3. Sale and Purchase Contract for Property in France

1. 3.1. Types of Sale & Purchase Contract
   3.2. Signing the Contract
   3.3. Role of Notaires
   3.4. Use of Legal Advisors
   3.5. Pre-Contract Enquiries

3.4. Use of Legal Advisors for Buying Property in France

Some buyers choose to use a specialist solicitor in their home country or a French avocat to provide them with advice, or act for them in the buying process.

Although they cannot undertake the actual conveyancing of a property, they are able to assist with pre-contract enquiries, setting up a property company and advise on French taxation matters.

Nevertheless, if the transaction or your circumstances are 'complex', we recognise that you may well need additional support. This may particularly be the case where you are proposing to buy through a French property company, called an SCI (although notaires are fully conversant and competent).

Many people engage home based solicitors simply because they do not speak or understand the French language. A cheaper solution may simply be to engage a local interpreter, provided you know enough about the 'basics' of buying in France, which we hope you should be able to obtain from this guide!

Solicitors from outside of France are fond of stating how important it is to get independent legal and taxation advice from them in the purchase of a French property.

We recognise that the service they offer is often excellent and highly desirable in some circumstances.

They would only be within French jurdisdiction if they actually had a base in France and had accreditation by the French authorities as legal and/or taxation advisors.

Moreover, even if the company has a French subsiduary, if there are no assets in the company, and it is no more than the brass plate on the door, there may not be much you can recover from them!

You might be able to successfully sue them in your home country, although no English court of law can modify or annul a French property transaction. For this, you would need to pursue a separate action in the French courts.

Accordingly, in the event of professional negligence or breach of duty of care, you would need to pursue separate actions in the French and UK courts.

There are various international codes of conduct for solicitors acting in cross-border activities, and we do not doubt that you would be able to bring a complaint to their professional body (e.g. Law Society), but this is not going to bring about full restitution of your case.

So, next time you see an advert from home based solicitors warning of the dangers of buying property in France without using their services, ask them about your rights in the event that they give you poor advice!

As an alternative to a home advisor, you can use a French avocat, where you clearly have the possibility of recourse to the courts in the event of professional negligence.

However, we do not consider it normally necessary to take legal advice from an avocat, so you need to weigh carefully if it represents good value for money.

In particular, if you seek advice from an avocat about the relationship between French laws and those of your own country, you may well be disappointed.

If in doubt, try out a consultation meeting with an avocat specialising in property and/or inheritance matters, and see if you learn more from that meeting, than you got from the meeting with your own notaire. It may also be worth trying the same approach with a home based solicitor.