“Notary fees”, zero interest loan… The shock measures of the 2025 budget for real estate purchases

While the finance bill for 2025 will be examined in the Senate this week, the government has tabled amendments to expand the PTZ and increase transfer rights for payment.

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Rejected at first reading by the National Assembly, the finance bill (PLF) for 2025 arrives this Monday, November 25 in the Senate, in its form initially developed by the government. A version that the latter however intends to enrich via amendments filed this weekend, particularly regarding real estate purchases. A amendment of the government therefore proposes to extend the eligibility of first-time buyers for the zero-interest loan (PTZ) “across the entire territory” for the purchase of new housing located in a collective housing building, “as well as for the individual dwellings“, that is to say the houses. This expansion of the PTZ will apply to loan offers issued between February 1, 2025 and December 31, 2027, the date on which the zero-rate loan must disappear.

As a reminder, beyond setting this deadline of 2027, the initial finance law for 2024 had limits eligibility for the PTZ to the purchase of new apartments in tense areascharacterized by a demand for housing much higher than the supply. Concretely, since April 2024, it is no longer possible, for a first-time buyer whose resources do not exceed certain ceilings, to request a PTZ to buy a new house in a relaxed zone.

Different PTZ rates for apartments and houses

But, after two years of a never-ending real estate crisis, with credit rates remaining above 3%, the government intends “increase support for household ownershipparticularly those with the lowest incomes, in accordance with the general policy statement by the Prime Minister“, explains the amendment. However, “in a spirit of balance between the essential support for access to property for low-income households and the necessary control of public spending, a decree will specify the portions of the total cost of the operation financeable by the temporary PTZ thus proposed”adds the amendment. The quota is the maximum share that the PTZ can represent in your real estate purchase project, and it depends on your income. Thus, the PTZ can represent between 20% and 50% of the total amount of your real estate purchase, depending on the income bracket to which you belong. Today, for example, in zone A, the PTZ can finance 50% of the purchase property of a single person if their reference tax income is less than or equal to 25,000 euros per year. If it is less than or equal to 49,000 euros per year, the PTZ will only be able to finance 20% of its acquisition.

“By decrees (implementing the finance law for 2025), we will ensure that these rates are a little more attractive for buyers of apartments than of houses but the difference will not be very significant,” said the Minister of Housing, Valérie Létard, on October 23 on Franceinfo. New individual houses will therefore once again be eligible for PTZ but under slightly less attractive conditions than those relating to new apartments. The amendment proposes in particular to reduce the share of new PTZ from 20 to 10% for individual houses purchased by households with the highest incomes (tranche 4), indicates the Ministry of Housing Capital. In the former, on the other hand, nothing will change, he confirms: only purchases of housing with energy renovation work representing at least 25% of the amount of the acquisition will be eligible for the PTZ.

Increase for “notary fees”

Another government amendment, unfavorable to real estate buyers, is that relating to the increase in transfer taxes for valuable consideration. (DMTO). Improperly called “notary fees” insofar as they are mainly made up of local and national taxes, the DMTO, to be paid by any real estate buyer, represents 7 to 8% of the purchase price of the property in the old property and 2 to 3% in new buildings. “In accordance with the announcements of the Prime Minister during the meetings of the departments of France on November 15, 2024”, this amendment “allows departments, for a period of three years, to increase the maximum rate of land registration tax or registration duty collected for their benefit from 4.5% to 5% for transfers of buildings”.

This measure, which would allow departments to increase their tax resources, in a context marked by the fall in the number of real estate transfers, will represent some 1,000 euros in additional notary fees to be paid for a real estate purchase of 200,000 euros, according to the Meilleurtaux broker. An additional cost far from being trivial, so much so that upcoming government sub-amendments will limit the increase in DMTO to the acquisition of properties in old real estate by second-time buyers. Neither new homes nor first-time buyers will be affected by the increase in “notary fees”.