People ask us what a new house costs, and they ask where the good plots are. What they rarely ask, and what causes almost all of the anxiety later, is what actually happens in the twelve to eighteen months between signing something and standing at the front door with a key in your hand.
From a distance it looks like a void. You sign, you send money to a country you do not live in, and then you wait. In practice it is one of the most heavily choreographed processes in French law — every payment, every deadline and every guarantee is written down before a spade goes in the ground. Here is the whole thing in order.
Before the clock starts: the contract, and ten days to change your mind
Nothing begins with building. It begins with the land, bought in front of a notaire like any other French property, and with the CCMI — the contrat de construction de maison individuelle — which is the contract a builder must use when it puts a house on your land to its own plans.
Once the signed contract reaches you, you have ten days to withdraw, for any reason or none, with nothing lost. Use them. Read the plans, read the price, read the delivery date, and ask about anything that is not in there, because what is not in the contract is not in the house.
Any money taken at signature is capped by law and protected — either covered by a repayment guarantee or held in a blocked account — so if the build never starts, it comes back to you. We have set out what the contract does and does not cover in the CCMI contract explained.
The permit: two months to decide, and two more nobody mentions
A new house needs a permis de construire. The mairie has two months to decide, and may stop the clock once at the start if the file is incomplete, which is why the file matters more than the charm of the architect.
Then comes the part that surprises people. When permission is granted, it is posted on a board on the plot, and from that moment third parties — realistically, future neighbours — have two months to object. Only when that window shuts unchallenged is it genuinely safe to start. A builder willing to break ground before then is telling you something about how it works, and the honest answer to "why has nothing happened yet?" in month three is usually this window, quietly running down. Our how we build page sets out what happens in parallel while it does.
Month one on site: the fifteen per cent
Construction itself runs eight to twelve months, and it is paid for in stages whose maximums are fixed by law, not by the builder. You are always paying behind the work, never in front of it.
At the opening of the site you can have paid no more than 15%. Before that point the builder must have handed you a garantie de livraison: a certificate from a bank or insurer, in your name, guaranteeing that your house is delivered at the agreed price even if the builder goes under halfway through. The contract must also carry a delivery date and penalties for late delivery, and the law sets a floor on how small those penalties are allowed to be.
If you are borrowing, your lender releases funds against these same stage calls rather than in one lump, and you pay interest only on what has been drawn — a small, rising monthly amount through the build. We cover how that works for non-residents in getting a French mortgage.
Foundations, then walls: 25%, then 40%
The slab goes in, and the house acquires a footprint you can walk around. At completion of the foundations the ceiling is 25% of the price.
Then the walls go up, which is the fastest and most satisfying fortnight of the whole project, and at completion of the walls you reach 40%. This is the stage where people who have been watching photographs from Kent or Cork suddenly book a flight. You are welcome to come, and equally welcome not to — none of it requires you to be in France, and a power of attorney with the notaire means no signature ever waits on a ferry. Each of our house and land packages is a specific model on a specific plot, so what arrives on site is what you chose on the page.
Hors d'eau: the roof goes on, and it stops being a drawing
Mise hors d'eau — watertight — is the roof on and the house closed to the sky, and the maximum rises to 60%. In Brittany and Normandy this is the milestone the calendar is really built around, because a slab poured in February and a roof on by autumn are two very different kinds of winter.
Then hors d'air: windows, doors and internal partitions, taking you to 75%. From the outside the house now looks finished, which is the single most misleading moment of the build, because roughly a third of the work is still ahead of it. It is also when the things that make a modern French house cheap to run go in — insulation, airtightness, the heating system — and why it ends up where it does on the energy scale, which we explain in RE2020 explained.
The long invisible middle: 75% to 95%
Plumbing, electrics, heating, joinery, floors, bathrooms, kitchen. Months of work that photograph badly and change the house completely, ending at 95% when the equipment works are complete.
This is where patience is required, and where a fixed-price contract earns its keep. There is no change-order culture here: if materials rise or a subcontractor fails, that is the builder's problem, and the only thing that moves the price is something you ask for in writing. It is the clearest practical difference between building new and taking on a renovation, which we compared in new build or old house.
Réception day: the clipboard is the point
Réception is the formal handover, and it is a legal act rather than a ceremony. You walk the house with the builder, and anything not right — a scratched worktop, a door that catches, a missing vent — is written onto the procès-verbal as a réserve.
That list is your leverage, because the final 5% is attached to it. Accept without reserves and the balance is due; note reserves and a sum up to that 5% is held back, in escrow where required, until each one is put right. If you attend without a qualified professional beside you, you have a further eight days after the keys are handed over before the balance falls due. Take the time, take a torch, and take the list seriously — it is far easier to have something fixed before the money has left than after. The free guide has a walk-round checklist you can print.
And then the guarantees start
Handover is not the end of the builder's involvement. For one year the garantie de parfait achèvement covers anything you report, including the reserves. For two years, the garantie biennale covers the equipment — shutters, taps, the heating. For ten years, décennale cover and the dommages-ouvrage policy pay to put right anything structural, immediately, without you having to prove whose fault it was in court, and that cover runs with the house if you sell it.
Separately, the builder files a declaration of completion with the mairie, and the commune has three months to query conformity. That filing is also what sets your taxe foncière going, so your first full year of running costs begins here rather than at signature — the figures are in what it really costs to own a French house each year.
The whole thing on one page
Land and contract, then ten days to withdraw. Two months for the permit and two more for objections. Then eight to twelve months of building, paid at 15% at the opening of the site, 25% at foundations, 40% at walls, 60% once it is watertight, 75% at windows and partitions, 95% at fit-out, and the last 5% at réception, held back until your list is cleared. Twelve to eighteen months from choosing a plot to holding the keys, with a guarantee underwriting delivery from the first day on site and ten years of structural cover from the last.
It is a long time. It is also, start to finish, the most protected way to acquire a house anywhere in Europe, and almost none of it requires you to be in the country while it happens.
If you want to talk through the timing on a particular plot — including the honest answer about what a winter start does to a delivery date — book a free 30-minute call, message us on WhatsApp Email Us, or browse the current house and land packages with all-inclusive prices in Brittany, Normandy and the Vendée.
Procedures and legal maximums checked in October 2026. We build houses; this is a general guide rather than legal advice, and your own contract governs your own build.