The owner of a house in Saint-Sulpice-le-Dunois (Creuse) has been fighting for years to have the building adjoining hers recognised as being “ownerless”.
Catherine Godin says she fell in love with the charming little house she owns in the centre of Saint-Sulpice-le-Dunois. “I wanted to save it. It had been unoccupied for thirty years. I wanted to give it a new soul. First, I wanted to turn it into a gîte.”
That was without counting on the owner of the adjoining house. Or rather, his absence. “He was an Anglo-Saxon, a bit of a bear. We exchanged a few words. Then, in the early 2010s, he left.” And never came back.
Three intrusions via the adjoining house in two years
Since then, the façade has almost disappeared under the creeper and ivy and the roof is starting to collapse. This seriously worries Catherine Godin. “Tiles fall from time to time. I’m afraid the roof will collapse and take mine with it,” says this 64-year-old woman who lives in the neighboring town of La Celle-Dunoise.
This also explains that the abandoned house was allegedly squatted:
People started a fire, which could have started a fire. In 2018 and 2019, I had three break-ins at my home. People entered by making a hole about forty centimeters in the wall that separates my house from the one next door.
Planks assembled on the wall by the owner to hide the hole still bear witness to this episode today. Luckily, there was nothing to steal.
Individuals broke into Catherine Godin’s house by making a hole in the wall separating her property from the adjoining one.
A procedure that is struggling to be launched
This did not prevent Catherine Godin from filing a complaint with the police. But also from calling on the municipality to have the exits of the dilapidated building sealed off (which the municipality did). And for it to be considered as “ownerless property”.
That is to say, according to the law, and in this specific case, without a known owner and for which the property taxes have not been paid for more than three years. The property in question can then be acquired by the municipality. To possibly then be transferred to a third party.
This is in any case the scenario we were heading towards, in the case of Saint-Sulpice-le-Dunois, according to Catherine Godin. “As early as 2016, the mayor at the time had proposed that the municipality take back the house located at number 33 and then sell it to me,” she relates.
Catherine Godin said she accepted the offer. “I thought that if I had all the buildings, rather than a gîte, I could have opened a grocery store with a space to host associations upstairs.”
But things will not go as planned. At the end of 2019, the municipal council instructed the mayor to launch an unowned property procedure. But a change of team occurs following the municipal elections of 2020. And, since then, Catherine Godin deplores that her file is no longer moving forward.
Several abandoned properties in the municipality
For his part, the mayor, Bruno Dardaillon, attests to his good will to advance a process that he describes as “complicated”. “We contacted the Public Treasury to find out where the last owner of the house was. It takes time, particularly because he is a British citizen. We ended up receiving a document certifying that he was no longer paying his taxes.”
The chief magistrate says that the municipality could launch the procedure relating to “ownerless property” by the end of the month. And possibly come back to Catherine Godin to offer to buy the house acquired by the community.
Bruno Dardaillon, who indicates that four properties could possibly be considered as being “ownerless” in his commune, nevertheless remains cautious in this scenario:
We have already initiated a procedure for unowned property concerning a similar situation. But once the building was taken over by the municipality, the neighbor did not want to buy it. The property was left on our hands.
Catherine Godin, for her part, does not intend to stop there. She has contacted the defender of rights in Creuse and says that she will not hesitate to call on the services of a lawyer if necessary. In the meantime, this handywoman has returned to the renovation of her house at number 35. In the hope of finally being able to welcome tenants there soon.
Catherine Godin continues to renovate her house, in the hope of soon being able to open it for rental.
More and more “ownerless” or unclaimed property in Creuse?
The term “ownerless property” refers to a very specific legal procedure. It can only be initiated by a municipality or an inter-municipality.
Since the law of February 15, 2022, it only concerns two types of situations:
– estates opened for more than thirty years (or ten years in certain cases) and for which no heir has come forward.
– real estate with no known owner and for which property taxes have not been paid for more than three years.
On the other hand, property whose known owner has died less than thirty years ago without leaving heirs or whose heirs have refused the inheritance is considered to be “escheated”. If such a procedure is applied, the property will revert to the State.
Nicolas Debrosse, president of the Chamber of Notaries of Limousin and notary in Boisseuil (Haute-Vienne), indicates that “ownerless properties” are relatively common in our regions”. While specifying that he has encountered only a few cases “of built properties, but often cases of unbuilt properties (plots of land, coppice, etc.) because the family may have left the region and failed, during an inheritance, to refer the matter to the notary in charge of the latter”.
Delicate situations for municipalities
Philippe Bayol, co-president of the Association of Mayors of Creuse (Amac) and mayor of Saint-Vaury, fears, however, that the number of ownerless or unclaimed properties “is increasing because the population of our department is ageing”. He continues:
Some people refuse an inheritance that includes debts or because it would require expensive work to renovate a property.
This can be problematic, particularly in the case of shared ownership. “This can be the case in town centres, where buildings can remain uninhabited and deteriorate,” says Philippe Bayol. “The mayor may be required to issue an imminent danger order,” associated with securing the roadway and a formal notice to the owner to carry out work.
If there is no known owner, the municipality can initiate ownerless property proceedings. In some cases, the community will have no choice but to destroy the property. “Which sometimes costs more than building,” comments Philippe Bayol.
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Text and photos: François Delotte
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