Relocation and real estate agencies: same type of beast?

We recently vacated our beautiful, pricy rental home just North of Aix ( in Puyricard) to move in to a home we bought nearby.

However, our departure from the rental was less than peaceful, thanks to a similar type of attitude from a local relocation and real estate agency. We had given our notice to leave the home too early. The renovation work on our newly purchased house did not finish as planned by Novembre 18, when we were to move in. We knew about this one month ahead of time and informed the rental agency that we would like to prolong our stay on the home if possible to the end of November so we could move in to a house with floors, painting and plumbing that was finished.

We’d been model tenants. The agency did not respond at first and started showing the home early november. prospective tenants were immediately pleased with it, given the very good condition and the intrisic value of the home. Instead of advising tenants the home was not available until the end of the month ( a 10 day difference that meant the world to us), the agency did not say anything and we were told around November 6th that one of the prospective tenants was interested in taking the home from November 20 onwards. I’d spoken to the other prospects who had indicated they were interested in moving in early December. Apparently they were not preferred by the agency.

I was truly discouraged by this news. By chance, I met in Puyricard the woman from the relocation agency who I’d seen show the house to New Zealanders due to arrive to the the area on a confortable expat package. I explained the situation to her, thinking as a woman and a mother she’d understand the difficulty of moving in to a house still under major renovation while the children were in school. She indicated she’d do her best to informthe agency’s manager, explaining she was actually working as a ‘ volunteer ‘ for the relocation agency… I later emailed all local relocation agencies and got a response from the manager of the relocation agency in question. I again pleaded with her to pospone her client’s move in date by one week, just so the work could proceed a bit more before we moved in.

She said she’s try but came back saying her clients were going to be staying at a hotel and wished to move in as quickly as possible.

So we vacated our rental home on a Thursday and a Friday and arrived in our own home, where the paint was still fresh from an hour past, the floor still full of dust and where a week’s worth of work was still required to make the home functional.

Later, we had problems with our request to La Poste to have our mail forwarded. Luckily, being close to our previous home, we dropped by during the next ten days to ask if we could pick up our mail. We discovered no none had moved in… The relocation agency was apparently taking its time redecorating the home until the future tenants arrived, with absolutely no regards for our situation.

The woman i’d spoken to has four children and has relocated to various cities worldwide. I must say I am flabergasted with the ease with which she overlooked the difficulties we would face as a family when we were obligated to leave our home one week before it would have been truly the time to do so. On the phone we’d had a discussion about how local real estate agencies were particularly ‘nasty’. I must say I’m wondering: ” Are relocation agencies in the Aix region the same type of beast as Aix real estate agencies? ”

Filed under Living abroad - Relocation, Moving to France, Real Estate in Aix-Marseille | Comment (0)