The English Investor is the go-to English-language resource for foreign property investors in France. Written by a tri-qualified lawyer, our guides cover legal structures, tax strategy, rental regulations, and practical advice for buying and managing French real estate.
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.
A Montpellier court has evicted a tenant not for unpaid rent but for failing to hand over an insurance certificate. Why the judge had no discretion, the one-month clock behind the ruling, and the two levers every French landlord should understand.
From January 2027 France's new vacancy tax will decide whether your home is empty on the strength of a database, your own declaration and, sometimes, a neighbour's tip-off. What fiscally vacant means, how occupation is proven, and the two defences that actually work.
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.
A Montpellier court has evicted a tenant not for unpaid rent but for failing to hand over an insurance certificate. Why the judge had no discretion, the one-month clock behind the ruling, and the two levers every French landlord should understand.
From January 2027 France's new vacancy tax will decide whether your home is empty on the strength of a database, your own declaration and, sometimes, a neighbour's tip-off. What fiscally vacant means, how occupation is proven, and the two defences that actually work.
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.
A Montpellier court has evicted a tenant not for unpaid rent but for failing to hand over an insurance certificate. Why the judge had no discretion, the one-month clock behind the ruling, and the two levers every French landlord should understand.
From January 2027 France's new vacancy tax will decide whether your home is empty on the strength of a database, your own declaration and, sometimes, a neighbour's tip-off. What fiscally vacant means, how occupation is proven, and the two defences that actually work.
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.
From 1 October 2026 every new French lease gives a non-paying tenant six weeks, not two months, to clear the debt after a commandement de payer. What the new contrat type changes, which clock governs your existing lease, and the procedure that actually gets a property back.
A third of France's best-rated homes turn into ovens each summer. What the DPE letter actually measures, the summer-comfort indicator nobody reads, and the checks that spare you from buying a bouilloire thermique.
In France the lease follows the walls. Article 1743 hands the tenant to your buyer, deposit obligations included, and the congé pour vendre is the only clean way to sell empty. What buyers inherit, what sellers keep, and where the traps are.
After an inheritance or through a family SCI, many foreign landlords sign French leases without fully owning the property. Article 595, article 815-3 and the two-thirds rule decide whether that lease stands - or gets the tenant evicted.
The French Senate adopted the Relance Logement bill on 8 July 2026 - swapping the works threshold for a two-class DPE test and halving the copropriete shield to 18 months, while the landlord amortissement statute lives in the budget law, not this bill. What changes, what does not, and what September can still undo.
The bail Code civil is the correct lease for a French second home - and the contract Paris's mayor calls industrial-scale fraud when it dodges rent control. Where the line runs after the 2026 rulings, the DGCCRF campaign and the bill in parliament.
France's Constitutional Court has rewritten how expropriated land is priced in multi-site ZACs: your parcel can no longer be denied building-land value because a distant site lacks pipes. What the 19 June 2026 réserve changes for owners.
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