Equity Release in France: Your Options, at Any Age

Equity release exists in France, but not in the form British homeowners know. A house in the Dordogne cannot be used for a UK lifetime mortgage or a home reversion plan, because those products are built for property in the United Kingdom. France answers the same need through property transactions completed before a notaire (a public officer who draws up and authenticates the deed), and the most flexible is the partial sale created by OBEN: you sell a share of ownership in your property and receive the price for that share, releasing up to 50% of the property's value.

The difference starts at the door, and it runs deeper than the age on the form. A UK lifetime mortgage is a loan secured on the property. A partial sale is not a loan but a sale, and everything follows from that: there is no debt and nothing to pay month by month. The Equity Release Council defines its own market in one sentence: "Equity release allows individuals aged 55 and over to release money from the property they live in without having to make any monthly repayments." The definition begins with an age, and every product behind it repeats one. The partial sale begins somewhere else entirely — with no condition of age, status or income — because what is assessed is the property, not the person who owns it.

The essentials

• In France, equity release is above all a sale. No product of that name is sold here, only property transactions completed before a notaire. One bank product, little used, sits alongside them.
• The partial sale (in French, vente partielle), created by OBEN in France, lets you sell an undivided share of ownership in your property and release up to 50% of the property's value. It is not a loan, so there is no debt and nothing to pay month by month.
• No age, status or income requirements, compared with 55 for a UK lifetime mortgage. France's own lifetime mortgage, the prêt viager hypothécaire, sets no statutory age either, but the bank product still on the market is open only to owners aged 60 and over.
• No minimum amount: releasing €10,000 on a property worth a million euros is possible, and since the cost follows the amount released, releasing less costs less.
• Nothing changes day to day. You carry on living in the property, letting it or managing it as before, and if it is let, the rent is yours in full. You bring the arrangement to an end whenever you choose, within a window of up to 36 months.

OBEN is the specialist in property monetisation in France. Its advisers weigh up every route, including those its banking and non-banking partners arrange, and point you to the one that serves your project. When that route is not a partial sale, your adviser will tell you so. OBEN holds the French estate agency licence (carte professionnelle CPI) required to handle property transactions, and it goes further than a traditional estate agency or broker: it structures the sale and carries it through from the first valuation to the day the deed is signed. The OBEN simulation gives a first estimate in minutes, and a conversation with an adviser lets you talk your project through.

Is equity release available in France?

Yes, though the phrase travels better than the products do. What is marketed as equity release in France is, in the vast majority of cases, a sale: you sell a share of ownership in your property, or the whole of it, and receive the price. No French regulator treats equity release as a product category the way the FCA does, and there are no national market statistics to set beside the £2.57 billion of total equity release lending recorded in the UK in 2025 by the Equity Release Council. France did build a bank product for the same need, but the prêt viager hypothécaire, created in 2006, never took off. Instead, the market runs on deeds signed before a notaire, who files them with the service de la publicité foncière, the French register of property deeds.

The partial sale: releasing cash without borrowing

A partial sale is the sale of an undivided share of ownership in your property to one of OBEN's investor or financial partners. French law calls that share a quote-part indivise. The sale is completed by a notarial deed and you are paid the price of the share, up to 50% of the property's value. It is not a loan: no debt at any point, and nothing to pay month by month. OBEN created the partial sale in France and has since worked with close to 3,000 owners, across every route it gives access to.

The share sold is a real share of ownership. It is not bare ownership, and the title is not split into usufruct and bare ownership. What you and the partner hold is simple co-ownership, the arrangement that exists between heirs who inherit a house together, as OBEN's French guide to la quote-part immobilière explains. And because what is assessed is the property rather than the owner, a partial sale carries no age, status or income requirements.

Day to day, nothing changes. You carry on living in the property, enjoying it as a holiday house or letting it, exactly as before. And if it is let, the rent is yours in full, since the partner holding the share receives none of it. That partner plays no part in how you use the property, because the agreement signed before the notaire leaves the property entirely yours to use. You are not a tenant, and you remain an owner of your property.

You also choose the amount, and there is no minimum: releasing €10,000 on a property worth a million euros is possible. Since the cost follows the amount released, releasing less costs less, which is why OBEN advisers recommend taking what the project needs and not a euro more. On average, the owners OBEN has worked with have released 24% of their property's value. Illustrative example: on a house valued at €400,000 near Bordeaux, a partial sale can release up to €200,000, with nothing changing in the way you use the house.

Eligibility is wide, with one firm limit on geography: the partial sale covers mainland France only — Corsica and the overseas départements are not eligible. Within that area it takes in main homes, second homes and let property, held directly, through a company such as an SCI, or in undivided co-ownership. A property that still carries a bank loan of its own is considered too. What is left to pay is worked out at the valuation stage and deducted from what you can release, and the notaire then handles the formalities with your bank. Once your file is complete, three to eight weeks generally pass between the start of the sale and the money reaching you; it is the notarial deed that triggers payment.

The end of the story stays in your hands. You bring the arrangement to an end whenever you choose, within a window of up to 36 months, by buying the share back at a price fixed from the outset or by selling the property and sharing the proceeds. When that day comes, OBEN works with you to find the best way to do either.

Which leaves the question everybody eventually asks: how much does it cost? That depends on your property, the amount you release and how long the arrangement runs. What is certain is that there is nothing to pay month by month: the cost is charged once, at the end, on the basis of a personalised quote given before you sign. The OBEN simulation puts a first figure on what your property could release, and a call with an adviser is the quickest way to learn what a sale would cost in your case.

Martin Iscovici, president and co-founder of OBEN, puts it plainly: "Our first job with an owner is to find the right amount — the one that covers the project and nothing more. Releasing more than you need means paying more than you need, and nobody should have to do that."

The prêt viager hypothécaire: France's own lifetime mortgage

France does have a lifetime mortgage, and in one respect it beats its British cousin: article L. 315-15 of the Consumer Code provides that the debt of the borrower or their heirs can never exceed the value of the property, assessed at the point the loan falls due. In the United Kingdom the equivalent no-negative-equity guarantee is only a standard that Equity Release Council members undertake to follow. French law also sets no age condition of any kind: any adult who owns residential property can in principle take one out.

The catch is availability and price. In practice one bank product is still on the market in 2026, sold through the branch networks of a single banking group. It is the lender, not the law, that sets the bar at 60 or over, with a minimum of €50,000 and a fixed borrowing rate of 6.45% on the terms in force on 1 June 2026. At 75 it releases roughly a third of what the property is worth, some €104,610 on a home valued at €330,000. Then compound interest does what compound interest does: left to run untouched, that sum would reach roughly €365,000 after twenty years, well above what the property was worth at the start. It never gets there, because the statutory cap stops it. On that same illustration the lender publishes a total cost of credit of €228,094 after twenty years, roughly €35,000 below what free-running interest would have produced. Set the arrangement fees aside, and capital and capped interest together come back to exactly the €330,000 the property was valued at. That ceiling is measured against the value of the property on the day the loan falls due, not against its value today. The protection is real, and so is the arithmetic that makes it necessary.

None of which makes it a bad product. For an owner over 60 who wants a lump sum with no monthly outgoings and intends to stay for life, it can be exactly right, and OBEN gives access to it, as it does to mortgage-backed cash loans, through its partner network. But if you are under 60, or would rather release cash without borrowing at all, there is another route. It is not a loan: you sell a share of ownership in your property and receive the price for that share.

Viager, réméré and the sale with a price supplement

The viager occupé is the French cousin of the home reversion plan, and the comparison an English reader reaches for first. You sell the property outright but keep a lifetime right to live in it, and the price comes as a lump sum on signature (the bouquet) and then an income paid until your death (the rente viagère). It is irreversible, the property leaves your estate for good, and what you finally receive depends on how long you live. The contract also needs a genuine element of chance, so in practice the market is for sellers aged around 70 and over; OBEN's French guide to the viager occupé explains how the figures are calculated.

Two other routes cover the whole property. With a sale with a buy-back option (vente à réméré, articles 1659 to 1673 of the Civil Code), the seller keeps the right to buy the property back at a price agreed in advance, for five years at most. With a sale with a price supplement, you sell now at a reduced price, keep the use of the property for up to 36 months, organise the resale yourself and then receive the difference between the two prices.

Both involve large amounts in practice, rarely less than half the property's value, so they almost always cost more than a partial sale and often release far more than a project needs. Terms vary a great deal from one provider to another, from restrictions on use to buy-back conditions and, where a buy-back is not exercised in time, the risk of losing the property altogether. Built properly, both remain valuable, which is why they are worth talking through with an OBEN adviser, who knows which contracts protect an owner and which leave them exposed.

OBEN: the equity release specialist in France

OBEN created the partial sale in France and has since worked with close to 3,000 owners. Its purpose is to free up the value held in French property, so that an owner never has to choose between the house and the plans they have for their life.

OBEN is not a bank. It holds the French estate agency licence (carte professionnelle CPI) required to handle property transactions, and it goes further than a traditional estate agency or broker: it structures the sale, builds the legal framework with notaires and property lawyers, introduces the investor and carries the file through to the signature of the deed. The same adviser follows you from the first conversation to the day the arrangement ends, and your file stays visible in your client area throughout.

Every file starts with a diagnosis, and that is where it is won or lost. An OBEN adviser knows property monetisation in all its forms: the partial sale, the sale with a price supplement and the sale with a buy-back option, and what each of them really costs. Through a network of banking and non-banking partners, OBEN also gives access to mortgage-backed cash loans and to the prêt viager hypothécaire. One conversation therefore covers the whole range, rather than the single product a lender or an agent would have to sell you.

The OBEN simulation puts a first figure on what your property could release, free and without commitment, and a call with an adviser turns that figure into the route that actually fits your project. Advisers take calls in English.

If you live outside France: tax and your fiscal representative

Selling an undivided share is a sale, so French capital gains rules apply to the share pro rata, exactly as they apply to a whole property. Under article 244 bis A a non-resident's gain bears a 19% levy, with social levies on top: 17.2% on a property gain at the rates in force in September 2026, so 36.2% in all. But a seller covered by the UK social security system, and not by a French compulsory scheme, is in principle exempt from CSG and CRDS, the two French social contributions, and pays only the 7.5% solidarity levy, so 26.5% in total. That exemption holds provided the notaire is given proof of the UK cover before the deed is signed. Above €50,000 of taxable gain, article 1609 nonies G adds a further tax of 2% to 6%, which non-residents owe on the same footing as residents.

Those figures are the general position published by the French tax administration, not tax advice: yours depends on your country of residence, the treaty that applies and how long you have owned the property. Social levy rates have moved since January 2026 and practitioners do not all read them the same way, so the rate that counts is the one your notaire confirms on the day. Your notaire works out the tax and withholds it when the deed is signed, and an OBEN adviser raises the question early rather than at signature.

The rules that reduce the bill run in your favour more often than owners expect. Taper relief clears the 19% levy after 22 years of ownership and the social levies after 30, and the exemptions apply to a share exactly as they apply to a whole property. The widest of them, the main-home exemption, is for owners whose French property is their habitual residence and who are taxed in France as residents; if you live outside France, it is length of ownership that brings your bill down, and that is the first thing your notaire checks.

One last piece of administration catches British owners out: a non-resident seller must appoint an accredited fiscal representative unless the price is €150,000 or less, the gain is already fully exempt by length of ownership, or the seller is resident in the EU or in an EEA state bound to France by administrative-assistance agreements (Iceland and Norway, but not Liechtenstein). That €150,000 threshold is assessed seller by seller, on the price attributable to the share actually sold, so where the share sold comes to less than that, no representative is needed. Since Brexit the United Kingdom is a non-EU country, so a British seller above the threshold with a taxable gain will need one, and your notaire arranges that appointment as a matter of routine.

When a partial sale is not the right answer

A partial sale is the wrong answer when a project needs more than half the property's value, or when the real plan is to move: if you intend to leave within a year or two, an outright sale will usually serve you better and cost less. It is not available in Corsica or the overseas départements either, and each of the other routes has its own geographical limits, so an OBEN adviser will tell you which of them can be arranged where your property is. And an owner in their late seventies who wants capital plus an income for life, with no exit to think about, is describing a viager. Your adviser will say so plainly when the right route is one of these.

Frequently asked questions

Is equity release available in France, or is it a UK-only product?

Equity release is available in France, but in French legal form. A UK lifetime mortgage or home reversion plan cannot be taken on a French property, because those products are designed for UK property. In France the same need is met chiefly by property transactions completed before a notaire: the partial sale, the sale with a price supplement and the sale with a buy-back option. Alongside them sits the prêt viager hypothécaire, France's own lifetime mortgage, which in practice only one banking group still offers.

Do I have to be 55 or 60? What if I am 45?

Not for a partial sale, which carries no age, status or income requirements. That is the sharpest contrast with the British market, where 55 is the entry point for a lifetime mortgage and a home reversion plan generally starts at 60. French law sets no age for the prêt viager hypothécaire either: it asks only that the borrower be an adult who owns a property in residential use. But the bank product still on the market is open only to owners aged 60 and over. For a 45-year-old, as for anyone else, it is the property that is assessed, not the birth certificate.

Can I use a second home, a let property, or a house held through an SCI?

Yes to all three, provided the property is in mainland France. Corsica and the overseas départements are not eligible. How the property is held makes no difference: direct ownership, an SCI and undivided co-ownership are all considered. A property that still carries a bank loan of its own is eligible too. And if the property is let, the rent stays yours in full. Properties with a complication of their own, such as structural damage or a pending legal matter, are looked at case by case rather than ruled out.

What happens to my children's inheritance?

Your heirs receive the share of the property you kept, plus whatever remains of the price you were paid for the share you sold. A partial sale is a sale for a price, not a gift, so in principle French forced heirship (the réserve héréditaire) does not reach it: that rule protects your heirs' share of what you leave behind and of what you gave away in your lifetime, not of what you sold at its price. Inheritance is the most personal corner of French law, though, so the way it works out in your own family is for your notaire to confirm, and an OBEN adviser puts the question on the table early rather than late. One case calls for a formal step: if the property is already held in undivided co-ownership, with your children or anyone else, article 815-14 of the Civil Code requires the other co-owners to be told the price and the terms of the sale, and gives them a month to buy the share themselves on the same terms. That notice is served by a commissaire de justice and must name the buyer; your notaire arranges it as a matter of routine. Whether a spouse has to sign alongside you is settled in the same conversation, well before anything is signed. A viager, by contrast, takes the property out of the estate for good.

The bottom line

Equity release is not really a product but an idea: that a property should serve its owner during their lifetime, without them having to give it up. Britain built a regulated loan market with an age at the door. France answered mostly through property transactions completed before a notaire, and the partial sale is the most refined version of that answer: you set the amount yourself with no minimum, you carry on using the property as you did before, living in it or letting it and keeping the rent, and you remain an owner of your property. The right route still depends on the person, which is why it is worth talking to a specialist in property monetisation rather than a single-product provider. The OBEN simulation turns the principle into an amount for your own property, and the French detail is in the French version of this guide.