Entrusting your property to rental management

A management mandate is not a subscription

It is a written contract by which you give a professional the power to act on your behalf. The activity is regulated by the loi Hoguet of 2 January 1970: it requires a carte professionnelle, professional indemnity insurance and a financial guarantee. Without those three documents, no one has the right to collect rent for you.

The mandate must be numbered and entered in a register of mandates kept by the agency. This number appears on your copy: it is the record that makes the contract enforceable, and the first detail to check.

The four particulars it must contain

The exact scope of the authority granted

Which acts the manager may carry out alone, and which require your agreement. Committing to works above a given amount, signing a lease, taking legal action: these thresholds are negotiated and read before signing, not after.

The term and its renewal

A management mandate is for a fixed term. If it renews tacitly, the total duration cannot exceed thirty years, and the contract must state how to bring it to an end.

Remuneration

Its rate, its basis and what it covers. A fee based on the sums actually collected aligns interests: an empty property or an unpaid rent earns the manager nothing either.

The rendering of accounts

How often you receive the breakdown of receipts and expenses, and in what form. It is the document your accountant will ask for when the property income tax return is filed.

What a management mandate is not allowed to include

Letting a property, that is to say finding the tenant, the viewings, putting the file together, drawing up the lease and the état des lieux, is governed by the loi ALUR and cannot be included in a management service. This is not a commercial exclusion: it is a rule.

The reason is simple: when a property is let, part of the fees is legally shared with the tenant and capped per square metre. Burying that service in a management fee paid by the landlord alone would make the cap disappear. An agency that mixes the two exposes you as much as it exposes itself.

The financial guarantee, and why its amount should be checked

Rents collected on your behalf do not belong to the agency: they merely pass through it. The garantie financière is an undertaking by an institution to reimburse you should those funds go missing. Its amount is public and appears on the carte professionnelle.

It is a question an owner can ask without embarrassment, and one that should be answered without hesitation. Ours is shown at the bottom of the rental management page, with the name of the provider and both amounts.

Leaving it: the date matters more than the reason

A fixed-term mandate runs to its end. If it contains a tacit renewal clause, you can end it at each expiry date, observing the notice period set out in the contract and by registered letter with acknowledgement of receipt. The notice period is the one thing not to miss: once the date has passed, the mandate starts again for a full period.

When the handover takes place, ask for the complete file: signed leases, inventories of condition, security deposits held, latest rent receipts, service charge adjustments and tenants' contact details. A manager who leaves properly hands them over without being pressed.