Role of the service

Family law

Solicitors have always provided families with help on legal and fiscal matters relating to their patrimony: marriage contracts, donations, wills, joint ownership agreements, family partnerships, settling estates.

Property law

In a complex legal context, solicitors provide a safe way of transferring real estate property.
A transaction of this kind requires a deed to be drawn up to define the exact terms and conditions of the agreement between the vendor and the buyer and sets down their respective obligations.

 

Commercial law

This is a less common aspect of a solicitor's work, but one in which he provides a necessary expertise. With his overall view of the company manager's assets, he can suggest the most appropriate legal and fiscal solutions.

What the State expects from a solicitor:

  • Protecting the non-foreclosure principle for a company manager's home,
  • checking the legality of a European company

What the consumer expects from a solicitor:

  • That the authentication produces results: supporting value, legal force and certified date,
  • Protection of the non-foreclosure principle for his home.
  • Leases
  • Rental – Real estate management
  • Businesses
  • Trading and non-trading companies
  • Stock transfer
  • Leasing

Agricultural law

Property negotiations

Thinking of purchasing a property in France? A solicitor will be happy to help you. As a legal expert invested with public authority, he prepares contracts as certified deeds on behalf of his clients, to ensure the security of the transactions. As there are solicitors all over the country, they are able to provide a public legal service locally.

And in an ever-more complex and changing legal context, solicitors guarantee specific security to transfers of real estate properties by acting at all stages of the transaction.

Your solicitor can advise you

If you intend to buy a property, a solicitor can advise you on how to clarify and define your project. He will help you to examine the "best" way to buy in your particular family, marital or professional situation. He can also find the property, value it, choose the best means to finance it and help you in all the administrative procedures you have to accomplish. Present throughout the transaction, and governed by strong professional ethics, he will guarantee the safety of your transaction.

A solicitor can value property

He has a very full database of real estate property, added to voluntarily by all the solicitors in France. He has a sharp knowledge of the market and the usual prices. He can therefore determine the ‘right price of your property and start the sale in a reasonable period of time.

A solicitor can negotiate

Negotiating a property requires being able to value it precisely, it requires a thorough knowledge of property law and other legal aspects, and a knowledge of all the various taxes to be paid to the State in order to avoid any ‘nasty surprises‘.
Using the services of a solicitor is a guarantee of security, through his status as a public official under State control, and of efficiency through his thorough knowledge of the real estate market.

Your solicitor is your single contact

Your solicitor will take charge of the whole real estate project: from the signature of the preliminary contract to the final exchange of contracts, from the administrative formalities (prior declarations, lifting rights, etc.) to the choice of vendor, and including the calculation of the various taxes and the forms to be given to the various administrations.
The weight of a notorial deed is a safe and efficient means of action against any default on the part of the vendor.

A solicitor gives you legal security

In France, all sales take place through a solicitor. As a public service official, he will make sure that the contract is executed and, in addition to confidentiality, he provides all the necessary legal security. He will make sure all the documents are available thereby avoiding as far as possible any contestation at a later date.

For example, a solicitor can:

  • Look and ask for the identity of the contracting parties and their marital status,
  • Check the vendor's property deeds,
  • Lift the rights of pre-emption, check that the compulsory pre-sale surveys have been carried out before the final signature.

With his extensive knowledge of legal matters and of any modifications to legislation, he is the best legal guarantee at the time before the exchange of contracts. This will avoid any "nasty surprises" for you.
When the contract has been signed, it has to go through an official procedure ‘property registration‘. The legal situation of the property is listed in the mortgage registry. The aim is to conserve a record of the title deeds that exist for the building, and any mortgages that encumber the estate. Solicitors, as public officials, hold the monopoly for access to this file.

Finally, a solicitor ensures that the title deeds are conserved by storing them in his offices for 100 years. After this period, they are stored in the national archives, shortly in electronic format.