French land registry: what the SPF discloses and its written-only reply

Any natural or legal person can ask the service de la publicité foncière (SPF) for information about a property or about the property holdings of a designated person or companyService Public. The registers kept by the SPF are publicService Public, and article L107 A of the Livre des procédures fiscalesService Public provides that anyone can obtain communication of information about a determined building or about buildings in a given commune on which a designated person holds a droit réel immobilierLegifrance.

The SPF discloses the identity of successive ownersService Public, the date and title of acquisition of a building such as an acte de vente, a donation or a successionService Public, the existence of hypothèques or privilèges and their amountService Public, the existence of saisies immobilièresService Public, the prices of the successive salesService Public and the règlement de copropriétéService Public. A buyer checking a chain of title, a lender verifying encumbrances or counsel preparing a sale therefore frames the request around those headings and identifies either the building or the person holding rights in it.

The request route depends on the registration date in the hypothécaire registers, before or after 1 January 1956Service Public. For documents registered after 1956, the applicant uses the form for renseignements concerning the legal position of buildings and the property holdings of personsService Public, sends it to the SPF of the place where the property is situated or where the designated persons' holdings are sought, and uses the companion forms for copies of post-1956 documents or for a complément updating information already received. For documents registered before 1956, the applicant uses the pre-1956 copy form sent to the same locally competent SPFService Public, and can request transmission deeds for built or unbuilt property, current bordereaux d'inscriptions hypothécaires, règlements de copropriété and états descriptifs de division.

The SPF gives no verbal informationService Public. The reply is written, sent by post or, where the request was made electronically, by voie électroniqueService Public, in the form of copies of handwritten cards or a computer-generated response according to the date of informatisation. The reply must arrive within 10 daysService Public; on silence the applicant can refer to the Commission d'accès aux documents administratifs (Cada)Service Public. Where the requested document has been transferred to the archives départementales, the transfer is signalled in the reply in the part of the form reserved for the administration.

Where the publication references of a document are unknown, the applicant first requests a relevé des formalités recorded in the name of the person concerned, then uses the references it contains to identify and request the copy. In Moselle, Bas-Rhin and Haut-Rhin the SPF and registration office is called the Livre foncier.

Tariffs are set out in the notice attached to each form and vary with the type of request. Payment is by cash up to 300 €Service Public, by cheque payable to the Trésor public below 1 000 €Service Public, by certified cheque above 1 000 €Service Public, or by transfer, with postal charges added where a postal reply is requested.

Legal basis: article 2449 of the Code civil, article L107 A of the Livre des procédures fiscales and articles 878 to 881N of the Code général des impôts.