Your contract starts on 3 March, the movers arrive at the end of April, and in between you need somewhere to sleep. Eight-month assignment or permanent job, the place you live in during a relocation to France is rarely where you end up: it is transition housing, and the right contract depends mostly on how long you are staying.
The first nights
Many people start in a hotel or an aparthotel while they view flats. Everything below means signing a lease.
A furnished let under the 1989 law
If you are coming for good, this is the lease you will sign. It is the standard regime for a furnished home rented as the tenant’s main residence. Under Article 25-3 of the law of 6 July 1989 (loi du 6 juillet 1989, the French law on landlord-tenant relations), it applies to furnished homes that are the tenant’s main residence (résidence principale), which Article 2 of the same law defines as the home occupied for at least eight months a year, except for professional obligations, health reasons or force majeure. Article 25-7 sets the lease term at one year minimum, tacitly renewed for a year unless notice is given (a term that can be reduced to nine months for a student, with no renewal).
The mobility lease
The mobility lease (bail mobilité) is built for stays of a few months. Article 25-12 of the law of 6 July 1989 reserves it for tenants who can show, when the lease takes effect, that they are in vocational training, higher education, an apprenticeship, an internship, civic service, a professional transfer or a temporary work assignment. Under Article 25-14, it runs from one to ten months and can be neither renewed nor tacitly extended, except in employment-focused residences (résidence à vocation d’emploi), for which the law provides other limits, pending an implementing decree. Our comparison of the mid-term lease and part-time rental sets it against the fixed-days lease.
Flatsharing
Arriving alone in a big city often points to a flatshare (colocation). Article 8-1 of the law of 6 July 1989 defines it as the rental of one home by several tenants for whom it is their main residence, under a single contract or several contracts with the landlord, except where the only tenants are a married or civil-partnership (PACS) couple.
Fixed weekly days, for a move in stages
Some relocations happen in steps: a few days a week in the new city and the rest of the week elsewhere, until the school year starts or the house is sold. That is the case Kowo covers. The fixed-days lease is a second-home lease “governed by Articles 1714 et seq. of the French Civil Code”, signed for at least three months, on days of occupancy set for the whole term of the lease. Its framework is explained in our legal guide. If Paris is your destination, see the page on part-time furnished apartments in Paris.
Before you arrive: your rental application
Whatever contract you aim for, put your rental file together before moving to France rather than between two viewings. Our article on the documents required for a rental application in France lists what a landlord can ask for.