Real estate sales are very formal: it is important to respect the rules.

Imagine (1): you signed a provisionary sales act including the precedent condition that your buyer obtains a loan. You receive a better offer afterwards; you think you only have to await the end of terms (2 or 3 months in general) given to your buyer in the sales act concerning the loan, to be allowed to accept the better offer.

Or (2): you simply  signed a provisionary sales act including a precedent condition that the buyer obtains a bank loan.

Or (3) the most frequent version:  the acquirer simply informs you by  telephone that his bank refused the loan for the property you offered him to buy.

In all these situations you might want to disengage yourself officially, in order to feel free to engage with another potential buyer.

When you’re selling your house under the provisionary condition that the acquirer obtains a bank loan, you have to know that the acquirer is the beneficiary of this condition, and he is therefore the only one allowed to invoke this clause to establish that this sales promise is null and void.

In the second hypothesis mentioned above, a buyer did not obtain the bank loan he requested.

The owners of the house wanted to disengage, unsure of the financial capacities of the acquirer.

The buyer, however, insisted on buying without a loan and thus confirmed his intention to buy the house. The vendors opposed, stating that the provisionary act was null and void, as the precedent condition of a bank loan was not fulfilled.

The Court of Cassation censures this opinion on the ground that the precedent condition is stipulated in the interest of the purchaser.

Thus only the latter can avail himself of the legal consequences of the failure of this condition.

 (Cass 3rd Civ 27 October 2016 - Juris Data No. 2016 - 022555).

Make sure your buyer officially notifies you that he renounces to buy because he did not obtain the loan he awaited from his bank.