Buying in France from abroad
The price of a French property is negotiated on documents: the prices actually paid, the time on the market, the energy rating, the works voted by the co-ownership, the measured surface. From abroad, these elements do not come on their own. This dossier says where to find them, how to use them, and what closes a negotiation.
By Jean Mascla, founder of Home Select Updated · 6 min read
A buyer living abroad negotiates badly for a simple reason: they do not have the material. They do not know how long the property has been on the market, what the neighbours actually paid, or what the building is about to vote through in works.
Since 2019 the tax administration has published, as open data, the property value declarations database, fed by notarised deeds and updated twice a year. For each transfer for value it gives the address, the date, the price, the floor area and the type of property. It is the only public source that says what was paid, rather than what was asked.
Two limits apply. The database covers neither Alsace-Moselle nor Mayotte, which fall under a separate land registration regime. And it says nothing about the condition of the property: two flats at the same address can differ by thirty per cent depending on floor level, aspect and works. It serves as a foundation, not a verdict.
The quarterly indexes of the notaries and of the national statistics institute usefully complete that foundation by giving the trend rather than the point. In a turning market, a price set six months earlier is often worth a negotiation on its own.
Time on market is the first lever, and the one an absent buyer almost always misses. A property advertised for four months in a district where turnover runs at six weeks has already met its market, and its owner knows it.
The energy performance rating has become the second lever, since the law banned letting the most energy-hungry ratings. A home rated G can no longer be let, an F rating follows from 1 January 2028, and that deadline moves value: the buyer takes on a works budget and a timetable constraint, which can be quantified and stated.
Works voted at a general meeting come next, and this is the most poorly used lever. Facade works voted but not yet called in can be read in the minutes the seller must hand over; they are negotiated either on the price, or through a clause in the preliminary contract placing the call for funds on the seller. We set out that reading in what to check in a co-ownership before buying.
Anomalies in the technical survey file form the fourth lever: a non-compliant electrical installation, a boiler past its age, a Carrez floor area more than five per cent below the one stated. That last point even opens, after the deed, a proportionate price-reduction claim under article 46 of the Act of 10 July 1965, available for one year. Better to establish it beforehand.
Lourmarin, Provence
A low offer with no argument produces nothing but the end of the conversation, especially on a property that has just come to market. A negotiation conducted by email from another time zone, with nobody to meet the seller or their agent, runs into the fact that a French seller rarely picks the highest offer: they pick the one that will reach completion.
The financing file counts as much as the amount. A buyer presenting an agreement in principle, an escrow ready to send and a workable timetable is often worth more than a more generous buyer whose bank has processed nothing. The subject is covered in our page on the deadlines from offer to deed.
Finally, the idea that a foreign buyer mechanically pays more rests on no rule: the price, transfer duties and notary’s fees are identical for everyone. What costs is not seeing. And that is corrected by documentation, by a professional who holds their mandate from you, as our comparison between buying agent and estate agent explains, and by a search mandate whose fee is due only on a completed acquisition.
Home Select searches and negotiates for the buyer, and for the buyer alone. Your property finder checks the property, the building’s documents and the calendar before you commit, and flags what deserves a question to the notaire or a clause in the offer.
Around the purchase, we introduce the partners used to buyers who live abroad: bilingual notaire, mortgage broker, lawyer, sworn translator. Each acts under their own responsibility; we keep the calendar, from the offer to the handing over of the keys.
In the property value declarations database, published as open data by the tax administration since 2019 and updated twice a year. It lists transfers for value taken from notarised deeds: address, date, price, floor area and type of property. It covers neither Alsace-Moselle nor Mayotte, which fall under a separate land registration regime.
In a co-ownership, article 46 of the Act of 10 July 1965 allows the buyer to claim a price reduction proportionate to the shortfall, where the actual area is more than five per cent below the area stated in the deed. The claim is time-barred one year from the notarised deed. Before signing, the same finding is negotiated directly on the price.
No rule provides for it: the price, transfer duties and notary’s fees are the same for everyone. What costs is the information asymmetry, where the buyer can neither view several times, nor compare on the ground, nor read the general meeting minutes before committing. That asymmetry is corrected by a documented file, not by an overbid.
A buyer living abroad negotiates badly for a simple reason: they do not have the material. They do not know how long the property has been on the market, what the neighbours actually paid, or what the building is about to vote through in works.
Time on market is the first lever, and the one an absent buyer almost always misses. A property advertised for four months in a district where turnover runs at six weeks has already met its market, and its owner knows it.
A low offer with no argument produces nothing but the end of the conversation, especially on a property that has just come to market. A negotiation conducted by email from another time zone, with nobody to meet the seller or their agent, runs into the fact that a French seller rarely picks the highest offer: they pick the one that will reach completion.
Further reading
From the Home Select magazine
Preparing a purchase in France from abroad, or already an owner there? Describe your situation: a Home Select property finder answers within one working day, and the file starts with the right partners, in the right order.
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