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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
A co-owner €77,000 in arrears walked away from a fast-track judgment because the syndic's demand letter lumped the sums together. What the Cour de cassation's 18 June 2026 ruling means for every foreign co-owner in France.
Bought a French tax-shelter property that underdelivered? A June 2026 Cassation ruling resets when the five-year clock to sue the adviser starts - later than you might think.
France's top court just closed a landlord trap: if you knew a flat was substandard when you let it, you cannot serve notice to evict the tenant and do the upgrade works. Civ. 3e, 4 June 2026, n 24-16.993.
France's top court confirms the double exposure on indecent rentals: tenants can force the works for as long as the breach lasts, while damages reach back exactly three years. What every foreign landlord should take from Civ. 3e, 4 June 2026.
Own a French property and let it stand empty and crumbling? A commune can expropriate it on a fast-track procedure - and on 22 May 2026 the Conseil constitutionnel confirmed that procedure is constitutional.
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