Hello all,
Would really appreciate some advice about a recent bill from the notaire.
Basically, my girlfriend and I were within days of going to sign the projet d'acte at the notary in Montreux, when we decided that we had major doubts about our future in Switzerland. We had signed the 3eme Pillar, but were within the 14 days 'cooling off' period so cancelled that with no expensive consequences.

The notary however, has sent us a bill for 'travail deja effectue et des divers frais engages', and has stated that we are liable for a third of total fee, if we had signed.

We do not feel great about pulling out so close to the wire, but we had not signed anything to do with the property, and were within our rights to say no at that point before it really did get too late. Paying something towards this seems reasonable, but the fees being asked seem out of proportion, especially as nothing was signed.

Can anyone offer any advice about this, or has had similar experiences?

Thanks in advance for any pearls of wisdom from the community.

Call me old fashioned, but 30% of the full fee for doing most of the work seems reasonable to me.

Just because you never signed the contract doesn't make the time he spent searching the land registry and drawing up the contract worthless.

You should pay up before you accrue more charges.

anything signed with the notary is valid. anything else is not.

This man does not work for free either you know. you are lucky you did not pay the 10% as they can keep that upon signing......

If you plan on staying in Switzerland I suggest you pay or make a deal with him concerning the bill.

People shouldn't go ahead without agents

The law states that that even if a public notary draws up documents which are then not signed he gets paid a portion of the amount otherwise due:

http://www.rsv.vd.ch/dire-cocoon/rsv...a=176&base=RSV

Check Art. 4.

Hi all,
Appreciate your replies, and for noting that we are actually in a fortunate position in relation to what we could have been charged. We were not expecting to get away with paying nothing, but just wanted to check that the amount was justified.
Ittigen - not old-fashioned, there should indeed be dues for work done, but as we were unsure of the work involved at that stage we wanted to check rather than pay 'blindly' (perhaps that's old-fashioned as well).
Mica - thanks for the link, I had been trying to find something just like this to reference.
Anthony1406 - we actually did hire an agent, who was very good, but it was our mistake for not pulling out sooner.
Lessons learnt for us.
Many thanks again for your responses, this forum is invaluable!