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Land Registration in France - Cadastre

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1. What is the Cadastre?

The official system of land registration in France is called the cadastre, maintained by the French public land registry, under the auspices of the French tax authority, the Direction Générale des Finances Publiques (DGFiP).

The title plans are called plans cadastrales, a graphical plan of the boundaries of land parcels in France. The plans themselves do not show details of the owner of a property, or (necessarily) all the land parcels in a single ownership. To obtain information on the owner of a particular plot you need to consult a related document called the matrice cadastrale.

The plans show numbered plots on which the ownership of land is based. Whilst they will show buildings, the size of the plot and the place name (lieudit) of the property to which it belongs, the boundary description on the cadastre may often be vague, or even non-existent.

This reflects the origins of the plans, which were created in the Napoleonic era for the purposes of calculating land tax.

Accordingly, whilst in most cases the cadastre does the job you need it to do, it can be contested.

If there is a need to determine the boundaries of a property because the cadastre is unclear, it is disputed, or a plot is to be broken up into different ownerships, the process is known as bornage.

If this occurs, it is obligatory to engage the services of a land surveyor (géomètre) to undertake a formal determination of the boundaries and division of the land. You can read more about that process here.

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2. Viewing the Cadastre

A copy of the local cadastre will be held in the local mairie, or the local land registry office, called the Centre des Impôts Foncier. You are entitled to visit their offices and freely inspect it. The local notaire will also have a copy.

If used in tandem with the aerial photos provided through the site of Geoportail you can obtain a lot of useful information about a property from comfort of your home.

Using these web resources, you can view land and building plots, measure their surface area, order hard-copy versions of the plans, or print off from the site.

However, those of you who may be familiar with the UK land registry on-line plans are going to be a little disappointed, particularly in rural areas. The Ordnance Survey plans in the UK are of a higher quality, with more topographical information, and the French plans do not show title boundaries, as is the case with the UK plans.

Accordingly, if you type in the address of a property, you may be lucky enough that the plots offered up correspond to the title of the property, but to not bank on it. You may get more or less than all the plots in the current ownership of the owner. To get accurate information you also need the plot numbers that correspond with the title.

Neither do the plans provide personal information on the owner, nor the price paid by the present owner, as is the case with UK Land Registry site.

If you wish to know the ownership of a parcel of land you should visit your local mairie in order to obtain details from the matrice cadastrale, or alternatively visit the Centre des Impôts Foncier in the administrative area where the land is located.

To obtain precise information on ownership from abroad you will need to get the cooperation of the seller to provide the plot numbers, or the estate agent selling the property. Agents are probably going to insist that you sign a visit form, before they will supply you with the co-ordinates on Geoportail, or the plot numbers from the plans.

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Next: Determination of Property Boundaries

Back: Property Rights in France - Main Index

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