The structure is a choice, not a given
Occupied viager, free viager, instalment sale, bare-ownership sale: four answers to four situations.
All of these solutions start from the same place — the value of your property — and differ on just two questions: are you staying in the home, and how do you want to be paid?
Depending on the answers, you receive a larger or smaller capital sum at the outset, a lifetime annuity or instalments over a known term, and you keep a right of use and occupancy, a usufruct, or nothing at all. Everything else — tax, charges, protection of a spouse — follows from that choice.
Choose your starting point
Occupied viager
You stay in your home for life. You receive a bouquet on signature and then a lifetime annuity, and the buyer gets a discount in return for your right to occupy. It is the commonest structure.
Free viager
You leave the property at the sale and the buyer has immediate use of it. With no occupancy discount, both bouquet and annuity are appreciably higher.
Instalment sale
The price is paid in instalments over a term fixed in advance — 5, 10, 15 or 20 years. There is no uncertainty: the total and the end date are known from the signature.
Bare-ownership sale
You sell the bare ownership and keep a usufruct or a right of use and occupancy. You receive a substantial capital sum immediately, and there is no annuity to manage.