GET FRENCH renting right

It's the amount the landlord keeps for the whole duration of the tenancy, in case you leave with unpaid rent or damages. It's not an advance on rent: if all goes well, you get it back in full.

The amount is capped by law. A landlord who asks for more is off limits, and you can say so.

• →Unfurnished rental: one month's rent excluding charges, maximum.
• →Furnished rental: two months' rent excluding charges, maximum.
• →Bail mobilité (French mobility lease): no deposit is allowed, it's forbidden.
• →Return: within one month after the keys are handed back if the exit inventory matches the entry inventory, two months if there are differences.
• →If late, the landlord owes you 10% of the monthly rent excluding charges for each month of delay started.

When an agency is in the loop, only four services can be billed to you: the visit, the file setup, the lease drafting, and the entry inventory. Everything else (the search for a property, publishing the ad, the intermediation, the management, the exit inventory) stays with the landlord.

And on those four services, your share is doubly capped: it can never exceed the landlord's share, and it has a per-square-metre cap that depends on the zone (Paris is in the most tight zone). Amounts are reindexed every year. Check the current figures on the official page.

• →Between private individuals, with no agency: no fees, ever.
• →The agency must display the breakdown of its fees before the visit: in the ad, in the window, or on its website.

It's not just a sofa story. The regime changes your commitment length, your notice period, your deposit and how charges are worked out.

Furnished is more flexible, which is the point when you don't know where you'll be in a year. Unfurnished settles you more durably, with a much longer notice period on the landlord's side, so more stability for you.

• →Duration: three years unfurnished (six if the landlord is a company), one year furnished, or nine months for a student lease that doesn't renew on its own.
• →Your notice in Paris: one month, furnished or unfurnished. Paris is in a tight zone, which is what shortens the unfurnished notice period. Elsewhere it depends on the zone. Check it on the official page before giving notice.
• →The landlord's notice: six months unfurnished, three months furnished, and always with a reason (taking the place back to live in, sale, or a serious and legitimate reason).
• →Deposit: one month unfurnished, two months furnished.
• →A furnished rental must contain a list of furniture set by decree: bedding with duvet or blanket, cooking hobs, oven or microwave, fridge and freezer, crockery and utensils, table and chairs, shelves, lighting, cleaning equipment, shutters or curtains in bedrooms. The official list is public and accessible to everyone (link below).

There are several ways to reassure a landlord that rent will land. On La Maraisienne, we cover the four most-asked-for solutions: individual guarantor, Visale, GarantMe or another platform, and bank guarantee (caution bancaire) for atypical files.

Two rules that work in your favour and that few people know: a landlord cannot refuse your guarantor because they are not French or don't live in mainland France. And if the landlord has a GLI (French rent insurance), they cannot also demand a guarantor, unless you're a student or an apprentice.

• →Individual guarantor: someone from your circle (parent, family, friend) who commits to pay in your place if you can't any more. They sign a paper with the landlord when the lease starts. In case of unpaid rent, the landlord can ask them directly, without having to chase you first.
• →Visale (French public rental guarantee scheme): a free guarantee run by Action Logement. The request must be made before signing the lease. In the private market, it covers part of unpaid rent and charges, plus two months of damages. Eligibility depends on your age, your situation and a rent cap that varies by zone.
• →GarantMe and other platforms: a paid guarantee, at your expense, billed as a percentage of yearly rent. Useful when neither Visale nor an individual guarantor is possible.
• →Bank guarantee (caution bancaire): you lock a sum on a dedicated account at your bank, which then acts as guarantor to the landlord. Reassuring for an atypical file (freelancer, intermittent worker, non-salaried income), but your savings are frozen for the whole lease and the bank charges fees.
• →A landlord is never obliged to accept one guarantee over another. If you can present two in your file, they pick the one that reassures them most, that's an advantage, not a problem.

GLI stands for garantie des loyers impayés (French rent insurance for unpaid rent). It's an insurance the landlord takes out, not you, to cover themselves if a tenant doesn't pay. It lives on the landlord's side, but it has direct consequences for you as an applicant.

First, a landlord who has a GLI cannot also ask you for a guarantor, except in one case foreseen by law: student or apprentice, where both are allowed at once.

Second, the insurer sets the file criteria, not the landlord. And those criteria are often stricter than what the landlord alone would have asked for: CDI (French permanent contract) outside the trial period, net income at least two and a half to three times the rent including charges, sometimes no recent banking incidents. An atypical file will have a harder time getting through.

In practice, ask at the visit if the landlord has a GLI. The answer tells you if you can do without a guarantor, and which requirements will apply to your income.

It's the document that will decide, on the day you leave, whether your deposit comes back in full. It's mandatory, it's done together, and you must be given a copy.

The classic trap: rushing the entry inventory because you can't wait to move in. Without an entry inventory, you're deemed to have received the place in good order, and anything that's off becomes your responsibility on the way out.

• →Note everything, even minor flaws, and take dated photos room by room.
• →You have ten days after signing to ask for it to be completed. In practice: email your landlord or the agency with the photos and the list of points to add. No special form is needed, a timestamped email is enough.
• →For heating, the deadline is different: you can ask to complete the inventory during the first month of the heating season.
• →Normal wear and tear linked to time (paint fading, floors marking) cannot be billed to you. That's on the landlord.
• →In case of disagreement on exit, a bailiff can draw up the inventory. The cost is then split in half.

A rushed inventory costs between two hundred and several thousand euros on the way out. The points below are the ones that, badly noted on entry, come back to bite the tenant on exit, either because the exit check is systematic, or because these are everyday items.

Take your time, open everything, test everything. A serious landlord understands: they'd rather have a thorough tenant than one who complains a year later.

• →Taps: open each one, test hot and cold water, note leaks, blackened joints, visible limescale, a mixer that sticks.
• →Siphons and drains: run water for thirty seconds in each sink and basin, check that it drains without backing up. Note any partial blockage.
• →Joints: silicone around the shower, bath, sinks and toilets. Note mould, lifting, holes.
• →Vents: check every damp room (bathroom, kitchen, toilets). Make sure they're neither blocked nor missing, and note crusted dust (the landlord should have cleaned them before your arrival).
• →Windows and shutters: open and close each one, operate manual or electric shutters, test the handles. Note cracked panes, lifting seals, shutters that stick.
• →Sockets and switches: try them with a phone charger, and test every switch. Note loose sockets, cracked plates, a button that gets stuck.
• →Radiators: look at each unit, note rust marks, broken thermostats, damaged bleed valves. If you move in during summer, note in the inventory that operation will be checked when the heating is turned on.
• →Floors: spot scratches and stains per room, state the material (parquet, tile, vinyl) and its condition (lifting plank, broken joint).
• →Walls and paint: holes left by frames, damp halos, paint smudges, black marks behind furniture.
• →Doors and locks: every door must open and close without forcing. Check that the keys handed over actually open the main lock and the mailbox.
• →Items in a furnished rental: check each element on the list (hob, oven, fridge, bed, table, chairs) and note its condition. Any item that could be billed on exit must be noted on entry.
• →Meters: read and photograph each index (water, electricity, gas) on the day the keys change hands. That's what starts your utility contracts.

Not every expense of the building can be passed on to the tenant. Only those on a list set by decree can: water, collective heating, common-area upkeep, lift, household waste tax, and a few others. Anything not on the list stays with the landlord, including major works.

Then two regimes are possible, and the difference shows on your bank balance.

• →Provisions on charges: you pay an advance every month, and a yearly reconciliation adjusts to the actual cost. You may therefore owe a top-up, or be refunded.
• →The statement must be given to you one month before the reconciliation, and the receipts remain available for the six months that follow.
• →If no reconciliation has been done for more than a year, you can ask to spread the catch-up over twelve months.
• →Flat charges: a fixed amount written into the lease, with no top-up or refund possible. It's allowed in furnished rentals, mandatory for bail mobilité (French mobility lease), and not allowed for unfurnished rentals.

Because on the most sought-after properties, the landlord doesn't pick the best file on the market: they pick the first complete, reassuring file to come in. Waiting to receive twenty to compare means risking losing the good applicants.

On top of that, many ads circulate before being posted everywhere, through an agency calling its contacts, through a departing tenant talking about it around them.

The practical consequence is simple, and it's the whole point of La Maraisienne: what makes you win isn't searching faster, it's being ready before you search. An incomplete file triggers a request for more, that costs two days, and two days are enough to lose the flat.

The most frequent block isn't the market, it's the list of criteria. When nothing is negotiable, nothing gets through the filter.

Write down three truly non-negotiables, and move everything else to “nice to have”. You'll be surprised how many properties reappear.

• →Think in actual travel time rather than arrondissement: fifteen extra minutes on the metro often open a whole neighbourhood.
• →What negotiates easily: the floor, the exposure, the lack of a lift, a ground floor on a courtyard, an unequipped kitchen.
• →Look at the floor plan, not just the surface. Thirty well-laid square metres beat thirty-five badly cut ones.
• →If you're mobile, furnished widely opens the choice, and a one-year lease doesn't tie you down.
• →Visit broadly at the start to calibrate your eye, then narrow down. The first three visits mostly help you understand what your budget actually buys.

Beyond five or six properties at a time, you forget who said what, and you chase the wrong person at the wrong moment. A bit of method avoids losing a flat for a silly reason.

• →Keep a spreadsheet: the property, the visit date, the person contacted, the date the file was sent, the planned follow-up.
• →Keep a single up-to-date file, one neatly named document. A landlord receiving twelve separate attachments won't open them all.
• →Send it right after the visit, not three days later. That's when you're still fresh in their memory.
• →Follow up once, two days later, politely, then move on. Two follow-ups annoy, zero follow-ups get forgotten.
• →Keep a written trace of what was said: the amount of charges, the availability date, the planned works.

A visit is largely won before you get there. The applicants who walk out with a positive answer are rarely the ones with the finest file: they're the ones who could hand it in on the spot.

• →Your file ready, on you or within one click of sending.
• →Your questions written down. On site, you forget them all.
• →The measurements of what you want to keep: a bed, a desk, a piano. A tape measure in your pocket avoids nasty surprises.
• →Make the actual trip, at the hour you'll really do it, not at 2 pm on a Sunday.
• →Arrive ten minutes early and walk around: shops, noise, light, evening vibe.
• →Phone charged: you'll take many pictures, and they'll help compare that same evening.

They have two purposes: to inform you, and to show you know what you're walking into. An applicant who asks about the charges regime is an applicant who reassures.

• →The exact rent, the charges amount, and their regime: provisions with reconciliation, or flat?
• →How much was the last charges reconciliation?
• →The deposit amount, and the detail of the agency fees if there's an agency.
• →How long the current tenant has been there, and why they're leaving.
• →Are any works voted or planned in the building?
• →Is the heating individual or collective, and which energy source?
• →What's the DPE (French energy performance rating), and so what to expect in winter?
• →Has the landlord taken out a GLI? If yes, you won't need a guarantor (unless student or apprentice), but the file criteria are set by the insurer.
• →The real availability date, and the lease duration offered.
• →Who will manage day to day: the landlord directly, or an agency?

Open, touch, listen. A flat is checked with your hands, not with your eyes.

One legal point to know: since 1 January 2025, a flat rated G at the DPE (French energy performance rating) can no longer be offered as a main residence in mainland France. Class F follows in 2028, class E in 2034. The DPE must appear in the ad.

• →Turn on the taps, flush the toilet: check the pressure and the drainage speed.
• →Look for damp where no one looks: wall corners, behind furniture, bottoms of cupboards, window joints.
• →Open and close every window and every shutter. Frames that stick never fix themselves.
• →Spot the meters: where are they, are they individual?
• →Count the sockets, have a look at the electrical panel, check the ventilation in the bathroom and the kitchen.
• →Do thirty seconds of silence, window open and then closed. It's the most telling test of the visit.
• →Look at the view from each room, and the orientation: due north in winter, you can feel it.
• →On the ground floor or first floor, look at what faces the street and how it closes.

The law sets a closed list of documents a landlord can ask for: your identity, your address, your employment situation and your income. Anything outside that is forbidden, and asking for it exposes the landlord or the agency to a fine of up to €3,000, and €15,000 if it's a company.

Knowing how to say no on those points won't make you lose a place: it will mostly save you from handing over data that's no one's business.

• →What they cannot ask for: an ID photo other than the one on your ID document, your Carte Vitale (French health insurance card), your bank statements, a statement of good standing from your bank, a statement of no credit, a direct-debit authorisation.
• →Nor your medical file, nor a criminal record extract, nor a marriage contract, nor a certificate of insolvency settlement, nor a reservation cheque.
• →Nor a divorce ruling, except the paragraph starting with “Par ces motifs” (the operative part).
• →Nor a certificate from your employer if you already provide your employment contract and your payslips.
• →In practice, prepare a single, readable file, in a logical order, and up to date. That's exactly what La Maraisienne builds for you.