Our team work to make the French property selling process as simple and stress-free as possible. We’ve put together a guide to selling property in France, covering the steps you need to know:

Our team is ready to get your property on the market and will be there for every step of the sale. Contact us here, or request a free market appraisal to get started.

1. Book a free market appraisal

A local property consultant will visit your property to give you a free verbal market appraisal.  They will explain the process and the documents needed to sell your property.

2. Get your property market ready

Once you have agreed on the price you want to market your property at and the type of mandate you want (simple or exclusive), you will need to provide us with certain documentation so that we can draw-up the relevant paperwork. This includes:

• Your title deeds (titre de propriété/acte de vente)
• Cadastral information
• A copy of your DPE (energy efficiency) report

3. Sign your Mandate and Fiche Contractuelle

You will need to sign these two documents in order to put your property on the market.  The mandate is a legal and officially registered document, which gives a description of your property with your cadastral references and the price you have agreed to sell your property at.  The fiche contractuelle is a document which states that all of the information you have provided is true and accurate.  Signing of these documents can be completed in person or on-line by you-sign.

To save time further down the line and to allow us to better answer potential buyer’s questions, the more information we have the better.  If you have them, please provide us with copies of your taxe foncière, planning applications for any works done (including pools), drainage report, plan of the house and full diagnostic reports.  For more details, please ask your local property consultant for a completion checklist.

4. Market your property

Once your paperwork has been signed, our marketing will start.  Your property will firstly go onto our website, quickly followed by our suite of promotional activities

5. Get regular updates

We will respond to all enquiries and book visits as agreed with you.  If you have any questions or queries, please contact your local property consultant.  Also, don’t forget to regularly check your dedicated extranet account

6. Accept an offer

As soon as a potential buyer makes an offer, your local property consultant will put it forward to you and act as a negotiator between both parties.  Once an offer is agreed, both parties will sign a letter of intent (LOI) which confirms the agreed purchase price.  At this point, the buyer will need to provide proof of funds.  If you haven’t done so already, you will need to commission full diagnostic reports on your property, which will form part of the sales contract.  Your local property consultant can help with this, along with other paperwork and checks such as the drainage report

7. Sign the Compromis de Vente

This is a legally binding document that sets out all of the details of the sale including the purchase price, finance details and any conditions of sale (clause suspensive) such as planning applications or a mortgage.  Once the compromis is signed a 10-day cooling off period starts.  This allows the buyer (not the vendor) the opportunity to cancel the contract for any reason without penalty.  After this time, the contract can only be cancelled if one of the conditional clauses is not met.  Within the 10 days, a deposit is payable by the buyer -  this is normally 10% of the purchase price.  If you are not able to sign the compromis in person you can sign by power of attorney, known as ‘procuration.’  The notaire’s clerk can then sign on behalf of one or both parties as necessary.

8. Sign the Acte de Vente

By this time, you will need to have arranged your removals and left your property in the condition in which it was viewed.  Before this signing, your local property consultant and buyers will come to reinspect the property and read the meters.  On average it takes about 4 months from the accepted offer for a property to complete (less for a cash purchase).  The final part is to sign the Acte de Vente (ADV) with the notaire.  This can be completed by power of attorney or in person, where a BVI team member will be happy to attend.

Whatever stage of your property sale, our team would be delighted to help. Visit one of our agencies, contact us here, or request a free market appraisal to get started.