Abstract (EN)

A Viager real estate transaction, which can also be called a “lifetime annuity real estate” transaction, consists in selling a property in return for a down payment and a lifetime annuity that the buyer has to pay until the seller dies. Older than 200 years old, the viager product is used and standardized today in many countries such as France, Belgium, Italy and Spain. The viager is a subject that is not very talked about, but with the increase of life expectancy and the apparition of a new generation of elder-boomers, it has become an additional way for the elderly to complete their retirement. Combined with the low interest rates environment and the pensions stagnation, the viager can be a complementary product to pensions as the pensions level and the use of ownership as a source of old-age income are negatively correlated.The paper explores in the first part the relationship between people and the viager product which reverses the relation to property and housing, and in the second part the presence of asymmetric information and the lack of financial knowledge from a part of the population.