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France offers €10k grants to help people buy property

The Local France
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France offers €10k grants to help people buy property
Houses being built in Eterville, western France. You may be able to get help to purchase a new-build property. Photo: MYCHELE DANIAU / AFP.

First-time buyers in France are now able to apply for a €10,000 grant to help towards the costs of buying a house. But don't waste time, because a limited number of grants are available.

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Action Logement, a business-funded group which aims to help people in France get onto the housing ladder, announced on September 30th the creation of the Prime Accession (home buyer's allowance).

The €10,000 grant will be awarded to 20,000 households, but applicants must meet strict conditions in order to qualify. The group said its objective was to "strengthen its support for workers impacted by the [Covid] crisis".

Who is eligible

There is no nationality criteria, so non-French citizens are free to apply for this.

However, you must be resident in France and you also need to be salarié (an employee) in the private or agricultural sector in France, so freelancers or people who run their own business are not eligible.  

You must be a primo-accédant (first-time buyer), meaning you haven't been the owner of your primary residence at any point in the previous 24 months.

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The grant is destined for workers on low incomes, so your annual earnings must not exceed a certain ceiling. For example, one-person households must not earn more than €32,562 in areas with a shortage of housing supply including Paris, Lyon, and the Côte d'Azur; or €24,683 in other parts of the country.

For two people, the limits are raised to €45,586 and €32,919, and they will be higher for larger households. Full details of income requirements are available here.

You can check whether you qualify here.

What kind of property you can buy

Even if you personally qualify for the grant, you will only be able to use it towards certain types of housing. First of all, the property must be situated in France, and must be your primary residence. It also needs to meet energy efficiency standards.

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The property must not have received funding from the Action cœur de ville programme, which aims to revitalise medium-sized towns, or the Nouveau Programme National de Renouvellement Urbain, which covers "priority neighbourhoods" with high poverty rates.

The price of the property is also taken into account - it must not exceed the ceilings applied to the Prêt social location-accession (PSLA) scheme, which allows low-income households who cannot afford a deposit to rent a home before eventually buying it. Price limits range from €2,272 to €4,906 per square metre depending on the town.

The reservation agreement on the property must have been signed after January 1st, 2021.

The grant only applies to new homes, including:

  • Building a new home
  • Purchasing a new property which has not yet been completed
  • Purchasing a new home as part of a social scheme such as the PSLA
  • Purchasing a new home through a Bail Réel Solidaire, meaning you own the property, but the land belongs to a Community Land Trust

The Prime Accession can also be used alongside other assistance packages for first-time buyers, such as a zero-interest mortgage, or a low-rate mortgage from Action Logement.

Applications opened on October 4th on the Action Logement website, and you have until December 31st, 2022 to submit a request for funding.

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