The legal mode of the seasonal hiring in France stipulates that it is about a hiring known as “furnished” supposing the presence with the pieces of furniture necessary to the everyday life of the tenant. The seasonal hiring should not exceed the season which normally cannot contain more than three months. In the tourist areas, the concept of season is sometimes extended to 6 months. This real estate can be rented at the day, at the week or in the month, customers known as of passage and cannot constitute to in no case the main home of the tenant.

The seasonal hiring is subjected to no regulation. It is the contract which holds place of law between the parts as for the furnished hirings. However, a decree of May 16, 1967 obliges the owner to give to the tenant before the signature of the contract a precise description of the places. The description makes it possible to the future seasonal tenant to inform it on all the questions which it raises such as for example the situation of the good or interior description, the equipment, the payment of down payment or installments to be poured for the reservation, dates and hours of arrival, etc… The owner must take care to communicate exact information. However, contrary to the empty hirings, the owner is not obliged to provide a “measuring” of housing indicating his livable space.

The law allows the classification of certain seasonal hirings in order to ensure the tenant a product of quality or respecting the quality standards. Indeed, the owner making the request for classification must scrupulously observe the obligations which hardly force this one to him not to receive the approval or of him to be withdrawn if the hiring does not correspond any more to these standards of comfort.

For choosing a housing well you must get a maximum of information. The more before leaving, the less you will know you run the risk to be disappointed once on the spot. When you study advertisements, privilege those which are most detailed. You must be able to imagine you housing, its equipment and its environment and you will be able to make it only if the owner informed a maximum of fields in the advertisement. Check registered information well because an error can be occurred on the advertisement. You have at disposal a transport which enables you to require the confirmation of the main features of your seasonal hiring. Concerning the advertisements, privilege those with photographs and check that those are in adequacy with the description of the advertisement. If you detect an inconsistency, do not hesitate to ask explanations to the owner or the agency.

The amount and the modes of payment of the reservation are negotiated between the two parts. We advise you not to pay any sum before to have signed the leasing agreement and will know to what this payment (down payment or installment) corresponds. Be vigilant on the terms employed within the contract, because in a contract of hiring-seasonal, the erroneous choice of a term can have important consequences in the event of cancellation.

Many risks can occur, in particular the disease or an accident, obliging the owner or the tenant to cancel his reservation whereas this one had already done incur it payment of the sum designed to stop the hiring. Up to what point to know refunding of this sum place will have, it is advisable to distinguish if the contract mentions of down payment or installment. The down payments represent a means of withdrawal. The tenant is free to desist, however the down payments remain sure with the owner. Conversely, if it is the owner who gives up the hiring of sound well, article 1590 of the Civil code imposes on the latter the restitution of the double of the amount of the down payments poured by the tenants. An installment is an firm agreement and final. In the event of cancellation, the tenant can see himself claiming the totality of the rents of the stay envisaged or, those of the period during which housing could not have been relet another person. However, jurisprudence admits that in the event of unforeseeable and insurmountable event, the tenant can be exempted of this obligation of payment.

Contrary, the tenant can request a compensation from the owner if the cancellation comes from this last. One then notes a moral wrong and material which materialize by strongly compromised holidays, additional expenditure caused by this change of circumstances.

The owner of housing can ask for to the tenant the supply of a photocopy of a certificate of insurance in order to check as a taker of the places, if you are covered against the tenant's risks (fire, damage of water, etc…), by an extension “holiday” of the insurance policy is which you contracted under your principal residence, that is to say by a specific contract limited to your stay in the hiring. Do not hesitate to check this guarantee compared to the value of the furniture contained in housing. This estimate can appear in the contract.

A leasing agreement must intervene before the entry in the places. This contract concretizes the agreement and engagement between the two parts. It can result from a simple exchange of correspondence or be appeared as a document drawn up in two specimens, signed at the same time by the owner and the tenant, each one preserving a specimen of this contract. It is strongly recommended to proceed like such in order to countering a possible conflict. The leasing agreement must be extremely precise. Rented housing must be indicated by indicating the following elements: the precise address of housing, the number of parts and livable space, an enumeration of the parts and equipment of which the tenant with the exclusive pleasure or those from which it profits as well as the other residents from the building (green areas, interior court, swimming pool,…).

The duration of hiring must also be given in a precise way with the start dates and end of hiring. As regards seasonal hiring, the hours of arrival and starting are very often indicated. The amount of the rent must appear in the leasing agreement, the tariff is freely fixed, the modes of payment and the additional expenditure must also appear in it. A visitor's tax intended for the financing of the equipment and public services is perceived by all the communes that it is in full season that in hollow season. The contract specifies the sum which you must pay as a reservation as well as the amount of the deposit. The loads, except if they are included/understood in the price of the rent, can be calculated contractually in advance, that is to say according to real consumption of water, electricity, gas and telephone. In this last case of figure, the regularization intervenes at the end of the stay or a few weeks later taking into account the times of invoicing of these various services. In the species, one should not forget to make raise the meters at the time of the inventory of fixtures at the entry as at the exit to avoid any dispute of one of the two parts.