mr. X who dies first. In August 2015 – 102,000 euros more than the initial price had been spent – his son, Mr. Z, stopped paying.
On December 16, 2016, the Y put him on notice to pay them 14,940 euros before January 16, 2017, failing which they would ask that the courts cancel the contract and let them benefit from the “arrears paid”, as provided for in the penal clause thereof. In February 2017, they carried out their threat.
Bouquet and arrears
The high court of Bayonne (Pyrénées-Atlantiques) noted, on September 18, 2018, that the effects of the termination clause were acquired on January 17, 2017, i.e. one month after delivery of the order to pay.
He orders the expulsion under penalty of Mr. Z and orders him to pay the arrears due. November 23, 2021the Pau Court of Appeal confirms the judgment. Mr. Z therefore finds himself in the situation of an evicted tenant, but with a debt of 14,940 euros.
He appealed to the Court of Cassation, and his lawyer, Me Elodie Le Prado, recalls that any resolution of a contract puts the parties back in the situation they were in before signing, and that it entails the legal obligation to return, for the seller, the price received (bouquet and arrears), and , for the purchaser, the thing sold, whether or not this restitution has been requested. This results from consistent case law (January 29, 2003, 01-03.185April 12, 2018, 17-15.569 or April 4, 2019, 27-26.783For example).
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