English
FrançaisEurogroup Vacances are currently taking a hard line on owners who decide to use their own properties outside of the “season” when Eurogroup staff are not on site. They claim owners have no right to occupy their properties at this time and have gone on to claim that owners should not even have their own keys to their properties. Not sure why, after over 10 years of this agreement, Eurogroup are now being so nasty about this (they even changed the locks to one home when the owner said they would still come in November after being told they could not use their home at this time!). Do they have the legal right to deny owners access to their own properties out of season and when they are not let? I would be interested to hear if any other owners have experienced this type of aggressive behaviour from their “tenants” and would welcome any thoughts on how we should contest this with Eurogroup Vacances?
The same thing happened in Domaine des Fontenelles in 2015 - all owners were issued the same notice that they were not allowed in there villas during the "off season". I had ny locks changed - when I wanted to occupy my villa I had to go to reception and provide proof of identity to obtain A KEY TO MY OWN VILLA! I am not sure whether they are with their rights to do this, I do not think it has been challenged. As usual Eurogroups mechanic is to divde and conquer - owners mst get togethre to challene them in a court of law. Thank God I took the decision to get out of the leaseback scheme after the first 9 years it has been an absolute nightmare particularly with Eurogroup who are absolure bullies. I have now got my life back and can talk about all things with the exception of Eurogroup.
RickB,
Leaving aside emotion and custome and practice, what is written in your lease? Normally if someone leases your property for 9 years then they control it for the 9 years...off season or not.
absolutely correct
We took legal advice on this after receiving a letter from Eurogroup/MV in April 2015 telling us that we would be trespassing in our properties if we used them during the closed season. Like you, we had been using our property occasionally (mainly to check everything was ok) over the winter, indeed we were told when we bought it that we could do this. Our contract does not clearly say what happens to the properties over the winter. In the first 10 years of ownership we have experienced thefts from the garden, a break in and theft from the garage, a burst pipe and storm damage to the roof. All of these we sorted out ourselves as we thought it was our responsibility as key holders and owners. No one from Eurogroup was on site and we had never been given any emergency contact details - we didn't ask for them as we didn't think this was in their remit. They have proved to be entirely useless at "winterising" our property, the water has never been turned off, heating is randomly left on, garden furniture blowing around in winter storms etc. So we have assumed they don't do this, so surely we must. Indeed our buildings insurance would not pay out for damage caused by burst pipes if the water supply had not been turned off. We have the insurance, I'm sure they don't.
Our Avocaat advised us that as owners we definitely should have a set of keys and that EG are not within their rights to change locks on OUR property.
We did then challenge EG about who exactly is meant to look after the properties over the winter. We gave all the details of our problems over the years and told them that they surely are responsible for them. They replied that the have a Bail Saissonaire (which we interpret as meaning that they consider themselves as not responsible for past winter issues).
These last two winters, it appears that they have been trying to take some responsibility. Last winter we managed to get them to send a caretaker along with keys to let in an insurance assessor dealing with a issue under our buildings guarantee. (Under the terms of our lease, they should have reported this damage and got it actioned, but guess who did this!) . In December 2017 we had an email from them after a storm advising us that they were checking all properties and would let us know if there was any damage.
As to how you contest this with EG - good luck! They choose to ignore much of what you say and wriggle out with no clear answers. The Law probably is on their side. We decided not to take any legal action on this matter as it would just be very costly and frustrating. Instead we decided to get out and have just negotiated our ransom (eviction indemnity) and are now delighted to say that have just got back full ownership of our property.
Well done Caroline.
Caroline
Can I ask what sort of exit penalty were Eurogroup looking for? We have been told by French lawyers that in these cases the law allows approximately 2 to 3 x annual rent and that this is not net rent but gross rent???!!!
We want to get out of our leaseback and are wondering what the money involved might be.
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