Buying property in Èze from abroad

The difficulty of buying in Èze from abroad is not the welcome, it is access to the supply. A few villas on the corniches, very rare waterfront properties, a village where houses can be counted: the bulk of it trades between insiders, without a listing or a portal, and watching the portals from abroad is not enough. Home Select steers the search from its management, with its network of 15,000 partners, receives more than 100 off-market properties every day and monitors 1,700 listing sites: in Èze, watchfulness does everything, and it is built far from the screens.

Each shortlisted property is qualified on documents: title, cadastral plan, history of neighbouring planning permissions, diagnostics, the seller’s situation. Then comes the video pre-viewing, steered by Home Select with the seller’s agent: the view from every terrace and every window, the whole of the land, private lanes and retaining walls, and, below, the passing of the train with the windows open. The price is set against comparable DVF sales, and only the properties that deserve your trip stay on the shortlist. Home Select counts 50% expatriate or international clients: this way of working is its routine, whether you want to buy a house in Èze or a terrace above the sea.

Nothing is closed to you: France imposes no nationality or residence condition for buying a property, and the rules, the same for everyone, protect the buyer. An offer to purchase accompanied by a payment is void: nobody can ask you for a deposit to ‘hold’ a villa. After signing the sale agreement, you have a ten-day withdrawal period. The diagnostics, energy rating, asbestos, lead, termites depending on the zone, electricity, gas and risks, are at the seller’s expense and are read before the offer.

On this coast, two more rules. The shore belongs to the public maritime domain: no property in Èze-Bord-de-Mer owns the sea in front of it, even at the water’s edge. The loi Littoral protects a hundred-metre strip outside built-up areas, which weighs on any idea of extending below. For the taxation of your country of residence and inheritance, your notary and a tax adviser take over: that is another trade, which Home Select does not mix with the search.

The market is livelier in spring and from September, but the fine villas trade without a season, as successions and private decisions dictate. For a remote buyer, the calendar is therefore set not by a season but by the watch: a brief as soon as the project exists, continuous qualification, and the single trip when the address appears, because it will not appear again. The village is judged outside the summer, intense from June to September; the seafront off season, and the train at the hours it passes. Among the homes for sale in Èze, few are seen twice.

The pitfalls are those of the view and the slope. The view justifies the price and can be closed by a neighbouring building or planting: the cadastral plan, the history of planning permissions and what remains buildable around are checked at the town hall, before the offer, never after. Sloping ground demands serious soil surveys, the villas are reached by private lanes that must be maintained, with their easements. None of this can be read in a listing: everything is checked on documents, on video, then during the single trip.