The seller's liability in case of defect

1 – Under what conditions can we invoke the implied warranty?

The seller remains liable after the transaction, housing defects that were hidden at the time of sale, when they "make the property unfit for the use it was destined or so impair that use the acquirer n ' would not have made the decision to purchase, or at least not at that price, if he had knowledge "(Article 1641 Civil Code). Conversely, the seller is not liable for defects that were apparent (Article 1642). Case law judge and are latent defects: the presence of termites or asbestos in housing, lack of foundation, the existence of underground quarries generating instability of the frame, the lack of connection to the public drainage wastewater, or noise pollution caused by insufficient thickness of walls.

2 – The seller may be relieved of responsibility?

The seller can clear themselves by inserting in the deed of sale a clause stating that it will not be required to guarantee the buyer in case of defect. These clauses, found in most deeds, are only valid if the seller is a non-professional and is in good faith. Such is the case, for example, a seller who did not know the day of the sale, the presence of mérules (wood-rotting fungi) in the beams of his house, since the diagnostic technique that had commissioned was not one mention.

However, the vendor apparent bad faith can not invoke this clause, for example when he blocked and painted floors and baseboards to conceal the presence of termites, or has done work to conceal cracks affecting the structure of the frame. Attention, even if the seller does not commit any act of concealment, it can be considered in bad faith when it is aware of the defect and that he did not notify the purchaser.

3 – What might the seller in case of discovery of a latent defect?

If the vendor is found liable for hidden defects by the judge, the purchaser has the option, request cancellation of the sale or reduction of its price (sections 1644 and 1646 of the Civil Code). If he chooses the cancellation of the sale, the seller must refund the purchase price and notary fees. If it chooses a price reduction, it is for an expert to determine the amount. The seller in bad faith can also be ordered to pay damages (Article 1645 Civil Code). Attention, the action in warranty against hidden defects must be brought within two years after the discovery of the defect (Article 1648 Civil Code). It is the vendor to prove that the discovery of latent defects occurred more than two years before the introduction of the lawsuit.

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Burger King will make his return to France

 

Good news for fans of Whoppers. Fifteen years after leaving France, Burger King returns. According Procos, the federation of specialized retail chains, the giant fast food restaurants will soon open in the new commercial center of the Gare Saint-Lazare. Moreover, according to our information, the sign should also open this year on highway: its first store could be located in Reims, on A4 or on the ASF network which also operates the A 9 between Avignon and Perpignan A 7 or the south of Lyon. Representatives of the sign would also contacted APRR, which operates, among others, the A 6 between Paris and Lyon. But no contract has been signed so far with this network, making it impossible to open before 2013. In the latter two cases, the brand of gas stations Avia would manage these concessions.

Questioned, Burger King recognizes continuing study opportunities to develop in different countries, including France. But his spokesman refused to give more information. Side of Autogrill, which manages 75% of the restoration of St. Lazarus, the CEO in France ensures that Burger King does not open on March 21 for the opening of the mall from the station, nor later than 2012 . The time is propitious yet. "The expenses of the French in fast food rose 4% last year, said Christine Tartanson, Foodservice Director at NPD Group. This is one of the segments of the fastest growing food. Burger King should take into account consumption habits of the French, by proposing a sweetened offer in addition to burgers. "

Reunion: the measures announced

 

The price of gas and electricity for low incomes will fall in Reunion, and those of 40 essential commodities will be frozen at least from March 1 through the efforts of local communities, said Friday the prefect, Michel Lalande. A series of measures taken after a round table of five thirty gathering around him the chairmen of local councils, chambers, representatives of consumer associations, oil companies and professional drivers payday loans guaranteed no fax. All participants in the roundtable have finally launched a "solemn appeal" to calm the population.

Industrial jobs: when the government gets involved

 

The intervention of Nicolas Sarkozy to save Alstom in summer 2004, to his recent statements in favor of employees of ArcelorMittal Florange site, the head of state has been well arise in the opponent's famous statement Lionel Jospin: "The state can not do everything." At least when it comes to industrial employment. "We must at all costs strangle the flow of blood Industrial France," he repeated again in January. Since 2007, the government frequently intervened in several disputes, most often publicized in order to save jobs. A few weeks before the presidential election, the employees do not hesitate to use the campaign to make their demands heard. Overview of some government promises … and their future.

The success

• Photowatt. The resumption of French pioneer of photovoltaics by EDF no longer in doubt. Next Monday, the commercial court of Vienna should assign the assets of Photowatt to the public company called to the rescue by the Head of State at the end of January. Previously, STMicroelectronics, specialized microprocessors, had been approached. Without success. The next upturn of the SME Isère by EDF Energies Nouvelles is good news for employees: the subsidiary of the electrician has pledged to resume on 430 and 345 to reclassify within 60 km of the 85 remaining employees. "Everybody has a job, I do not see what you could get any better," responded Tuesday a Steward FW, while conceding that "the industrial project is to build". According to the UMP Bourgoin, Alain Moyne-Bressan, must already "put 50 million euros on the table for the coming months."

• Lejaby. Mid-January 2012, the Tribunal de Commerce de Lyon chose Alain Prost, former manager of La Perla and Chantelle, as the buyer of the manufacturer of linen placed in receivership. Only problem: the entrepreneur, who keeps only about 450 195 employees, wants to relocate the entire production in Tunisia. This is sign the death warrant of the factory Lejaby Yssingeaux, and the dismissal of his 93 employees. An announcement of the worst effect when the candidate Nicolas Sarkozy – not yet declared – boasts the "Made in France". "I will not let down the people of Lejaby," he warned on January 29. It is ultimately the luxury group LVMH, requested by the Elysee, which will come to the aid of the factory from Auvergne. The takeover bid, from a subcontractor for Louis Vuitton, the company Sofama, was filed on February 1. All staff should be re-employed on permanent contracts, and converted into luxury leather goods.  

Failures:

• Gandhinagar. February 4, 2008, the Head of State gives hope to the 595 employees of ArcelorMittal factory in Lorraine, then threatened with partial closure in the near future. "The State prefers to invest in modernizing the site rather than paying people to go with either early retirement or unemployed," he explained then. He continued: "I will myself announce it has found the solution." If, despite these promises, 595 jobs will actually be discontinued from 31 March 2009, the city of Gandhinagar, however, benefited from a state investment of 5 million for a learning center, and a contract worth 300 million euros between RFF and the steelmaker Corus. Objective: To produce the rails RFF within its Hayange plant, near the disaster site.

"Nicolas Sarkozy in Gandhinagar:

……

First historic loss for Credit Agricole

 

For the first time in its history, Crédit Agricole SA ended the year 2011 in the red. This loss of 1.47 billion euros is due to a double effort: trying to balance the Greek crisis and adaptation to the new world of banking.

"The Greek situation continued to deteriorate throughout the year. Emporiki, the local subsidiary of the group, saw its operating losses increase, "says the group in a statement. In total, the cost of the Greek crisis did go up in smoke 2.4 billion euros in 2011. It had already cost the green bank over two billion euros the previous two years. Positive, the group has managed to reduce by half the level in nine months of Emporiki refinancing by its parent.

The second part of the bill, presented to the regional, for adapting to the new world of banking. In this respect, John Paul Chifflet, the general manager, did not choose the half-measure. Its vast battle plan, unveiled last December, resulting in 2.5 billion euros in provisions and impairments on acquisitions too aggressive fast cash now. In parallel, the mutual bank will embark on a diet, mainly driven by the Corporate and Investment Banking (CIB). For this subsidiary, lost $ 150 million over the years, adapting to post-crisis world through the sale of portfolios, the removal of 1750 positions and the withdrawal of twenty-six countries. The adaptation plan costs nearly 500 million euros in the bank.

Cumulative, Greece, impairment in the fourth quarter and the adaptation plan dug accounts of Crédit Agricole SA of 4.4 billion euros. These losses do not yet call into question the soundness of the Credit Agricole group, based on fieldwork of the regional banks. They have not fallen in 2011 with a cumulative profit up 3.6% to nearly 4 billion euros. The Crédit Agricole group as a whole shows and an annual profit of 812 million euros, against 3.6 billion in 2010. The group has a solvency ratio of the nails in the European requirements to 9.6%.

The Paris daily reprieve in Normandy

 

The new, bad, is not yet official but could be announced to employees on a works council to be held Monday, February 27: Paris Normandy could file for bankruptcy. According to the union SNJ, the regional newspaper, owned by Hersant Media (GHM), after considering a social "scale" would be forced into this solution and, more broadly, the entire division titles Norman Group Hersant Media, which includes, besides Paris-Normandie, Havre Free daily newspapers, Le Havre-Presse and The Progress of Fecamp, and their weekly supplements.

The direction of DRG does not comment. But the situation of his pole Norman is actually very difficult. The paid circulation daily Paris-Normandie has dropped 23% since 2006 to just 52,606 copies at last count of OJD. That of other securities decreased by 26% in five years.

"We fear to a social minimum, at worst a bankruptcy filing," said the AFP-Benoît Marin Curtoud, delegate from Paris to Normandy SNJ.

Discussions with the Belgian Rossel

While DRG is continuing discussions with the Belgian group Rossel to create a joint venture of leading regional dailies in France, the pole Norman seems to be a final hurdle before the conclusion of an agreement. According to the SNJ, the Company Norman publishing and printing (SNPEI), which publishes such titles and employs 365 employees including 114 journalists have registered last year a deficit of EUR 2 million and annual sales of around 40 million.

For the Hersant Media Group, which has already had to close last November Comareg (Released Sold) resulting in the heaviest social of 2011 in France (1650 employees), the liquidation of Paris Normandy would be a second crushing defeat.

Spaniards against the reform of labor law

 

The Spaniards were present at the call of the unions. In 57 cities, the protests against the reform of the labor market have attracted hundreds of thousands of people. The organizers are talking about 500,000 demonstrators in Madrid and Barcelona to 400,000 – the police has seen ten times less. This first national day of action against the Conservative government of Mariano Rajoy has mobilized in any case beyond the adherents of the two main unions, Comisiones Obreras (CCOO) and Union General de Trabajadores (UGT). Protesters accuse the Executive to facilitate the dismissal and push workers into poverty. Reform, adopted by decree, reduces redundancy of 45 days per year worked to 33. It introduces a new CDI together with a trial period of one year and allows companies struggling to lower wages without consulting their employees.

In Madrid, where union leaders have been leading the parade, the event was festive. In this weekend carnival, some of the protesters came dressed up. Here, a family dressed up as cavemen wearing a sign reading "Go back to prehistory." Here, the character of the albums Where's Waldo? Says "seek democracy."

"Huelga General"

In major Spanish cities, the "critical sections", heirs of the social movement of indignados, have swelled the ranks of workers payday loan. The outrage, however, maintained a safe distance with union leaders. A kind of protest in the event: "Thanks for coming!" They chanted, ironically, to the Union address. For from the adoption of Decree ten days ago, the indignant took the streets of Madrid, without waiting for permission from the prefecture, or call the CCOO and UGT.

The latter is intended primarily rely. "The event this Sunday is only the beginning of the engagement," explains the spokesman for CCOO, Fernando Lezcano, without ruling out a general strike. The "huelga general", thus: in the processions, the claim is almost unanimous.

Mariano Rajoy said the protesters from Seville, where his training, the Popular Party (PP), celebrating its 16th national congress in a triumphalist mood. "Reform is just, good and necessary for Spain," he said. Rajoy announced new "sacrifices", without giving details. Before the elections Andalusian March 25, the head of government is cautious. Even if this bet formula: "It will not be pleasant, but the Spaniards are in agreement."

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Greece: into an agreement Monday with the Eurogroup

 

White smoke comes not yet held Monday in Brussels, where a decisive meeting of the Eurogroup on Greece. It comes from the Italian Presidency in Rome, and the headquarters of the European Central Bank in Frankfurt.

After a phone conversation with Angela Merkel and Prime Minister of Greece Lucas Papademos, Friday, Mario Monti issued a statement encouraging: "At the end of this conversation, which came in the details and which was conducted in a constructive spirit, three participants were confident that an agreement on Greece can be reached Monday, the Eurogroup. "

So far, mistrust prevailed. Especially since the previous Eurogroup, on Greece, was canceled Wednesday. "This time, an agreement is likely," said Jean Pisani-Ferry, director of the Bruegel think-tank in Brussels. "Otherwise it's too late, there will master more technical details …", he adds.

The challenge of this size Eurogroup is: give Greece its private creditors and the green light to launch the second bailout of Greece, estimated at 130 billion euros, to avoid a default in Greek debt falls from 14.5 billion euros on March 20.

That Greece is committed to the reforms demanded by the troika, beyond the April elections, Germany, Finland and the Netherlands had planned mid-week to split the bailout to not pay, firstly, that the sum needed to rescue private, or 30 billion euros payday loans. 

Exchange of debt

But this scenario is complicated, difficult to read for the markets, has been criticized by the IMF and European lawyers, who see it as a source of additional blocking with private creditors, asked to relinquish 70% of the value of their securities. "This option is no longer on the table," said Deputy German Finance Minister, Thomas Steffen. "We are ready to have a solid basis for a decision Monday," says the German Finance Ministry in Berlin.

The European Central Bank has brought his stone to an eventual agreement. Its chairman, Mario Draghi, submitted Thursday night, the vote of the Governors, the exchange of 50 billion euros of Greek bonds, which should allow eventually to redistribute 12 billion euros to Greece, which allocated to debt repayment countries.

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"The press needs a solid sales network"

 

The Act of July 5, 2011 amended the Act of April 2, 1947 Bichet governing the distribution of the press in France. The role of the Supreme Council of the Courier press is reinforced. Its decisions can now be enforced by the Regulatory Authority for the distribution of the press, newly created. To the President of the UNDP, which represents 30,000 newsagents, the way is thus open to the implementation of reforms, as the set.

LE FIGARO. – In the context of fierce competition between Presstalis and MLP, that becomes the sales network of the press?

Gerard Proust. – All the attention is currently focused on the situation of e-NMPP and custodians who act as wholesalers, because they structure the distribution of the press. Their business model is affected by the steady decline in sales. Presstalis responds by reforming its organization, but is being weakened by the departure of titles that will be distributed by mail MLP concurrent capable as appropriate to offer better rates. The trustees seek to rehabilitate their missions and resource to the new situation. But that does not detract from the urgency, at least, the situation of press merchants, who provide the relationship between supply of press and public.

Gerard Proust. – What makes you say that you forget to press the merchants?

When we deplore all the time the crisis of the press, and we do not get lost in the competition by explaining that the paper deliver new technology, we forget that it is primarily to closures of points -500 specialty sales per year! – we should lower the diffusion constant. There is no release that can stand well without a strong sales network. But yet we forget! His compensation is still insufficient to attract entrepreneurs and empower them to adapt to consumer expectations. I'm currently reading the proposals presented to the Superior Council, which suggest that the financial resources of the sector, now rare, be directed first to the other players. So I have every reason to fear we think too late to merchants when they are exhausted. I even saw that Stavros Dimas offer some burdens on traders, then we should be to alleviate the primary concern!

What is their situation?

They are not facing a crisis of paper seen by the overall maintenance of our turnover bookstore or card shop subject to the same competition from the Internet-but a crisis of the dispensing apparatus, which supplies the sales network so that it arrives in this double feat: distracting the consumer and discourage the merchant. Be aware: 60% of our supplies come away with unsold (it's more than half of the volumes delivered that do not meet the expectations of customers of the shop, who are squatting in blighted areas and that the merchant who monopolize would be better served to welcome and advise his client) and 20% of gaps in the sale (it's one in five who has not found among his dealer that he had come in search)! What a waste … Thus the turnover flexes for several years, as broadcasters abandon their profession, and that the sector is thereby destabilized the whole, with its greater risk. 

What are your recommendations?

There is no inevitability to the current situation of the press distribution, means rebound there, going through the procurement reform, for better consumer satisfaction, and improved compensation the merchant, to convince entrepreneurs to focus on our business. Must be provided at point of sale assortment of titles that meets customer expectations, we know such identification. This procurement method is practiced by all modern commercial networks, and even to sell the press in some European countries. It has been long and carefully defined and tested by the entire profession, before his deployment is blocked because he got obviously a handful of "editors" whose abuses led to the exhaustion I described the system.

This reform will suffice?

No! Soon, it will take to change the pay conditions of the merchants, always worse off when compared to their European counterparts, but also to other trade business. We must learn to lock onto them, because they are the ones that attract new entrepreneurs at the expense of being a merchant Press. It is they who come to occupy the commercial spaces, often the most prominent, as my colleagues leave vacant. When the publishing community is concerned about the turnaround of its sector, it must file the compensation of its sales network and not a priority, as I fear, a subject that "come after".

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Ways to streamline housing assistance

 

The report by the Center for Strategic Analysis in a housing report released Wednesday is brutal: while the subject of aid mobilizes huge (37 billion euros) from the State and local governments, households the less fortunate spend more on housing. In 2005, they spent at this position 41.4% of their income against 25% in 1988.

To improve the situation of more modest in this area, the Center for Strategic Analysis made several proposals, focused on social housing. "First, it should be that only those who earn more than five times the annual rent for a dwelling may be candidates for living," Chriqui advance Vincent, general manager of that agency of the Prime Minister. A measure of common sense would settle with the current situation today, up 64% of households are eligible for public housing.

To reserve social housing for disadvantaged populations, some only dream of being able to expel those whose income has become, over time, well above the maximum income. This would call into question the sacrosanct principle of the right to remain in public housing, one of the cornerstones of the world HLM. Cautiously, the Center for Strategic Analysis does not follow that direction.

However, he has worked on a system where the rent paid by tenants would be modulated according to their income. "In fact, rents are nominally higher and tenants would receive a grant that would cover some of this burden, says Vincent Chriqui. The premium will be lowered when the tenant would see its revenues increase. "To avoid creating too strong reactions in a world quite restive HLM changes of this kind, this system would first be tested by some social landlords . If the Center for Strategic Analysis recommends this solution is that the devices require tenants whose incomes exceed the ceilings to pay additional rent malfunctioning. Normally, a public housing tenant whose remuneration exceeds 20% of the maximum income to pay a surloyer. "But it is a cumbersome process that requires to initiate proceedings," said Vincent Chriqui. Soft law passed in 2009 plans to evict a tenant of public housing for two successive years if its resources are at least two times higher than the ceiling. But we must wait three years after this observation that the measure could be effective. Result: more than three years after its adoption, the text has yet to produce any effects.

Statistical tool

Last priority recommendation of the Center for Strategic Analysis: Building a statistical tool that emphasizes respect for each program HLM, level of public support and the "discount" rent in the social housing compared to private apartments around the park. "By learning about government subsidies and the results they deliver, this should help to refocus the production of social housing where the need is greatest," says Vincent Chriqui.

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