Notorious Notaires

‘Notaires’ or Notaries handle all real estate deals. Even if you work with a real estate agent, you must go through a notary to finalize the sale. Notaries can represent the seller or they can represent the buyer. Notaries often have properties listed at their offices that they are charged with selling so that’s also a place you can go to look for real estate (if you are in the countryside, notaries may even post pictures of houses for sale in their waiting room).

I have heard from some people say that they had difficulties dealing with notaries. We have not had any problems, but it is probably better if you find a notary first and then start looking for your apartment. If you have developed a good rapport and you are one of ‘his or hers’, he or she will be watching out for you!

The owner can have ‘his or her’ notary too. They end up splitting the ‘processing fee’ which is what I’ll call it. It could be considered similar to our ‘doc’ stamps but much more expensive - it can be as much as 10 per cent. Make no mistake. This is not the notaire’s ‘commission’. This is L’Etat or the Government which ensures that it will get a good piece of the action on any real estate transaction.

The notaire only receives a small percentage of that fee and if there’s two of them, they have to split that small percentage. So don’t be surprised if ‘your notaire’ doesn’t get along swimmingly with the owner’s ‘notaire’. This is more like choosing seconds for dueling than the rapport between buyers and sellers real estate agents in the US who at least pretend to like one another.

So, don’t blame the notaire for the huge fee that you have to pay on top of the real estate agent’s fee. In fact, that is one of the reasons why few people want to bother with real estate agents. I got the feeling looking at real estate that the properties dumped in real estate agents’ laps tended to be ‘problem real estate’. If you feel comfortable dealing with people in French, going for the For Sale by Owners or dealing with a notaire will save you quite a bit of change.