Prepare for a French mortgage

The regulated path to a home loan: the bank gives you a standardised information sheet, then a written offre de prêt you cannot accept straight away.

Only if you are borrowing to buy. Nothing here says a bank will lend to you — the lender decides, and the rules below govern how the offer is made.

Before or alongside the avant-contrat. Where you are financing all or part of the purchase, a condition suspensive for obtaining the loan is compulsory in the promesse or compromis, with a legal minimum of 1 month.

With the lender of your choice. The insurance can be taken elsewhere than with the lender.

You must wait at least 10 calendar days from receiving the offer before you can accept it, counted from the day after it arrives, and the bank must hold its terms for at least 30 calendar days.

The offer has to itemise the costs — dossier fees, guarantee costs and insurance — and they are all counted in the TAEG. The source page does not state amounts.

• You return the signed and dated offer from the 11th day at the earliest; no funds can be released before the reflection period ends.
• The loan condition in the avant-contrat is met once a lender presents a firm offer with no reservations matching the financing terms written in it — a pre-agreement or a simple attestation is not enough.
• If the loan is refused, you tell the seller and the notaire within the terms set in the avant-contrat and provide the refusal; the sums you deposited come back without penalty.