France house sale cancelled over undisclosed wind farm project

The sale of a house in Charente-Maritime was annulled by an appeal court in Poitiers because the vendors failed to disclose a project to install four wind turbines a kilometre from the property.

The vendors signed a mandate with a local estate agent, saying they knew of no projects that might affect the property.

They said in court papers that they were native English speakers and had not fully understood the mandate wording.

The wind farm project was announced in 2012, and the couple who sold the house were active members of an association formed to fight against it. They had bought the house in 2007.

In 2016, they decided to sell, saying family changes, including children moving away, meant they could not spend as much time in France as they had before.

Buyers learn about the wind farm

The sale went through in February 2017, and the buyers, also English speakers, then had to spend €15,000 to repair a geothermal heating unit when the main heat exchanger broke.

In 2018, they received a flyer in the post from the association opposed to the wind farm project – the first they had heard of the turbines.

At a subsequent meeting of the association, they were told that the vendors had been among the first in the village to join and were active members.

The buyers went to court to have the house sale annulled, saying that one of its main attractions had been the quiet environment.

In an earlier court hearing, also in Poitiers, the buyers had lost their case, with judges saying there was not enough evidence that the wind farm would affect them, but they appealed.

Court annuls the house sale

The sellers, as part of their defence, sued the estate agents, arguing that they had also failed in their duty to alert the buyers, and so should use their professional insurance to pay any court costs.

Appeal court judges reversed the earlier decision and accepted the buyers’ argument that they should have been informed about the wind farm project when they looked at the house.

They ruled that the sale should be annulled, and the sellers must return the €233,000 sale price and the €19,641 in associated fees paid during the transaction.

They also ordered that €15,793 be paid to the buyers for repairs to the heating system, plus €10,000 in damages, and that the vendors contribute to the legal fees of both the buyers and the estate agent.

Estate agents escape responsibility

The court rejected the vendors’ argument that the estate agents should be held responsible. The couple said the agents knew the area and must have known about the wind farm project, which had been widely reported in the local press.

This was not accepted by the court, which said the estate agents had been deliberately misled when the couple signed the mandate, including a phrase denying any projects that