Buying a new apartment in France and signing by proxy (Power of Attorney)
After you fell in love with a new construction project on the Côte d’Azur, we will help you with the French paperwork. If you are one of the first to buy an apartment, it might take a few months before the notary is ready. As you know, we only present you projects that come with a National building guarantee. Not every developer can offer this guarantee. When the developer has sold 40% of the real estate project from sketch, they will buy the land for the project. The notary arranges the paperwork and then separates the property into different plots, one for each apartment. Now you will be invited to sign the official sales contract.
If you come from the US or Australia, everybody understands you don’t want to fly in again just to sign the paperwork in a boring office of a French notary. Instead, you can give the notary a POA; Power of Attorney. The French call this a ‘Procuration’, which means you authorise the notary’s assistant to sign the sales contract on your behalf. To validate the POA, you will need to legalise your signature on the document that the notary will send you. This can be done with a local notary in your city or even at the French Embassy in your country. You must sign the POA in front of the notary or Embassy staff to prove it is you, with the same signature as in your passport.
Of course, you can also sign the POA while you are still in France. Just pop-in the notary office, show your password and sign the POA. From there on, we’ll keep you informed of the process. Two days before the signing date, the building process is in full swing and your first part of the payment will be 25 or 30%, depending on what stage the building is. If you buy the new apartment on the French Riviera when it’s almost ready, you will pay likely 80% of the total price. This amount has to be on the notary account two days before the signature date.
Buying a new apartment in the South of France
When you find a second home in the South of France, you can sign a ‘preliminary purchase agreement’ on the spot, in the sales office of the developer. They will give you the bank details of the notary to make the 3-5% reservation fee/ deposit. This fee will be deducted from the final sales price.
If you make the decision a few days later, no worries. The developer will send you the contract by courier (UPS or DHL) to your home address. You have to send this back first, all papers signed. Once the developer received this, they will countersign it and send the double signed contract back to you. From the date you receive this contract, the countdown starts. You have a re-think period of 10 days, from the date of receipt by the courier. You can cancel the purchase without any costs: the deposit fee will be returned in a week..
After those 10 days, you will have another 30 days to organise your financing (if needed). If the mortgage is not accepted during this period, you can still cancel your purchase without costs within those 30 days. You simply send a registered letter with the rejection of the bank to the project developer and a PDF per mail.
Cost notary for new construction
The notary costs for a new home are considerably cheaper than when purchasing an existing home. You pay a maximum of 2.5% transfer tax against 7.5% for existing buildings. And if you do not need financing, then the notary costs are only 1.9% because the dossier is simpler in composition.
Within 3-6 months (and sometimes longer!) after the end of the 30-day period, you will receive an invitation from the notary to sign the final purchase agreement. We are present there and we can also sign for you with a POA.
Congratulations! Now you pay for the new property in installments until the construction is finished. That money is deposited in a National Construction Guarantee Fund. This is extra security for you; the purchased apartment will be always delivered in this way, even if the building developer would go bankrupt.
Living on the Côte d’Azur only works with the best and largest project developers and some top class real estate agents that we fully trust. This gives you the certainty that your search for a second home in southern France is in professional hands.
Mortgage for your property in the South of France
Over the years we have built a strong network with banks in France, Monaco and England. They can provide you with a mortgage loan of up to 70%, making the purchase of your dream suddenly closer. If you do not need a mortgage, it can still be interesting to have a financing. A tax lawyer can tell you more about this. Of course we can introduce you to these real estate legal purchasing specialists.
