How to Sell Your Property?

Many reasons can lead an expatriate to decide to part with their apartment or house: need for funds, inheritance, desire to invest in their host country, excessive costs, etc. Selling your property is a serious project. If it is located in France, far from your country of residence, it can be complex. Fortunately, there are solutions, thanks to the growing digitization of procedures and effective online services offered by new-generation real estate agencies.

Legal and Feasible

Before going further, it is important to remember: selling your real estate in France while residing abroad and without moving is entirely legal.

Nevertheless, in France, the administration plays a significant role in real estate transactions.

Fortunately, today there are many solutions to manage this peaceful operation from a distance. To name just a few, power of attorney and electronic signatures have already allowed for the digitization and facilitation of real estate transactions, bridging the distance between you, the buyer, and the notary. The Digital Republic law adopted last fall should allow for the gradual continuation of this process (1).

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As we have seen, selling remotely is both legal and technically feasible.

However, there remains an impractical human factor. The administrative organization of all procedures remains a heavy burden for the owner, who is also at a distance. And this is not the most pleasant part. Because in a real estate transaction, it is about being extremely meticulous to leave no room for uncertainty. For this reason, it is recommended that those who lack time and understand the paperwork turn to the services of sales professionals.

Using a real estate agency to sell your properties allows you to free yourself from all the burdensome aspects of the sale. Nevertheless, this service represents a significant cost for owners. Indeed, a real estate agency charges a percentage of the sale price of the property. On average, this percentage represents 4.81% (2) of the sale price. For a property sold for €500,000, the owner will have to pay an agency fee of €24,350. To reduce these costs, there are commission-free real estate agencies that offer to handle the entire sale of a property at a much lower fixed rate.

The significant advantage for owners who wish to sell their property while being at a distance is, in addition to a much lower rate, that these commission-free agencies offer a much more digitized service than traditional agencies. They allow owners to electronically sign all sale documents and track all steps of the sale of their apartment or house directly from their online space. They stay informed as soon as a visit has taken place, if the buyer is interested, and if they have made an offer.

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To sell your property while being at a distance, you must start by requesting a real estate agency to come and assess your property. However, it is important not to stop at a more convenient but less reliable online property evaluation. The expert must be able to analyze the specifics of the property for sale and the common areas if it is located in a co-ownership.

Once the sale price is set, you can sign a sales mandate electronically, if the agency offers it. They will manage the buyer visits for you. They will present you with the various purchase offers, negotiate with buyers, and for some real estate agencies, manage the administrative procedures with the notaries.

To finalize the sale of real estate, the owner and the buyer must sign two legal documents. The first is a preliminary contract that allows you to define all the conditions of the transaction. Called a promise of sale or compromise of sale, it triggers the buyer’s 10-day withdrawal period. The final document that an owner must sign with the buyer is the authentic deed or final sale deed. It is at the end of this signature that the keys to the property are handed over to the buyer and the funds are transferred to the owner. If the owner is at a distance, they can give a delegation of signature or power of attorney to their notary or real estate agency to sign on their behalf the compromise or promise and the authentic deed.