Acquisition costs, incorrectly referred to as "notaire's fees", are added to the purchase price of property, and are essentially made up of taxes paid to the State. In principle, they are paid by the purchaser, but neither the vendor nor the notary pays most of them.
The costs of buying a property include the notary's fees, disbursements and transfer duties. Transfer taxes (or registration fees) make up the bulk of these costs. Property purchase costs represent around 7 to 8 % of the purchase price in older homes, compared with around 2 to 3 % in new homes. The amount of these costs depends on the type of property, the sale of fixtures and fittings and the location of the property.
They are linked to the acquisition of the property and paid to the Treasury. Depending on the case, they are paid to the State or to local authorities. Calculated according to the value of the property, the amounts vary according to its geographical location. Transfer taxes are made up of the local tax, the departmental tax and the tax collected for the State.
With regard to transfers for valuable consideration of real estate governed by article 683 of the French General Tax Code (CGI), article 77 of the 2014 Finance Act (loi n°2013-1278) allowed, on a transitional basis, the departmental councils to levy the land registration tax (taxe de publicité foncière or droits d' enregistrement) provided for in article 1594 D of the CGI in excess of 3.80 % and up to a limit of 4.50 % for deeds and agreements concluded between 1/03/2014 and 29/02/2016. This option was made permanent by Article 116 of French Finance Act no. 2014-1654 for 2015. To date, only Indre, Isère, Morbihan, Martinique and Mayotte have not made use of this option.
These are amounts paid by the notary on behalf of his client. These fees and disbursements are used to pay the various parties responsible for producing the documents required for the change of ownership (registrar of mortgages, registration of mortgage guarantees, costs of publishing the sale, town planning documents, extracts from the land register, surveyor, managing agent, etc.). Certain exceptional costs incurred at the client's request, such as travel expenses, should also be taken into account.
SOURCE : www.notaires.fr
