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PROPERTY

Renting furnished accommodation in France: What should your landlord provide?

Renting a furnished place in France can be a good, low-stress option, but it's important to make sure you get what you're paying for. From a quilt to a vacuum cleaner, here is what your landlord must provide.

Published: 6 September 2021 12:08 CEST
Renting furnished accommodation in France: What should your landlord provide?
Furnished rental properties in France must include a table and chairs. Photo: Ludovic MARIN / AFP.

Furnished rentals are less common in France than many other countries and generally cover the cheaper end of the market – studios, one-bedroom apartments and house-shares.

If you are a landlord, whether your property is furnished or not makes a difference to the type of rentals you are allowed to offer.

So, what is a furnished property, anyway?

Furniture and equipment

When you rent furnished accommodation in France, you will of course expect, well, furniture. But while some properties you visit will have everything you could ever dream of needing, all ready for you to move in, others will leave you counting the costs of everything you’ll have to buy.

READ ALSO A beginner’s guide to renting property in France

Fortunately, a 2015 government decree defines the things a landlord must provide in order for a property to be considered furnished. These are:

  • Bedding, including a quilt or bed cover
  • Shutters or curtains in the bedrooms
  • Hotplates, an oven or microwave, a refrigerator, freezer or a freezer compartment in the refrigerator which has a maximum temperature of 6C, a sufficient number of dishes for residents to be able to eat, and kitchen utensils. It’s common for kitchens in France (even for furnished apartments, especially in large cities) to be rented without an oven, but if there is not at least a microwave oven then the property cannot be considered furnished
  • A table and seating
  • Shelves and storage space
  • Lights
  • Cleaning equipment – this will depend on the type of housing in question. Landlords must provide a vacuum cleaner for carpeted rooms, or a broom and mop if the accommodation is tiled

If these elements are not provided, a judge has the right to amend a tenant’s lease to specify that the property is unfurnished.

Basic requirements

Beyond the furniture, the property itself must also meet a certain number of minimum requirements.

It should have at least one main room with a minimum livable surface area of 9 square metres and a ceiling height of at least 2.2 metres, or alternatively a total livable space of 20 cubic metres.

The accommodation should not present a risk to the tenant’s health or security. That means doors and windows must be watertight, and any windows’ guardrails should be in good condition. Electricity and gas should be up to modern safety standards, and the main rooms must have sufficient natural light and ventilation.

Landlords must also ensure that there are no pests such as rats, bedbugs or cockroaches.

The property must achieve a minimum level of energy performance, and doors and windows must not let in too much outside air.

The accommodation must also be fitted with the following: a supply of drinking water, heating, wastewater drainage, a kitchen or kitchen area, toilets which are separated from the kitchen, and an electrical system allowing for sufficient lighting of all rooms and the use of household appliances which are necessary for daily life.

For tenants in both furnished and unfurnished properties, the landlord is required to keep the property in a ‘habitable condition’, which means that major or urgent repairs are the responsibility of the landlord. More minor problems re generally the responsibility of the tenant, although it’s best to check your contract for full details. 

Contracts and rental

Tenants of both furnished and unfurnished properties have rights over their rental agreements, while landlords are limited on how much their can hike the rent.

Generally, leases for furnished properties in France run for one year (although they can be extended) and for unfurnished properties three years if the owner is an individual and six years if it’s a real estate company, developer or other professional body. There are also some nine-month lease contracts available for students in France.

The initial time period of the lease agreement will determine the length of the renewal. 

If the initial lease has a rent review clause, the landlord could increase your rent, but the hike can’t exceed the amount set by France’s benchmark rent index (IRL) as published in France’s national statistics body INSEE every year.

To find out if your landlord is trying it on, use the following formula to calculate what the rent hike should be:

(Current rent [including fixed charges] x new IRL effective on the date of increase) / IRL on the date the lease was signed or the previous increase date = indexed rent

Paris and Lille have also implemented their own rent control measures, with more cities set to follow suit.

And even if you stop paying rent altogether, your landlord cannot evict you in the winter, thanks to the trève hivernale.

For more information about your rights as a tenant in France, click HERE.

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PROPERTY

French property: What is buying ‘en tontine’?

If you're buying property in France, you might be thinking about buying 'en tontine' - this has advantages especially when it comes to France's strict inheritance laws, but can also have tax implications.

Published: 25 March 2024 11:17 CET
French property: What is buying 'en tontine'?

What is it?

The ‘clause de tontine’ sometimes also known as a ‘clause d’accroissement’ is a clause that is inserted into the property deeds when you are buying a house or apartment.

It can only be inserted during the purchase, and cannot be added later.

It’s basically a ‘group purchase’. It’s most commonly used by unmarried couples who are buying together but it can be used by larger groups too – for example a group of friends buying a holiday home together.

You will have to ask a notaire to draw up the tontine clause during the property purchase and it can only be used if 

  • the parties are equally involved in the financing of the purchase
  • the parties involved have a roughly equal life expectancy (for this reason tontine clauses may be rejected if there is a significant difference in age between the purchasers)

What’s the point of it?

The main reason that people use it is to sidestep France’s strict inheritance laws, which assign that a certain portion of every estate must go to children, at the expense of a partner. 

READ ALSO How France’s strict inheritance laws work

For this reason it is particularly used by couples who have children from previous relationships.

On a property with a tontine clause in effect, when one owner dies their share of the property passes in its entirely to the other member/members of the tontine.

This cuts out children from inheritance, but means that a surviving partner is not evicted from their home in favour of the children of the deceased. 

It also has the advantage of making the intentions of the deceased clear, to avoid arguments among heirs after their death.

It should be noted, however, that the tontine clause only takes in the property that it covers – other assets may be subject to French inheritance law so it’s therefore probably wise to arrange a will, to ensure your wishes for your estate are met.

The surviving party can ask a notaire to update the property deeds to show that they are the sole owner, if they want. Be aware there will be a fee, which could reach four figures for the privilege – and it doesn’t actually involve any change to the property title.

Drawbacks

The advantages of the system are clear, especially for blended families, but there are some potential drawbacks too, which mean that anyone considering buying in this way would be well advised to take proper legal advice before they start.

Inheritance tax – while a tontine will help you to avoid restrictions on inheritance, it does not exempt you from inheritance tax. French inheritance tax is structured according to your relationship to the deceased, and people who are neither married nor related to the deceased pay an eye-watering inheritance tax rate of 60 percent.

The only exception to this top rate of inheritance tax is if the property is your main residence and it is valued at under €76,000 – in that case, tax is paid at a rate of 5.8 percent.

Married couples and family members pay a much lower rate or not tax, but if you’re not married to your tontine co-purchaser, be careful that you’re not lining yourself up for a massive tax bill in future years.

Wealth tax – depending on the value of the property, it could tip you over into the ‘wealth tax’ category when you inherit. France’s wealth tax is a real estate based tax and is levied on anyone who has real estate assets (property and land) worth €1.3 million or more.

The calculation includes property held en tontine.

Tax savings – you might hear tontines being advised as a way to limit your French tax liability.

While this used to be true, changes to tax laws means there are no no significant tax advantages to buying this way – the same is true for buying a property via an SCI, which used to represent a tax saving until the law was tightened up.

Disinheriting family members – One side effect of the tontine clause on mixed families is to effectively disinherit any children of the first person to die.

Because the property passed to the survivor, under French law, only their direct descendants – rather than any family by marriage – are entitled to automatic inheritance.

That means that the children of the surviving partner will be entitled to the statutory share of the entire asset (between 25 and 30 percent depending on the number of children), but the children of the first person to die will be entitled to nothing. Obviously you can choose to leave them something in your will, but you can only leave them some or all of the estate which is not automatically given to the children on the survivor.

Divorce/dispute – if the members of the tontine split up or (in the case of friends) fall out, then they can either sell the whole property or agree to buy each other out.

However, if one party refuses to sell, then you have very limited legal options – unlike a standard property purchase a tontine is not regarded as joint ownership, so one partner cannot be forced to sell as part of a divorce procedings, for example.

Basically the tontine can only be ended or changed with the agreement of all parties – so if you can’t agree between yourselves then you may be stuck with it.

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