Guides

Guides

Short-Term or Long-Term? The First Question Every Owner of a French Flat Has to Answer

Before the SCI, the tax regime or the case law, one decision shapes everything: who lives in your French flat and for how long. The rules of a meublé de tourisme, a furnished lease and an unfurnished lease, the 2026 figures, and the five questions that decide between them.
Guides

Buying Off-Plan in France: the VEFA, and Why the Mud Is Already Yours

How a French off-plan purchase (VEFA) actually works for a foreign buyer: the 5% deposit, the 35/70/95 payment grid, the completion guarantee, delivery day and the thirteen-month clock, with the case law and the tax layer.
Guides

Guarantor for a Student in France: What a Parent Abroad Signs

Your child has a place in Paris or Lyon and the agent wants your signature on an acte de cautionnement by Friday. What you are guaranteeing, what an agency may and may not ask a parent abroad for, the free State guarantee that can replace you, and the legal ceilings on deposit and fees, from the finance ministry's student guide and the texts behind it.
Guides

Who Pays the Copropriété Charges in the Year You Sell?

French law does not split copropriété charges by days when a flat changes hands. The owner on the due date pays the whole call, the owner on the accounts-approval date takes the whole adjustment, and the works fund is never refunded. What each rule means for a foreign seller or buyer.
Guides

Ma Prime Logement Décent: the French Grant That Pays up to 90% of a Wreck’s Repairs, and Who Actually Gets It

France’s Anah pays 60 to 90 percent of heavy works on a degraded home, up to €70,000, for modest households who live in it. Who qualifies (residents, not holiday-home owners), the five ways a house qualifies, the strings, the sister aid for landlords with no income test, and how to apply in the right order.

Taxe Foncière Discounts: Which Ones Can You Actually Claim?

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France offers six taxe foncière reliefs, from a €100 automatic discount to a cap that stops the bill exceeding half your income. Which ones a non-resident owner can actually claim, with the 2026 thresholds and deadlines.

Is It Worth Contesting Your Taxe Foncière? A Decision Guide for Foreign Owners

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Your taxe foncière keeps climbing, but the rate is not the part you can fight. How to check the cadastral base behind your bill for free, the five grounds that actually win, the deadlines, and when a réclamation is genuinely worth your time.

The Commission Départementale de Conciliation, Explained

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A tenant or landlord can bring the other before a free, State-run conciliation body long before any court is involved. What it can examine, whether its findings bind anyone, and why not turning up is the worst move available.

France Is About to Upgrade Your DPE by Decree: the 1.7 Coefficient Explained

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A draft arrêté would cut the DPE electricity coefficient from 1.9 to 1.7 on 1 January 2027, lifting hundreds of thousands of electrically heated homes out of passoire status with no works and a free updated label. What it changes for foreign owners, and why it is not signed yet.

The Agent’s Licence: How to Check a French Estate Agent, and Who Pays When They Get It Wrong

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Every French estate agent operates behind a licence, a financial guarantee and compulsory insurance. How to verify the carte professionnelle in two minutes, what protects your deposit, and the case law making agents answer for the deals they touch.

The Agent’s Commission: What You Owe a French Estate Agent, and When You Owe Nothing

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France hangs an agent’s entire right to payment on a written mandate, a register number and a completed sale. When the commission is owed, who owes it, and the five decades of case law on agents who tried to get paid anyway.
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