This retired couple had trusted their real estate agent. It was bad for him. The expert’s mission? Find a tenant for owners who rent their apartment in Savoie (73). On May 26, 2016, they signed a non-exclusive rental mandate. Five days later, the couple reached an agreement with a couple of tenants for a three-year lease. The rent? 550 euros to which must be added 30 euros of charges. From October 2016, tenants no longer paid their rent just before the end of their seasonal employment contracts and no longer had a job until March 1, 2017. The owners brought in a bailiff then summoned the tenants in court and demand the termination of the lease.
On November 6, 2018, the lessors won their case for the first time before the Chambéry district court then a second, on appeal, on September 5, 2019. And that’s not all. Because the owners also sued the real estate agent on September 24, 2018 for “breaches of contractual obligations“. The company Abri Immobilier is accused of having carried out a “insufficient credit check of their tenants“, for not having required the payment of a security deposit, drawing up an inventory “effective», requested a joint deposit for each of the tenants or even asked the owners if they agreed on the choice of tenants.
On September 20, 2021, the Chambéry high court considered that “contractual liability of the company Abri Immobilier is engaged» and wins the owners’ case. “The failings of the real estate agent caused the owners to lose a chance of not having to bear rental arrears», deciphers Me Gabriel Neu-Janicki, lawyer in real estate law on his blog. On June 26, 2024, the Chambéry Court of Appeal confirmed the first decision and ordered the agent to pay 12,968.5 euros in damages. This confusing affair is reminiscent of another similar one that Le Figaro Immobilier reported almost a year ago. The bill was much higher for the incriminated agent: more than 55,000 euros.
