Legal Question? Get Free Advice!

Questioner

House is sold and the transfer is next week. Now the new buyer wants to sell the house again immediately. For this he has called in our real estate agent and he has already put the house on Funda.nl including our photos. My question now is: 1. Can a house simply be put up for sale without the owner's consent (i.e. can I simply put my neighbor's house up for sale?) 2. Are the photos not our property? It was mediated by the broker but paid for by us. Please advice

Lawyer

YES, once the house is bought, the buying party may immediately sell the house again, since they are then the owner. But then the signature must be put. Also concerning the photos. If these were made by the real estate agents, then the copyright also rests there and they may do with them as they please. This is different if you made them.

Questioner

Thanks for the response. Please note that the house has not yet been transferred to the new owner so it is still our property. I understand that after transfer the new owner is free to sell again. The photos were taken by a professional party through the broker. We paid the broker and he paid the photographer.

Lawyer

As soon as the signature for the purchase is made, it is in fact his property and the transfer is a formality and you in principle have the house under your management. Now it is not entirely clear to me whether the house has been officially purchased. As for the photos, this makes it a difficult story and even then I say that the photos belong to the real estate agent since he paid the photographer.

Lawyer

It is a bit different: after signing the purchase agreement, both buyer and seller are obliged to cooperate in the delivery of the property. At that moment, the seller is still the owner and also liable for any damage etc. that occurs to the property. (This may be different if the purchase agreement also includes the transfer of economic ownership, in which case it must be included that the risk at that moment passes to the buyer. It is not obvious that such a construction is involved here) The buyer is free to offer the property for sale from the moment the purchase agreement is signed, even if he is not yet the (economic or legal) owner at that time. Ownership of the property is only transferred after a copy or extract of the notarial deed of transfer has been registered with the land registry. As for the photos, I believe that the broker took them in the context of the mediation agreement concluded with the applicant. In the context of this agreement, the broker was given permission to enter the property and take photos from which a selection was made in consultation with his client. In this case, it sometimes happens that photos are rejected by the client for privacy reasons. He may not use the photos for another assignment without the permission of the party to the agreement in question.

Questioner

Clear answer, thanks! It's strange that you can put a house on Funda that you don't own yourself and without the current owner wanting this. So I can just put my neighbor's house on it if I want to Foreign.

Lawyer

The Dutch system is such that you can sell everything, only at the moment that you have to deliver the ownership you have to actually be the owner to be able to do that. So you can/may sell the Euromast, but delivering it will not work.