It is not because a person is very sick that the sale of his life property is zero. It does not matter that the buyer knows it and that the seller dies a few weeks later, even judged the Court of Cassation, in a judgment dated January 18, 2023 (Cass. Civ 3, 18.1.2023, G 21-24.862) . As long as the seller is not notoriously condemned by the disease, that the purchaser is not qualified in medicine and that he does not know that the life expectancy is compromised in an irremediable way, the sale has no no reason to be canceled, she said. She therefore rejected the arguments of the heirs of a very sick old lady who died three months after selling her house as a life annuity to a relative.
A buyer not from the medical community
According to them, this relative was aware of the state of health which required permanent medical acts and therefore, by paying a bouquet of approximately 1/5th of the value of the property, whereas it would have taken thirteen years of pensions to that the price paid corresponds to the total value, this buyer was sure to get an excellent deal. He knew, they said, without any risk, that he would not pay the true value of the house. But the old lady having died of a fall and not of her illness which, moreover, did not condemn her in the short term with certainty, and her buyer not being a doctor, it cannot be concluded that the sale is void for lack of hazard, concluded the judges.
For a life annuity sale to be null and void, without possible discussion, due to the illness of the seller, it is necessary, according to the civil code, that the seller dies of this illness within twenty days after the signature.