The search mandate: what it contains and what it commits you to pay

A foreign buyer rarely signs a search mandate having read the decree that sets out its contents. Yet it is the only document that says what the professional owes you, what you owe them, and from when. This page details what it contains, alongside our reference page on a guided property search.

What the decree requires the document to carry

Searching for property on behalf of a buyer falls under the Act of 2 January 1970 and its implementing decree of 20 July 1972. A written mandate is not good practice: it is a condition of validity. A verbal mandate is void, and that nullity deprives the professional of any fee, even where the search succeeded.

The document must carry a number of particulars, and their absence can be spotted in thirty seconds:

• the full identity of the principal and the agent, with the professional licence number and the name of the chamber of commerce that issued it;
• the registration number of the mandate in the register of mandates kept by the professional, in chronological order;
• the object of the search, meaning the geographical scope, the type of property, the floor space and the maximum budget;
• the term, which must be fixed, and the conditions for its renewal;
• the amount of the fee, the basis on which it is calculated and the party who bears it;
• the agent’s financial guarantee and professional indemnity insurance.

The register number is the most revealing. A mandate without a number is a mandate that was never entered, so a mandate the professional will not be able to rely on. Ask for it before signing, not after.

Scope matters more than term

The term negotiates easily: three months renewable suits most searches, six months are justified in a tight market or for a rare property. Scope, by contrast, cannot be renegotiated once signed, and it is scope that triggers the fee or not.

A broadly drafted scope protects the professional: “a flat in Paris” means any Parisian acquisition falls within the reach, including the one you would have found through a friend. A precisely drafted scope protects you: “a three-room flat, at least 65 square metres Carrez, in the 5th, 6th and 7th arrondissements, budget 1.2 million euros before costs” circumscribes exactly what you asked for.

Good drafting is neither one nor the other: it is the wording that describes your real project, with its margins acknowledged. A scope drawn too tight will make you miss the property that suited you by five square metres, and nobody gains from that.

When the fee becomes payable, and not before

Section 6 of the Hoguet Act is the provision foreign buyers know least and that protects them most. The professional may receive no sum, in any form whatsoever, before the transaction is actually concluded and recorded in a single written instrument containing the parties’ commitment. No search deposit, no file fee, no advance on viewings.

Case law has drawn a consistent consequence from it: the fee is due only if the agent’s involvement actually caused the acquisition. The professional must therefore be able to prove they introduced the property to you, and that is the sole purpose of the viewing slip, the paper one signs absent-mindedly at the end of a viewing. It does not commit you to buy: it dates and proves the introduction.

In practice the fee is settled on the day of the notarised deed, often directly by the notary out of the acquisition funds, which has the advantage of placing it inside the financing plan rather than leaving it outside. It comes on top of the notary fees and transfer duties, and it is that total which has to be budgeted for.

The fourteen-day withdrawal right almost nobody invokes

A buyer living abroad signs their mandate electronically, after one or more remote exchanges. That mandate is then a distance contract within the meaning of the Consumer Code, and article L221-18 gives a non-professional client fourteen days to withdraw from signature, without reason or cost.

Two points matter. The professional must give you, with the mandate, a standard withdrawal form; if they have not, the period goes from fourteen days to twelve months and fourteen days. And if you want the search to start immediately, you may ask for early performance: you keep your withdrawal right, but the professional may charge you pro rata for the service already rendered.

This right is not there to let you change your mind for nothing. It is there to let you reread in the cold light of day, once the enthusiasm of a first exchange has passed, a scope and a survival clause you skimmed too fast.

Before signing, three ten-minute checks

The professional licence can be verified: it carries a number, an expiry date and the wording covering property transactions. The financial guarantee can be verified too, through the name of the guaranteeing body, and it only has meaning where the professional holds funds, which is not the case for a buying agent who never handles the money of the transaction. Professional indemnity insurance, finally, is what answers if mistaken advice causes you loss.

These three checks take ten minutes and close the door on the unregistered intermediary, who exists and who works mostly with foreign buyers, precisely because they do not know the framework. They are usefully completed by reading what a buying agent does and what an estate agent does, the two mandates not being given by the same person.

Once the mandate is signed the path is marked out: the search, then the offer, then the preliminary contract and its deadlines, and finally the signature, which does not require your presence in France.

You are preparing a French acquisition from abroad and want a mandate read through before committing: the personal study offered by French Realty frames your project, with your dedicated contact, before any introduction to a partner buying agent.