Buying and Selling 'Chez Nous'

Personally from experience of our own and others, I think the majority of the British abandon all sense and precaution when buying a French Property. None of the restraint or caution displayed when carrying out the same process in the UK.
Survey! never been heard of in France and apparently you can't stipulate a satisfactory survey in a 'Clause Suspensive'
Clause Suspensive, these are conditions that can be included into the initial contract of sale the 'Compromis' with the agreement of all parties. The most common one being the get out clause if there is a problem obtaining a mortgage. I often wondered, what was the benefit of a cash buyer?

Well simply after receiving the Compromis the purchaser only has 7 days in which to retract without penalties. Where as with a mortgage there is a 10 day cooling off period once the written offer has been made by the bank. A mortgage in France is a different affair to that in the UK.
In our case the couple buying our house have split the mortgage between them and the offer is subject to the completition of a number of documents. Not least income and a record of how they pay their exisiting rent or mortgage. They must have life assurance cover as well.
The bank 'value' the property again not in a UK fashion. They come round and make any suggestions, in our case he did some of the tests but didn't tell us who he was!

Before you can wonder who is who you have to sell and there is a mountain of advice out there at varying costs.

You can engage as many Immobiliers on 'sans exclusif' madates and advertise privately. But it's a lottery and I think 'price sells'.

We have had an army of British to bothe properties we have sold.
The first couple appeared to be on the run and stated they could purchase if we found a job for him.
People wanted to know about International Schools, whether our splash pool would accomodate her husband who swam kilometers a day, wanting to purchase the farm next door. Wanting to know if we could find them any other houses. One thing they all had in common was they all promised to reply soon and never did. One couple announced that they were hayfever suffers and here we were in the middle of Charente countryside

There is a surge of affection in the UK for the wood burner, DON'T!

Most people who come to France are either retired or facing retirement and do you really want to start hard labour. Woodburners are time consuming, they fill your home with dust, require constant feeding and cutting wood is a chore. Also the price can vary and personally I don't yet understand terms steere, chord or metre it can vary 30 euros.