Notary costs: what you actually pay, and to whom

The French expression is misleading to the point of having become an international misunderstanding. What you pay the practice on signing day barely goes to the notary: most of it goes to the State and to local authorities. Understanding that split changes three things in how a purchase is prepared, and it stops you spending your negotiating energy in the wrong place.

Three very unequal masses

The single payment you make to the practice covers three kinds of sums, which the notary then passes on to whoever is owed them.

Transfer duties make up the great majority on older property. These are taxes levied for the department, the municipality and the State. The notary collects and remits them; none of it stays.

Disbursements come next, and they are small. These are sums advanced by the practice to third parties on the file’s behalf: the land publicity service, the land registry, the managing agent for the dated statement, sometimes a surveyor. They are re-billed to the euro, against receipts.

Fees close the list, and they alone pay for the practice’s work. They are set by decree, computed in price brackets with a rate that decreases as the price rises, and rigorously identical from one practice to another.

What the degressivity implies

The bracketed scale produces an effect many buyers find counter-intuitive: relative to the price, the notary’s share is markedly lower on a prestige property than on a studio, although the legal work is not proportionally less. Gathering the mortgage register extract, clearing the municipality’s pre-emption right and checking a foreign matrimonial regime take the same care whatever figure is written in.

The practical consequence fits in one sentence: comparing practices on price makes no sense, since they apply the same text. The useful question lies elsewhere, in the practice’s working language and its familiarity with international files. That is precisely why taking your own notary costs nothing more: when two notaries act, they share those same fees.

The one saving that holds up

It exists, and it is lawful, on one condition of honesty. Furniture sold with the property falls outside the base of transfer duties, provided it is inventoried and valued at what it is worth. A fitted kitchen, built-in storage, pool equipment or a converted cellar legitimately belong there.

The limit is as clear as the principle. The value taken must be that of a second-hand item in its real condition, not the figure that would suit the calculation. An overvaluation catches up with you at a check, and the penalties then exceed the saving sought. The inventory is prepared with the seller, item by item, and attached to the deed.

What to budget, and when

Three practical points close the subject.

These costs are paid in cash on the day of the deed, transferred to the practice’s account a few days earlier. They are almost never financed by the loan, and a non-resident file, where the expected deposit is already higher, takes that surprise badly.

They are higher on older property than on new, because the taxation of the transfer differs, not because the notary works harder.

Finally, ancillary deeds carry their own fees, also on a set scale: a notarised power of attorney, a will bearing on the French property, a declaration of applicable law. These are small sums, but they add up, and it is better to know them before discovering the final statement.

The statement of sums appears in the deed, and it is read line by line during the reading. That is the moment when a clerical error is corrected with a stroke of the pen; afterwards it takes a corrective deed and the other party’s agreement. The same vigilance applies to what the notary will ask about the source of your funds, which is prepared weeks ahead and not the night before.