Of course, finding and renting a long-term rental in Paris can be challenging if you don’t speak French and if you don’t know the specific French laws about furnished apartments. Once you’ve found your Paris apartment, or once your real estate agency has found you the perfect gem, the following details below should provide better understanding and footing when negotiating a apartment rentals in Paris, on your own or with a bilingual real estate agency.
Short-term apartment rentals : Renting a furnished apartment for less than 90 days is called “location saisonniere”, which requires a signed short-term lease agreement between landlord and tenant. It’s a flexible lease, one that ends naturally on the end date written on the contract, and requires no special notice should you need to vacate the rental earlier. However, with a short-term rental, the total rent is due up front (meaning on your arrival day and at the beginning of each month) and no refund is provided if you shorten your stay. If you need further flexibility on the lease end-date, the best is to purchase “lease cancellation insurance”. Those cancellation insurance or more often provided for weekly stay. You can find such companies in your own country or in France, they reimbursed you (under conditions).
Long-term apartment rentals : Renting a furnished apartment for more than 90 days up to one year, is called a “location meublée” (furnished long-term rental). The terms for renting these are not the same as a location saisonniere. The lease terms depend on the following question: is this Parisian rental your primary home/address or your secondary home (holiday home)?
If this rental is considered your secondary home, the lease can be arranged from as short as 3 months or as long as one year. The tenant must give three (3) months notice in case of early termination of the contract. The notice can be reduced to one (1) month only in the case of special circumstances (e.g. end of your work contract, or relocation elsewhere, for example).
If this rental will be your primary home/address, a recently-passed French law (from 2005) requires that you sign a lease for one (1) year (with an implied new lease at the end of the year). For students, the requirement is a nine (9) month lease.
Tenants must give one (1) month notice if vacating the property before the end-date on the lease.
If the landlord needs his property, he/she must notify the tenant at least three (3) months before termination.
Before 2005, landlords could terminate the lease at will; now they are required to justify the lease termination and is granted the right under special circumstances -- a family member needs the property, the owner wants to sell it, or the tenant didn’t respect the signed terms and conditions (e.g. didn’t pay rent, for example).
The above points are the main issues to know before signing any document for a rental. It is important to also note that all the documents will be in French. Hiring a bilingual agency to help you with the legalese will cost you fees but will be money well spent to protect you from signing unnecessary documents or unclear contracts.
A real estate agency specialised in those type of rental is also here to help you through your search
Once the lease is signed, and the paperwork is done, it will be time to enjoy life in Paris.
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