Property watch

What is meant by keeping watch over a property, and what does it cover?

A regular, documented presence at a property its owner does not occupy. It is neither letting management, which supposes a tenant and a regulated mandate, nor guarding, which belongs to private security. It is the simplest and most often missing function: somebody goes in, looks, writes down what they saw, and sends it to you.

The distinction is not theoretical: it decides who may act in your name. A visit and a report require no professional licence; collecting rent, signing a lease or filing a claim in your place require one, or a written power of attorney. That is the line French Realty never crosses.

How does a watch run, from setup to report?

In three stages, the first of which matters more than the other two combined: the setup. That is where access, the checklist and the person to reach in case of an anomaly are decided. A poorly framed watch produces reassuring reports about a property that is deteriorating.

1. Setup: handover of keys and codes, list of points to check, contacts for the managing agent, the insurer and a trusted tradesperson, and the threshold above which you are called rather than written to.
2. The periodic visit: a tour of the property along the list, meter readings, opening of flagged mail, dated photographs of every room and every sensitive point.
3. The report: sent within a few days, it states what is fine, what has changed since the previous visit and what calls for a decision from you, with the photographs to back it up.

The alert threshold is the most useful decision of the setup, and the most often forgotten. Without it, everything comes back in writing in the same tone, and a water leak reads between two lines about the mail. Set down in writing what justifies an immediate call, whatever the hour where you are.

What exactly does a mandate of representation cover?

A mandate is defined by article 1984 of the Civil Code: the act by which one person gives another the power to do something for them and in their name. Article 1985 adds that it may be given by notarised deed or in writing privately, even by a simple letter, and that acceptance may be tacit. In other words a mandate is easy to give, and that is precisely why it should be carefully drafted.

The distinction that governs everything appears in articles 1987 and 1988: a mandate is special for a given matter, or general for all the principal's affairs, and a mandate drafted in general terms covers acts of administration only. Letting a plumber in, taking delivery of a parcel, attending a meeting, reading a meter are acts of administration. Selling, mortgaging, renouncing a right, settling a dispute are acts of disposal, and they require an express power that names them.

The mandatary answers for their management: article 1991 of the Civil Code obliges them to carry out the mandate as long as they hold it, and article 1992 makes them liable for their faults, assessed less strictly where the mandate is unpaid. This is one of the reasons why entrusting lasting representation to a relative is not the same as entrusting it to an insured provider.

What does a watch cost, set against what its absence costs?

The question is never framed that way, which is why it is badly settled. A watch compares not against zero but against the cost of an incident not seen in time, and that comparison is lopsided: the watch's outlays are small, regular and visible; those of its absence are rare, brutal and invisible until the day they land.

One item escapes that reasoning and deserves to be known: service charges, property tax and, in certain municipalities, the tax on vacant homes keep running on an empty property. They do not depend on the watch, but they weigh in the only decision that really counts, hold or let.

Which deadlines are lost when nobody is on site, claims included?

This is the real cost of absence, and it does not show immediately. The deadlines below run whether the owner is informed or not, and none can be recovered once expired.

The delivery rule is the harshest and the least known: article L133-3 of the Commercial Code extinguishes any claim against the carrier if, within three non-holiday days of receipt, the consignee has not notified a reasoned protest. A note reading "subject to unpacking" on the delivery slip does not amount to a reasoned protest. The damage has to be described, and someone has to see it.

The deadlines are short, they run from becoming aware of the loss, and that is exactly where distance costs: an owner who discovers a leak three weeks after the event has already lost their deadline on a loss a monthly visit would have revealed.

A second mechanism applies in co-ownerships and blocks of flats: the convention between insurers covering water damage and fire designates a single insurer to handle the file and appoint the loss adjuster where the damage stays below 5,000 euros excluding tax per damaged unit. This speeds things up, but assumes a declaration was made in time and a joint statement signed with the neighbour concerned, which takes someone on site.

What does living abroad change about keeping watch over a property?

Three things, and none of them is a matter of distance in kilometres. The time difference, which turns an urgent call into tomorrow's message. The language, in which the letters that matter arrive. And the fact that no act can be taken in your name without a prior written authority, which is prepared while all is well and never in an emergency.

A power of attorney takes a few lines to draft and costs nothing, but it must exist before the incident: no tradesperson will enter on the strength of a message, and no insurer will register a claim made by somebody without standing. It is the document everyone postpones and which is always missing on the day it would serve.

What must a visit report contain to be useful?

A useful report is not judged by the number of photos but by what it lets you do without calling anyone back: decide, declare, order. Three qualities set it apart from a simple batch of images.

• Time-stamping and consistent framing: the same views, in the same order, at each visit, so that comparing one visit to the next makes slow changes visible, a stain that widens, a crack that opens.
• Meter readings and settings: water, electricity and gas indexes, temperature recorded, position of the water heater and valves, state of shutters and alarms.
• Separation between observation and interpretation: what was seen on one side, what is proposed on the other, with an order of priority and an estimated timescale, so the owner decides knowingly.
• A record of communal areas and surroundings: the stairwell, the roof from the courtyard, the bin store, the fence, which flag a building problem before it reaches your door.

This report has a second life, often overlooked: it is evidence. Before an insurer, a managing agent, an outgoing tenant or a buyer, a series of time-stamped observations beats a recollection, and it cannot be reconstructed after the fact.

Is an absent owner liable for damage caused by their property?

Yes, and absence softens nothing. Article 1242 paragraph 1 of the Civil Code establishes liability for things in one's keeping: the owner answers for damage caused by their property, independently of any fault. A pipe that gives way and floods the flat below, a tile that falls on a car, a tree that comes down on a neighbour's fence all engage their liability, whether they are in Paris or Singapore.

Added to this are maintenance obligations whose neglect turns against the owner in the event of a loss: annual sweeping of flues, imposed by the departmental health regulations, annual boiler servicing, and the fitting of a standard smoke detector, provided for by article R142-6 of the Construction and Housing Code. A fire in a home whose boiler has not been serviced for four years is hard to argue before the loss adjuster.

In a co-ownership, a further obligation falls on the absent co-owner: contributing to charges, but also allowing access to private areas where voted works require it. A managing agent unable to get in for a leak search or a riser replacement starts proceedings, and the costs follow.

What does your insurance say when the home stays unoccupied?

This is the first thing to check, and almost nobody does before a claim. Most household policies carry a vacancy clause: beyond a continuous period of absence set in the contract, often thirty, sixty or ninety days, certain cover is reduced, capped or suspended. Theft and vandalism come first, water damage close behind.

That clause is not the only constraint. Article L113-2 of the Insurance Code requires the policyholder to declare, within fifteen days of becoming aware of them, new circumstances that increase the risk or create a new one. Moving abroad and leaving a home unoccupied for most of the year falls into that category. The sanction is not theoretical: article L113-9 lets the insurer reduce the indemnity in proportion to the premium it would have charged had it known, and article L113-8 goes as far as voiding the policy in cases of bad faith.

A documented regular visit is the simplest argument to put to an insurer: it interrupts continuous vacancy within the meaning of many policies, and it leaves a time-stamped record of the property's condition before the claim. Have your insurer confirm in writing the frequency they expect, it varies from policy to policy.

How often should you visit, and what must be done before winter?

There is no statutory frequency: the right one is what your insurance policy expects, crossed with the property's real exposure. A fourth-floor flat in a Paris building with a concierge does not call for the same rhythm as an isolated house in Provence with a pool and garden.

Frost is the most predictable and costliest loss in an unoccupied home, and also the only one an hour of preparation almost entirely removes. Water freezing in a pipe expands and bursts it; on thawing, it runs for days in a home nobody enters.

1. Shut off the main water supply at the meter, then open every tap to empty the risers, including shower mixers left in the middle position.
2. Drain the low points: washing machine, dishwasher, garden tap, boiler inlet, and empty the outdoor network where it is not buried below the frost line.
3. Leave the heating on frost protection rather than switching it off: holding eight degrees protects the pipework and, above all, the relative humidity of the walls.
4. Pour a little water with a trap product into every drain and the toilets: a trap that dries out lets smells and pests come back up.
5. Close the shutters on the prevailing wind side, check gutters and inspection chambers, clear leaves holding water on the terrace.
6. Tell the insurer, the managing agent and the immediate neighbours about the period of absence, and leave a contactable person on site.

Is an unoccupied home taxed differently?

Yes, and the distinction that governs everything is not the one people expect. It is not the owner's presence that counts, it is the state of the home: furnished and ready to live in, it remains a second home; empty of furniture and unoccupied, it becomes vacant in the tax sense, and the regime changes entirely.

A filing obligation has applied since 2023 and many non-resident owners are unaware of it: every owner declares the occupancy status of their residential premises in their online tax account, and updates that declaration on every change. It is what determines which tax you are sent, and a missing or outdated declaration regularly produces an incorrect assessment that then has to be challenged. Property tax, for its part, remains payable in every case by the owner as at 1 January.

Can a neighbour be enough, and is letting better than leaving it empty?

For collecting post and letting a tradesperson in, often yes, and nothing forbids it. For keeping watch over a property across several years, three limits appear, and they always reveal themselves at the wrong moment.

The first is liability. A relative who leaves a window open, turns off the wrong valve or lets the wrong person in is covered by no professional insurance, and the matter turns into a family or neighbourly conflict. The second is evidence: a message saying all is well is worth nothing before a loss adjuster, where a time-stamped photographic record counts as an observation. The third is duration: a favour tires, and it tires silently, without warning, often after the sixth or seventh visit.

The combination that works best keeps the neighbour for the immediate emergency, because they are thirty seconds away, and entrusts regular watch to an insured provider who produces a record. The two are not mutually exclusive, they simply do not play the same role.

The question arises as soon as the vacant dwellings tax comes into play, but the answer is not only a tax one. Letting removes vacancy, keeps the services running and funds maintenance; letting also adds a regulatory framework, obligations and one more counterpart.

In short-term letting, two rules dominate. In municipalities that have introduced it, letting residential premises to transient guests falls under the change of use regime of articles L631-7 and L631-7-1 of the Construction and Housing Code, with prior authorisation and, often, compensation. And where the home is the landlord's principal residence, letting is capped at one hundred and twenty days a year, a cap the Act of 19 November 2024 allows municipalities to lower to ninety days. A registration number is required in municipalities that have set up prior declaration.

Long-term letting brings fewer constraints on use but more landlord obligations, and it comes with its own tax regime depending on whether the property is let unfurnished or furnished. That choice, its tax and its accounting are covered on our page devoted to furnished letting; watch over the property remains necessary in both cases, between tenants, before and after every inventory of condition.

Which mistakes cost the most on a property left empty?

They all take the same shape: a cost-saving decision taken on a day when nothing was happening, whose bill lands months later. None is negligence, all are a misreading of risk.

The sixth mistake is the most frequent and the quietest: spacing out visits because the previous ones revealed nothing. The opposite reading is the right one. A run of reports with no anomaly does not say the risk has dropped, it says the watch is working.

What does French Realty do on keeping watch over your property, and what does it not do?

The inspection visit is one of the services French Realty performs itself, rather than by introduction: someone attends, checks general condition, security and equipment, notes any issues and files a time-stamped photo report in your space. The service is individually quoted, by the time actually spent, and its rhythm is set with you according to your insurance policy and the property's exposure.

Around that visit, the same contact takes on whatever the findings call for: attendance for an intervention, coordination of a repair, recording and following a claim with the insurer and the managing agent, seasonal opening and closing, meter readings. Whatever falls under a regulated activity, rental management, transactions, loss adjusting, legal or tax advice, is carried by a partner holding the corresponding qualification, and French Realty coordinates.