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Situations: 24 guides
- A partner leaves, is expelled or dies: what are the shares worth?
- Appointing a property valuation expert in France: practical notes
- Compulsory purchase of my business premises: what compensation?
- Divorce in France: who keeps the house, how much is the buy-out?
- Divorce of a business owner: what are the business and shares worth?
- Drafting a market value expert remit for a partition in France
- French banks: mortgage lending value, prudent value or market value?
- French tax office challenges the value of the house I inherited
- French wealth tax (IFI): what value to declare for my house and SCI?
- How to challenge the court-appointed expert's report in France
- I paid too much for my French house: can I challenge the price?
- Inherited house in France: how to leave a family joint ownership?
- Inheriting a French house occupied by my brother: how is it valued?
- Lease renewal in France: my landlord wants to uncap the rent
- Matrimonial property liquidation in France: which valuation date?
- My landlord refuses to renew my lease in France: what compensation?
- My neighbour is building a block of flats: will my house lose value?
- Pre-emption by a public body in France: setting a defensible price
- Preparing a donation-partage in France: how do we value the lots?
- Producing a valuation in a French court: which format to choose?
- Selling a protected adult's home in France: the judge's authorisation
- Selling my business in France: what is it really worth?
- Selling my hotel in France: premises and business, at what value?
- Valuing SCI shares in a French inheritance or gift: the method
Insights: 250 articles
Inheritance, partition and divorce
- Property tax on occupied joint property: borne by all co-owners
- Matrimonial compensation: no extra award for acquisition costs
- Matrimonial compensation: separate funds proved by any means
- French estate partition: no discount for joint or split ownership
- Sole enjoyment in joint ownership: keeping the keys is enough
- Rental investment for savings: not a marriage expense in France
- Occupation indemnity after divorce: runs from appeal withdrawal
- Gift partition and reserved share: real value, not deed figures
- Reinvestment: early repayment penalty is not an acquisition cost
- Reduction: the fruits to return, less the donee's own work
- Gifted money bought a property: reduction bears on the property
- Compensation: community paid the equalising sum on bare ownership
- Compensation: separate property partly sold, the profit is shared
- Hidden gift of money used to buy a property: value at partition
- Loan for use of a home: no indirect advantage to bring back
- Participation in acquisitions: added value from work counts
- Partition for lesion: the claim for works is the added value
- Housed free by the usufructuary: an advantage to bring back
- Co-owner as tenant: a low rent is not an occupation indemnity
- Reduction indemnity: value at partition, not at the opening
- Reduction indemnity: without partition, valued at liquidation
- Reduction indemnity equals the excessive fraction of the gift
- Separation of property: paying for the home creates a claim
- Gift with a charge: rapport covers only the net benefit
- Gift with a care obligation: net benefit in the reserve estate
- Claim between spouses: only the creditor spouse's funds count
- Preferential allocation: renouncing while the partition is open
- Reduction of gifts: an asset sold after death is valued at death
- Joint shares sold alone after divorce: apparent price, real value
- Farmland sold to the tenant son: rapport is measured as let
- Court auction: only if division in kind is impossible
- Gift partition with undivided shares: it is a simple gift
- Disguised gift through a share sale: proving the impoverishment
- Notice to sell a jointly owned home: all co-owners, or nothing
- Farm held in bare ownership: allocation in bare ownership only
- Preferential allocation: the farm let to one's company stays let
- Land sold by a signed note between relatives: no just title
- Occupation indemnity: until partition or return of the property
- Partition fees: gross assets include the concealment claim
- Gift rapport: property given on again is valued at that date
- Joint ownership: a loan repaid by one owner and article 815-13
- The surviving spouse has a usufruct over bare-ownership assets
- Gift of money invested in a company: rapport at share value
- Matrimonial compensation: personal account funds presumed common
- Matrimonial compensation: no personal benefit, nothing owed
- Preferential allocation: the soulte is due only at partition
- French life annuity sale: the risk is judged on the day of sale
- Usufruct of SCI shares and French wealth tax: a possible discount
- Divorce in France: compensation for works on one spouse's house
- Divorce in France: home valued at partition, even if run down
- Inheritance in France: gifted land is valued as bare land
- Divorce in France: when to value the house, who pays the expert
Property sales and warranties
- Asbestos or termites missed: the surveyor owes the full loss
- Hidden defect: no double recovery of price refund and rebuilding
- Polluted, unbuildable land: a hidden defect, not non-conformity
- Fire-destroyed building not rebuildable on site: market value
- Sewer under the house: the condition clause excludes nothing
- Loan requested below the agreed rate: condition deemed fulfilled
- Hidden defect: the cost of works is judged before the price cut
- Hidden defect known to the seller: market value caps nothing
- Water main under the house: hidden easement, indemnity owed
- Hidden defect: a court appraisal suspends the two-year limit
- Public domain land sold: void sale, property tax compensated
- Flood plan approved between promise and deed: an update is due
- Hidden insulation defect: time runs from the expert's report
- Hidden defect: the damages claim also has two years
- Concealed foundation works: sale annulled, use to be paid for
- Sale annulled for noise: a lost capital gain must be certain
- Seller's fraud: claiming the excess price without annulment
- Hidden defect fixed by a third party: price reduction still open
- French social housing rent surcharge: ELAN Act and the 30% cap
- Rescission for lesion: a compulsory purchase award as evidence
- Rescission for lesion: buyer must opt within a reasonable time
- Occupier with no right to stay: indemnity owed until departure
- Wrong Carrez measurement: the surveyor can be liable to the buyer
- Cracks filled before the sale: the seller still owes the warranty
- Missing floor area: the architect must see the plans are followed
- Undervaluation by the estate agent: the value gap must be proved
- Incorrect energy certificate: lost chance to negotiate the price
- Non-compliant drainage in France: hidden defect and price refund
- Builders' liability in France: legal grounds and awards
- Prefer a quote to a flat-rate deduction: French pre-emption case
- Leaseback in France: can a Pierre & Vacances sale be cancelled?
- Reserve price in a French property foreclosure: how it is set
- Cancelling a French off-plan purchase for an overvalued price?
- Avoiding property foreclosure in France: what the judge expects
- Tax incentive property in France: check the real value first
- Damp wall after buying in France: does the price reflect it?
- Selling below value in France: the seller is deemed to know
- Cancelling a property sale in France for a price far too low?
Commercial rent
- Triennial rent review after renewal: base index at effective date
- French commercial rent review: the quarter counts from renewal
- Turnover rent: the judge sets the minimum if the lease says so
- French lease born of short-term leases: two years to set the rent
- Emphyteutic long lease: rent review cannot track rental value
- Commercial rent review in France: the floor clause is unlawful
- Single-use premises rent: no allowance for tenant improvements
- Uncapped rent smoothing: 10% a year, the parties set the schedule
- Rent uncapping: tenant's works and interest from the summons
- Rent uncapping: terrace on public land, local commercial factors
- Rent uncapping: a rent fixed by settlement is enough on its own
- Turnover rent: the judge looks for the parties' common intention
- Indexation clause unwritten: the refund ignores the indexation
- Commercial rent: an unlimited flat-rate rise is deemed unwritten
- Commercial lease: twelve years and one day, the rent is uncapped
- Rent paid in advance does not lower the renewal rental value
- New statutory duty on the landlord: a ground for rent uncapping
- Local commercial factors: a potential effect on trade is enough
- French commercial lease beyond twelve years: no rent smoothing
- Commercial rent uncapping in France: four ways out of the cap
- French commercial lease: can rent rise automatically each year?
- French commercial rent uncapping: tramway and changing customers
Eviction and occupation indemnity
- Replacement premises offered must exist when notice is served
- Occupation indemnity during site restoration: the lease rent
- Trade register entry must cover the activity actually carried on
- Withdrawing a renewal offer for cause: time runs from discovery
- Right to remain lost: a harm separate from eviction compensation
- Occupation indemnity: rental value applies, rent cap does not
- Relocated for less, the leasehold right lost still has a value
- Eviction compensation: the usufructuary pays, not the bare owner
- Eviction compensation: ancillary sums repaid without relocation
- Denial of lease status after option: until compensation is set
- Fire: works costing more than the premises, lease terminated
- Lease annulled, premises unfit for use: no occupation indemnity
- Tenant's right of first refusal: nullity and a two-year limit
- Tenant's right of first refusal: a grouped sale needs one owner
- Modified renewal offer: it is a refusal, compensation is due
- Tourist residence: the operator keeps its eviction compensation
- Premises sold to a family SCI: the tenant keeps first refusal
- Eviction compensation: once time-barred, the tenant has no title
- Lease over public land: void, but the use must be paid for
- Occupation indemnity: property tax passed to tenant lowers it
- Occupation indemnity: backdated to lease expiry after the option
- Eviction compensation in France: the tenant has two years to act
- Eviction compensation in France: landlord must prove a lower loss
- Eviction after pre-emption: the tenant is paid for its buildings
- Eviction compensation: a photo shop in a French shopping centre
- Decontamination costs and eviction compensation in France
Businesses, company shares and hotels
- SCI selling all its property: the dividend goes to the bare owner
- Article 1843-4 expert: refused visit is not for the summary judge
- Article 1843-4 expert: summary judge can order company accounts
- Surety and SCI shares: the value declared to the bank binds
- Partner withdrawal: a new 1843-4 expert after an annulled report
- Pharmacy sale price: the court cannot fix it
- Share price set by an expert: the agreed method is binding
- Share sale: EBITDA distorted by advance invoicing is seller fraud
- Article 1843-4 Civil Code: the expert may give two valuations
- SCI shares in a French inheritance: which discounts are accepted?
- How to value a hotel in France: 7 methods and a worked example
- Valuing SCI shares in France: methods and a worked example
- Top 10 hotel brands in France in 2026: chains and networks
- Six hotel management models in France and their effect on value
- Valuing old shop stock in France: six methods, a worked example
Compulsory purchase and urban pre-emption
- Pre-empted land resold: no lost added value for the seller
- Annulled compulsory purchase: lost added value when return fails
- Public-utility amicable sale: sub-tenant entitled to compensation
- Reserved land surrendered then resold buildable: lost gain owed
- Pre-emption in France: withdrawal not late while appeal pending
- Pre-emption in France: comparables under the same planning rules
- Lost added value after land surrender: the four-year time bar
- Subsoil compulsory purchase: the tunnel's extra cost is excluded
- Compulsory purchase: occupier under precarious permit compensated
- Expropriated building land: only permanent restrictions count
- Building land and pre-emption: the same reference date applies
- Expropriated red-zone land: a draft risk plan does not count
- Rehoused expropriated owner: allowance for rehousing only
- Compulsory purchase in a ZAC: utilities, pollution and remainder
- Irremediably insanitary building: bare land value applies
- Compulsory purchase: landlocked remaining garage is compensated
- Expropriated trader's relocation: no allowance for wear
- Reference date in a ZAC: the urban pre-emption rule prevails
- Right to require purchase in a ZAC ends once property is excluded
- Reference date: redrawing the zone boundary is not enough
- Reserved site: the public utility order sets the reference date
- Pre-emption zone: plan-amending public utility act sets no date
- Unauthorised buildings: discount despite time-barred demolition
- Amicable sale after a public utility declaration: still a sale
- Retrocession impossible: added value between two dates
- Catchment protection zone: time runs from the known restriction
- Compulsory purchase: comparables from public databases are enough
- Burnt then expropriated: the lost insurance payout is compensated
- Land reserve: no lost added value when the delay is justified
- Compulsory purchase: post-notice works held not speculative
- Expropriated co-ownership lot: common parts are in the m² price
- Compulsory purchase: completed works and cellars in the indemnity
- Compulsory purchase: a refused easement still leaves depreciation
- Compulsory purchase of a regulated business: proving relocation
- Compulsory purchase in a ZAC: who must prove the utilities?
- Compulsory purchase: the appeal court must rule on late documents
- Pre-emption price in France: run-down common parts count
- Pre-emption price: an inconsistent total, a distorted judgment
- Silent owner in compulsory purchase: award may exceed the offer
- Partial eviction of a business: separate trading loss compensated
- Compulsory purchase of an unlawful building: no compensation due
- Compulsory purchase: lost rental income can be claimed on appeal
- Partial compulsory purchase: classify the plot, not the strip
- Decontamination deducted but not done: owner may seek an expert
Farm leases and SAFER
- Outgoing French farm tenant: amortised cost, not added value
- Change of farm tenant: know-how can be a transferable asset
- Tenant farmer's estate: the farm business valued apart from land
- Renewed farm rent: the tenant's unauthorised buildings stay out
- Emphyteutic lease: buildings sold end with the lease
- Farm tenant pre-emption: the conditions are checked afterwards
- Swapping the use of farm plots does not create a farm lease
- Farm tenant pre-emption: an indivisible whole has one owner
- SAFER pre-emption: fifteen days run from the exact address
- Farm rent of an equestrian centre: the global clause is unlawful
- SAFER pre-emption: no notice, no time limit for the challenge
- SAFER pre-emption at a revised price: withdrawal before judgment
- SAFER pre-emption: stating the commissioners' consent is enough
Neighbours, easements and co-ownership
- Easements on polluted land: compensation follows the possible use
- Decontamination for a new use: the extra cost falls on the buyer
- Landlocked plot: thirty-year use sets the route despite division
- Landlocked plot after division: right of way on the divided land
- Subdivision: the green space given to the town can be sold
- Buildings without a permit in a natural zone: demolition ordered
- Sheep bells: a neighbourhood disturbance is judged on the spot
- Loss of view: the judge must look at the buildings already there
- Encroachment: demolition is due, and the strip of land has a price
- Right to build upwards: it belongs to the co-owners, at a price
- Landlocked land in France: one right-of-way indemnity per user
- Common parts sold for €1: the French co-owners had to act sooner
- Neighbourhood nuisance that has stopped: compensation still due
- Loss of view in a built-up area: the context must be examined
- New building next door: valuing the loss on your French house
- Loss of view in France: not automatically a neighbour nuisance
- Claiming loss of enjoyment and devaluation of a French home
- Valuing common parts of a French building, including a stairwell
Tax
- Wealth tax: the mansion co-owned by spouses gets no discount
- Inheritance: undervaluing is not, in itself, a deliberate breach
- Inheritance tax: a later resale does not fix the value at death
- French tax authority comparables: the plot size must be known
- French wealth tax: building land with environmental constraints
- SCI shares and French wealth tax: two 10 % discounts, not three
- Buying property in Luxembourg: is it still worth it? The figures
- French property tax incentives in 2025, mainland and overseas
- Disguised gift: French tax reassessment of a family sale
Valuation practice and methods
- Private expert report: its own annexes can corroborate it
- Private expert report: enough for an established, undisputed fact
- Contractual expert appraisal: the judge may rely on it alone
- French energy certificate reform 2026: impact on market value
- EVS 2025: how the new valuation standards affect French property
- Energy renovation in France: why savings fall short of forecasts
- Energy rating and property prices: correlation is not causation
- Lifetime mortgage in France: why the valuation is decisive
- Independence of a French court expert: assessed case by case
- What a French property valuation report must contain
- How to become a (credible) property valuation expert in France
- How to estimate average property prices in your French town
- French mortgage rates: how they move and what they do to values
Glossary: 85 terms
- Abatement of gifts (réduction des libéralités)
- Abnormal neighbourhood disturbance (trouble anormal de voisinage)
- Allowance (abattement)
- Article 1843-4 of the French Civil Code
- Bare ownership (nue-propriété)
- Business as a going concern (fonds de commerce)
- Business disruption (trouble commercial)
- Capitalisation rate (taux de capitalisation)
- Capped rent (loyer plafonné)
- Carrez floor area (surface Carrez)
- Commercial rents index (indice des loyers commerciaux, ILC)
- Comparable
- Comparison method (méthode par comparaison)
- Compensation between spouses (récompense)
- Compulsory purchase (expropriation)
- Court-appointed expert (expert judiciaire)
- Court-ordered sale of joint property (licitation)
- Critical review of a valuation report (seconde lecture)
- DCF (discounted cash flow)
- Declaration of public interest (déclaration d'utilité publique, DUP)
- Depreciated replacement cost (coût de remplacement déprécié)
- Desktop valuation (avis de valeur)
- Discount (décote)
- Discount for occupation (décote pour occupation)
- Discount rate (taux d'actualisation)
- Disposable portion (quotité disponible)
- Division of ownership (démembrement de propriété)
- Equalising payment (soulte)
- Eviction compensation (indemnité d'éviction)
- Expropriation judge (juge de l'expropriation)
- Fair value (juste valeur)
- Forced heirship share (réserve héréditaire)
- French commercial lease (bail commercial)
- Government commissioner (commissaire du gouvernement)
- Green value (valeur verte)
- Habitable floor area (surface habitable)
- Hidden defect (vice caché)
- Hotchpot of gifts (rapport des donations)
- Illiquidity discount (décote d'illiquidité)
- Income method (méthode par le revenu)
- Indexation clause (clause d'échelle mobile)
- Investment value (valeur d'investissement)
- Joint ownership (indivision)
- Joint private valuation (expertise amiable conjointe)
- Key money (pas-de-porte)
- Land value for development (charge foncière)
- Leasehold right (droit au bail)
- Lesion (lésion)
- Litigation support (assistance à expertise)
- Local commercial factors (facteurs locaux de commercialité)
- Loss of enjoyment (perte de jouissance)
- Loss of value (moins-value)
- Loss of value of the retained land (dépréciation du surplus)
- Market value (valeur vénale)
- Material change (modification notable)
- Minority discount (décote de minorité)
- Mortgage lending value (valeur hypothécaire)
- Occupation indemnity (indemnité d'occupation)
- Preferential allocation (attribution préférentielle)
- Preliminary report (pré-rapport)
- Principal compensation (indemnité principale)
- Property loss (préjudice immobilier)
- Property valuation report (expertise en évaluation immobilière)
- Prudent value (valeur prudente)
- Rebuilding cost (valeur de reconstruction)
- Reference date (date de référence)
- Reinvestment allowance (indemnité de remploi)
- Relocation compensation (indemnité de transfert)
- Renewal rental value (valeur locative de renouvellement)
- Rent smoothing (lissage)
- Rent uncapping (déplafonnement)
- Rental value (valeur locative)
- Replacement compensation (indemnité de remplacement)
- Residual method (bilan promoteur)
- Restated net asset value (actif net réévalué)
- Right of option (droit d'option)
- Right of pre-emption (droit de préemption)
- SCI shares (parts de SCI)
- Specialist assisting the expert (sapiteur)
- Third-party valuer (tiers évaluateur)
- Usufruct (usufruit)
- Valuation date (date de valeur)
- Weighted floor area (surface pondérée)
- Written observations to the expert (dire)
- Yield (taux de rendement)