Notary fees: first-time buyers, here is the budget not to exceed to avoid their increase

Adopted this weekend by the Senate, a government sub-amendment to the draft budget for 2025 exempts first-time buyers from the future increase in transfer taxes for valuable consideration. But for only a fraction of their real estate purchase.

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Excluded from the future increase in “notary fees“, THE first-time buyers ? Not totally. This weekend, the Senate adopted several amendments to the finance bill (PLF) for 2025 which authorizes the departments to increase by 0.5 point, to 5%, the ceiling rate of transfer taxes for valuable consideration (DMTO), from next year and for three years. Improperly called “notary fees”, to the extent that they are mainly made up of local and national taxes, DMTOs must be paid by any purchaser of real estate. Which considerably increases your budget, the DMTOs representing 7 to 8% of the purchase price in old real estate, and 2 to 3% in new properties.

The senators’ amendments were adopted with a favorable opinion from the government, the Prime Minister himself having announced on November 15 this future increase in DMTOin order to give a little financial room for maneuver to the departments, whose revenues linked to “notary fees” have melted like snow in the sun in recent years, due to the real estate crisis. Michel Barnier’s office had, however, clarified that first-time buyers, the main victims of this crisis, would not be affected by this increase in DMTO. It must be said that the 0.5 point increase in “notary fees” increases the cost of a real estate transaction by around 1,000 euros for a purchase of 200,000 euros.

Two measures in favor of first-time buyers

A subamendment of the government, adopted this weekend by the senators, in fact proposes two measures “in favor of first-time homeowners”And “without means test». The government plans not to apply the 0.5 point increase in the DMTO rate to first-time buyers, “for the fraction of the value of the property acquired which is less than or equal to 250,000 euros». Concretely, if you buy your property at the price of 300,000 euros, you will escape the 0.5 point increase in DMTO for the bracket of 250,000 euros, but not for that of 50,000 euros. And if your property costs less than 250,000 euros, it will not be subject to the increase in DMTO.

The government is, however, introducing a certain flexibility by allowing departments which wish to do so to institute a reduced rate of DMTO (less than 5%) in favor of first-time buyers, regardless of the amount of their purchase, or even a exemption total “notary fees”. But it is not obvious that the finances of the departments allow them to implement this second option.