In English
Your French mortgage, handled in English
Buying in France, from Lyon or from abroad: I build your file, negotiate your loan with the banks and take you through every step, in English. I work in Lyon, the western Lyon area and the inner ring. You can be anywhere.
What I do for you
- I advise. Deposit, term, guarantee, bridging loan: the right structure for your purchase.
- I build your file the way a lender reads it, and present it to the banks I consult. You approve the list before anything is sent.
- I negotiate. I do not lend: I negotiate the loan for you.
No bank has appointed me to represent it, and none is my partner. The register records that I am not authorised to receive funds: your deposit goes to the notary, your instalments to the lender. My registration, at the foot of this page, can be checked on the public register.
Buying from abroad
Income earned elsewhere, another currency, another tax residence: lenders treat these files differently, so I draw up the list of lenders for yours. Call me before you make an offer.
- Your income is read in its own currency. Lenders ask for the employment contract showing it, and each converts or discounts it its own way.
- Tax residence is a document. Proof of tax residence, the last three payslips and tax notices from the country where you live, and statements for your accounts abroad, on top of the ordinary list.
- Where your salary is paid may be discussed. Some lenders ask for your income to be paid into an account with them. It is settled before you sign.
- Distance is no obstacle. Telephone, video, email: the loan file can be handled entirely at a distance. The deed is signed at the notary’s office: ask them early how they handle a buyer who cannot attend.
A French purchase, step by step
- The preliminary contract comes first. You sign a compromis de vente with the seller before the loan exists. It commits you and starts a clock: a complete file keeps you on time.
- The loan is a condition of the sale. If the loan is not obtained within the period the contract sets, the sale does not proceed and the sums you have paid to the seller are returned to you. That period is agreed when you sign the preliminary contract: do not let it be set too short.
- An agreement in principle is not an offer. The loan offer is the contractual document, and it follows the final examination, the insurer’s included.
- You have ten days to think. French law gives the borrower a ten-day reflection period to read the loan offer, and you may not accept it before the eleventh day. Nobody can shorten it.
- A notary closes the sale. The notaire is a public officer, usually acting for both sides.
Borrower insurance: your choice
A separate contract from the loan, not included in the interest rate quoted, and the step that most often holds a purchase up at the end. The funds are released once the loan is insured: death cover as a minimum, and the most severe forms of disability with it, at the level the lender sets in writing.
- You choose the insurer. Bring your own contract if it offers an equivalent level of cover, and replace it later, at any time and without charge, on the same condition. Same rate, same term, same schedule. Compare cover by cover, not on price alone.
- Two borrowers, two shares. The lender sets the total cover; you decide how to split it. It changes what you pay each month and what the survivor would still owe: settle it before signature.
- Health, occupation, time outside France: say so at the first call. It sets the order of everything else. The health questionnaire goes to the insurer’s medical service, never through my hands. Declined or loaded elsewhere? One insurer’s answer is not every insurer’s.
Your documents
The full list is on the French pages, under the French names you will need at the bank and the notary’s office. Start with these three.
- Avis d’imposition — your tax assessment notice. The most recent ones are asked for.
- Livret de famille — a French family record book. A foreign marriage or birth certificate takes its place.
- Tableau d’amortissement — the repayment schedule of each loan you already repay (property, car, consumer), with its loan offer. Request it first, from the lender who granted it: nothing on the list delays more files.
Add the last three months of statements on every personal account, joint accounts included.
Your first call
No commitment, no charge. Have three things to hand: what you earn each month, what you already repay (the instalment and the term left to run), and the project: the price, the town and the money you can put in. You hang up with a first reading: does the project hold, what makes it hold, what to correct.
Lenders generally stop at 35 % of your income, insurance included in the instalment. Source: https://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/jorf/id/JORFTEXT000044178669. The capacity page sets that limit out by income and term; the rates page carries the dated monthly survey of the Observatoire Crédit Logement / CSA. Those are market averages, not offers, and no rate is guaranteed to anyone.
How much you can borrow (a table, in French) Current market rates (in French)
What it costs you
What you pay me
One fee, due when the lender releases the money, and not before. No arrangement fee, no search fee, no subscription. If the purchase does not go through, you owe me nothing.
The amount depends on the work your file requires. You have your figure on the first call, before you commit to anything; it is written into the mandate, signed before I approach a single lender, and it does not move. It is the sum to pay, not a base to which something else is later added.
- An information sheet, which you need not sign.
- The mandate, signed before anything starts: the project, the lenders, the duration and my fee (the amount, what it is calculated on, when it becomes payable). You approve the list of lenders before anything is sent.
- An advice sheet, once you have chosen, confirming the solution negotiated.
In France, no payment of any kind may be required of a private individual before the loan is obtained. That rule applies whoever you go through: if anyone asks you for money in advance, stop there.
What you pay to others
- The lender’s arrangement fee. Negotiable, and often the first thing a lender concedes.
- The guarantee. A mortgage charge or a guarantee company, depending on the lender and the project. Part of what a guarantee company takes can come back to you at the end of the loan; a mortgage charge leaves nothing to come back.
- Notary fees. Transfer duties, disbursements and scale charges, set by the property and the département, and markedly lower on a new build.
- The insurance premiums, paid to the insurer.
To compare two offers, read the TAEG: the all-in annual rate printed on the loan offer, with the required insurance, the guarantee and the arrangement fee. Compare the total cost, never the rate on its own.
Working in English
Call or write in English, and the work is done in English. This site and the lender’s documents stay in French (the offer, the schedules, the insurance conditions): I tell you what each one says, and which sentence matters, before you sign. Meetings at your home, by video or by telephone; the whole file can be handled at a distance.