Buying an off-plan property in France - The process

Mettre une option - Placing a hold on a property

If you decide to purchase a property, placing an option will hold it exclusively for you. This will give you up to two days to organize and transfer your fully-refundable deposit. The deposit is 5 % of the purchase price if the completion date of the sale does not exceed a year or 2% if the build time is in excess of one year. The deposit will be placed into an escrow account belonging to the notaire dealing with the sale. Thereafter you have two weeks to sign and return the preliminary contract.

The preliminary contract  - Securing the property

The next stage in the process is to sign a “contrat preliminaire” (preliminary contract), also known as a “contrat de reservation” which commits the developer to selling the property to you and constitutes a real commitment on your part.
This contract establishes in writing the details of the property being sold to you and contains certain obligatory details: a detailed description of the future property (approximate living space, number of rooms, outbuildings, etc.); the quality of the construction (materials employed…) and other technical details annexed to the contract; the sale price; methods of reviewing the contract; and the date on which the final sale contract will be signed.
Once you have received a copy of the signed contract from the developer you then have a 7 day cooling off period.

The final deed of sale (contrat definitif de vente)

You will be given one month’s notice by the agent of the final signature.
The aim of this notice period is to enable you to check that the project conforms to the agreed specifications. This contract must have more details than the preliminary contract, in particular a detailed description of the property, the price and modes of payment, a delivery period, a guarantee of completion or refund and a clause whereby if you cannot get a mortgage you are released from the contract of sale. 
The agent must also give you a plan with the housing dimensions and a duplicate of the joint ownership rules. If there is a discrepancy between the final contract and the preliminary contract you can abandon the sale and your deposit will be refunded to you within three months. The final sale contract must be signed in the presence of a notaire.

Paying for your property

Off-plan properties are purchased on a progressive basis according to the advancement of the building work often as follows: 

5% Initial deposit 
35% of the total price when the foundations have been laid
70% of the total price when the property is weatherproof
95% of the total price when construction is complete
100% of the total price the day the property becomes available to the buyer (the day you receive the keys).

(The payments requested by the promoter will not exceed these cumulative amounts)

Off-plan properties benefit from a reduced notaire fee of between 2.5 and 3% of the net purchase price (compared with the 6 to 8% notaire fee payable on resale properties).

The delivery

The delivery date for an off-plan property as specified in the contract can be either a specified date or a certain period (eg: last quarter 2010) or a mixture of the two, within a certain period of time from a specified date. The contract may contain penalty clauses (favorable to the buyer) against a delay in the delivery of the property.

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