Buying property in Saint-Malo from abroad

The difficulty of a remote purchase is never the welcome, it is the sorting: how do you choose a property you have not visited, in a town where two apartments in the same building on the Sillon do not have the same view, and where the condition of the granite weighs more than the floor area? 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 Saint-Malo, where front-line properties often change hands without a listing, the homes for sale in Saint-Malo that matter are often never advertised.

Each shortlisted property is qualified on documents: title, diagnostics, minutes of the general meetings, charges, the seller’s situation. Then comes the video pre-viewing, steered by Home Select with the seller’s agent, window by window, at high tide and at low tide. The price is set against comparable sales in the DVF record, and only the properties that deserve your trip stay on the shortlist. Home Select counts 50% expatriate or international clients: whether you want to buy a house in Saint-Malo or an apartment on the Sillon, this way of working is its routine.

Nothing is closed to you: France imposes no nationality or residence condition for buying a property. The rules are the same for everyone, and they protect the buyer. An offer to purchase accompanied by a payment is void: nobody can ask you for a deposit to “hold” a property. After signing the preliminary 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, three more rules. The shore belongs to the public maritime domain: no house in Rothéneuf owns the cove in front of it. The loi Littoral forbids building within the hundred-metre strip outside built-up areas, which weighs on any idea of extending by the sea. And in the Intra-Muros, a protected sector, façades, roofs and windows go through the Architecte des Bâtiments de France. For the taxation of your country of residence, tax treaties and inheritance, your notary and a tax adviser take over: that is another trade, which Home Select does not mix with the search.

The Saint-Malo market has two peaks, spring from April to June and the return in September, when second homes come free after the season. Summer brings the visitors but not the best negotiating conditions. For a non-resident buyer, the right window is autumn and winter: less competition, more available sellers, and a town seen as it is eleven months out of twelve. The sequence is therefore prepared ahead: the brief at the end of summer, the shortlist in autumn, a single trip in winter, signing in spring.

The pitfalls are those of the buildings and the view. Granite takes the wind and the salt: pointing, slate roofs, joinery and ventilation are checked, and works are costed before the offer. The view is judged at high tide and at low tide, the tidal range reaching about thirteen metres at spring tides. Saint-Malo regulates the use of dwellings and each co-ownership has its rules: both sets of rules are read before the offer. In the Intra-Muros, parking is lacking; in the Clos-Poulet, a malouinière calls for an inspection of its roofs, its outbuildings and its sanitation.