6. Local Searches when Buying French Property

1. 6.1. Capacity of the Parties
   6.2. Title
   6.3. Pre-emption Rights
   6.4. Planning Enquiries

6.3. Pre-emption Rights When Buying Property in France

Sometimes, there are certain bodies and persons who have an automatic right of prior acquisition, or pre-emption, on the sale of a property.

These rights are called the droits de préemption.

Accordingly, before the sale can proceed the notaire will need to ‘purge’ the property of these pre-emption rights.

The rule of prior acquisition means, quite literally, that even though the seller may have agreed to sell the property to you, they may be obliged to sell it to another party.

Thankfully, this occurrence is quite rare, so you should not feel too anxious that you are going to be robbed of the French idyll you may have found!

The local mairie only have a right of prior acquisition if the property is located within a designated area as shown on a local plan, and SAFER only have a right if the land parcel exceeds a minimum size.

The threshold figure which triggers a right of prior purchase by SAFER is determined by the local préfet on a five year cycle. In some parts of France it can be as low as a few hundred square metres.

The right of prior acquisition by SAFER relates only to the whole of the property, not just part of it. This often means that larger estates avoid being caught, as SAFER may not have funds to make the acquisition. In other cases, sellers do sometimes come to a negotiated agreement on the sale of parts of an estate, prior to it being placed on the open market.

All sitting tenants also have the right of prior acquisition. This includes a tenant farmer on land belonging to the property you are proposing to purchase, who will have the right to purchase the property itself.

Accordingly, completion of the sale cannot normally take place earlier than two months, although it is possible to pay a small additional fee to gain clearance from the mairie and SAFER on an express basis.

The law offers some limited protection to the original purchaser in this whole process, in that a sitting tenant only has the right to buy at the same price as that contained in the sale and purchase agreement.

However, this same rule does not apply in the case of the local mairie or SAFER, who may make an alternative lower offer if they consider the initial sale price to be in excess of the market value.

If this occurs then the owner can either withdraw the property from the market or contest the offer in a court of law. More often than not the two sides enter into discussions to arrive at an amicable settlement. Of course, the end result is that the property is then acquired by the public body!

Nevertheless, it is possible to contest the use of pre-emption rights in the courts, and many such cases are won by the applicants, often because of a failure of due procedure by the mairie or SAFER.