Business and company law
A French notaire is deeply involved in company law practice, a lot of our clients decide to set up a company to hold, run and resale their French property.
Having a full understanding of the legal requirements of our professional clients, we assist and advise on the key steps of your business.
Rental contracts / Leases
We can draft lease contracts for our clients and liaise with the other parties. By instructing our firm to draft a rental contract, tour operators for example will gain in security. We guarantee the reliability and authenticity of the deeds we draws up. Deemed authentic, the deed allows creditors and lessors to obtain the enforcement of any obligations taken out in their favour, without having to go to court. The enforcement of notarial deeds is acknowledged in all European countries in the same way as judicial decisions are.
Sale of business
We can organise the purchase or sale of your business (“fonds de commerce”) in France. This is a very complex legal and tax process and requires the assistance of experts.
Companies legal and tax aspects
Regarding the structure of ownership, the simplest way of holding a property is obviously “directly”, ie. in personal name(s). However ownership has often to be split between spouses and/or kids for different reasons (including tax reasons : inheritance tax, gift tax, wealth tax….).
The French system for such a joint ownership is named “regime d’indivision”.
The “indivision regime” used to be and might remain a disadvantage when one of the owner dies.
This is the basic and first legal reason to set up a company. Traditionally under the private law standard mechanisms, the consequence of owning shares rather than the property is therefore also to avoid French inheritance law. The transfer of the shares of the French company, as opposed to the transfer of real estate, would be and probably remain governed by your will (in the country of permanent residency) avoiding the well known French forced heirship rule.
Holding the property with a company is also the best structure to organise the future transfer of the French asset and in the meantime keep the control on the property (on the company).
Holding a property through a company is often the right solution. There are numerous of other tax and legal reasons to set up of company. We can handle this process as part of the conveyancing without any additional delays.