I'm employed by my own US corporation...

Be careful with that arrangement. You may very well need to set up some form of business entity here in France (micro-entreprise/auto-entrepreneur, single person business like an EURL, etc.) in order to assure that you are properly registered with the cotisation organizations and paying in as you should be.

Once you arrive here, if you're doing the work in France, that income won't be considered "US income" any more - and you'll be subject to French tax, cotisations and labor laws. A big part of the rental process involves showing that you have a local bank account, and that you're enrolled in the French social insurances and tax system.

 

Thanks for your answer. Yes, I will definitely be paying taxes in France, and I already have a bank account there so hopefully this will help us with the rental dossier. The worry that I have is about any landlords being able to get GLI for us because our income is foreign and any employment contract would have been issued by my own company. That's why I started looking at Guarantme, Dossier Facile etc.. but I don't really understand how effective these things are and if they're used all together or just one at a time.

 

We were in a somewhat similar situation and we used GarantMe (only). Our application was accepted but I can't say for sure that GarantMe made a difference, because our landlord has never revealed what his criteria were. In subsequent discussions with agents, they seem to be telling us that many individual landlords are unfamiliar with GarantMe in general, and less than eager to try anything "new," and it would take some convincing on the part of the agent to get the landlord to accept GarantMe as a real thing. I guess it would depend on the area where you are looking to rent, and whether you are using an agent or directly communicating with the landlord. Where we are the rental market is competitive, so when multiple applications come in, agents and landlords tend to go with what they already know. I know this doesn't give you a real sense of how effective GarantMe might be, but we decided to use it because it seemed like one more thing to add to our dossier to attest to our stability, and we thought: can't hurt. If we had known about any other services that do the same thing, we would probably have tried to sign up with all of them, but we only knew about GarantMe.

 

Agatha's Human, I love your screen name.
When you put in your applications, did you create a dossier of your own to give to landlords, as well as the GarantMe?

 

If à rental property is subject to the GLI, then the landlord is not interested in garant.me and similar services because his or her insurer will not take it into account (you can find a list of the documents required at PAP.fr. However agents might be as they may have rentals that would accept them and Dossier Facile.

Much depends on where you are intending to live. Even Paris has some buildings where rentals are managed differently, eg by a company, and in some cities and towns the market is subject to less tension. Of course the trick is finding them. Someone on the forum said they found a rental on flatlooker, but I believe that poster is moving to Nancy.

The alternative might be to use holiday accommodation until you can get your company set up in France and can provide the necessary documentation, though that could be a rather lengthy process.
. Good luck.

 

If à rental property is subject to the GLI, then the landlord is not interested in garant.me and similar services because his or her insurer will not take it into account (you can find a list of the documents required at PAP.fr. However agents might be as they may have rentals that would accept them and Dossier Facile.

Much depends on where you are intending to live. Even Paris has some buildings where rentals are managed differently, eg by a company, and in some cities and towns the market is subject to less tension. Of course the trick is finding them. Someone on the forum said they found a rental on flatlooker, but I believe that poster is moving to Nancy.

The alternative might be to use holiday accommodation until you can get your company set up in France and can provide the necessary documentation, though that could be a rather lengthy process.
. Good luck.

Thanks, that's helpful. We're moving back to the southeast. My family is from Cannes, so somewhere in that area to start with.

 

BNP Parisbas Real Estate might be worth a try.

 

If you have someone in your family who can act as a guarantor for you, that would certainly help. But even if that is not the case, if they can do some on the ground prospecting for you, that could also be very useful. And don't forget that word of mouth is worth its weight in gold.

This whole GLI thing is losing its importance given the new eviction laws in France.

 

If you have someone in your family who can act as a guarantor for you, that would certainly help. But even if that is not the case, if they can do some on the ground prospecting for you, that could also be very useful. And don't forget that word of mouth is worth its weight in gold.

This whole GLI thing is losing its importance given the new eviction laws in France.

Yes, I just read about that law and was wondering how it would affect the situation. Things change slowly in France so it might take some time to change people's habits. I might be wrong though. So much has changed since I lived there.
Sadly, nobody in my family is well off enough to guarantor us but I'm definitely getting the word out there.

 

Could anyone tell me if it's worth it to use SmartGarant or Guarantme? And do I need to use Dossier Facile at the same time?

We did. Get your garants first ( I got 3 but I would stick with Garant.me for name recognition and Smart Garant- which is the one YOU probably want to push in your negotiations). Then set up Dossier Facile and include your garants in your package.

 

Thank you! So helpful. Why is Samart Garant the one that is preferable? Sorry, but i don't know much about these guarantor services.

 

It is a bit cheaper than Garantme and, from some reports I have heard, less intrusive and easier to work with. I got lucky and my LL decided to trust us without a garant, so we never executed a contract with either.

 

I am filling out the application for smart-garant.fr at the moment. One of the items is "épargne" as distinct from "revenu." In this case does "épargne" refer to cash in the bank or does it include investments?

 

All I can say is that savings are very different from investments and how they investments are viewed by these sorts of organizations can vary from day to day. So if you can reasonably transfer at least some of your investments to savings it might be a good idea.