French off-plan housing payments are capped at 35% of the price when the foundations are complete, according to Service Public’s VEFA guidance, checked on 2 October 2026. That is a useful opening fact for anyone buying a ski apartment from another country. Your payment schedule should follow identifiable construction stages, not the frequency of the developer’s newsletters.
The practical challenge is keeping the building, the paperwork and your money moving together. You might be approving a kitchen layout from Manchester while a bank in France awaits a document and a contractor in the Alps closes a wall. A little organisation makes those conversations much easier. It also gives you a better answer to “How is the apartment coming along?” than a photograph of a crane.
Start with the schedule in your own deed
A purchase through vente en l’état futur d’achèvement, usually shortened to VEFA, involves a home being built or still to be built. This article concerns that new-build arrangement, rather than a resale purchase. The relevant starting point is your signed contract and its attachments. Keep the sales brochure for inspiration; use the contractual documents for decisions.
Service Public’s explanation of the VEFA deed says it must set out the price, payment terms and delivery deadline, together with the required financial guarantee documentation. Plans and the technical specification belong among the annexes. Ask your notaire to identify the documents that define your particular lot, including its parking space and cellar where purchased.
Make one working folder containing the signed deed, its payment schedule, the current contractual plans and the notice descriptive. Give each file a date and a clear name. Save later amendments alongside the original version instead of overwriting it. When a salesperson sends a revised drawing, ask whether it replaces a contractual document and how that change will be recorded.
For a couple buying together, agree who checks incoming requests and who authorises transfers. Shared access matters more than an elaborate filing system. A deadline should not depend on the only person with the password returning from a business trip.
Read the percentages as cumulative totals
The official VEFA overview gives the other main ceilings: 70% when the building is watertight, described as hors d’eau, and 95% at completion of the building. These are cumulative limits, rather than separate instalments to add together. Your contractual schedule may contain intermediate calls within the applicable limits.
Here is arithmetic, not a property quotation. Suppose a contract price is €600,000 including VAT. The cumulative figures corresponding to those three ceilings are €210,000, €420,000 and €570,000. If €180,000 has already been credited towards the price when the foundations-stage total reaches €210,000, the difference is €30,000. It is not another €210,000. Actual sums depend on the signed schedule and amounts already accounted for.
For that purely illustrative €600,000 VAT-inclusive price, the VAT-exclusive equivalent would be €500,000 if the contract applied 20% VAT. That assumed tax treatment is part of the example, not a statement about every development or an entitlement to recover VAT.
Build your own running ledger with the stage, cumulative percentage, cumulative amount, amount already credited and current amount requested. Include the payment date and bank reference. Ask the notaire or developer to reconcile any mismatch before it becomes a running mystery. A short ledger is much easier to discuss than a forwarded chain of bank screenshots.
Keep the reservation deposit visible
The reservation stage has its own rules. Service Public’s reservation-contract guidance sets a maximum deposit of 5% where the deed is signed within less than one year, or 2% for a one-to-two-year interval. No reservation deposit may be required if the deed is to be signed more than two years later. The money goes into a special account in the buyer’s name or is held by a notaire.
Those limits concern the interval to signing the deed, not the interval to your first skiing holiday. Keep the deposit receipt and ask for a clear statement of how it is treated in the completion account at signing and in subsequent price calculations. A reservation payment should remain traceable throughout the file.
Do the same for optional extras. A kitchen upgrade, altered socket position or different floor finish needs its own accepted description and price. Ask whether its payment is included in the main schedule or requested separately. Otherwise, a perfectly ordinary upgrade can become difficult to reconcile with a later demand.
A useful discipline is to maintain separate totals for the property price, acquisition costs and extras. Combining everything into one “spent so far” figure makes it harder to establish whether the construction payment itself is correct.
Ask what supports each call for funds
An appel de fonds is a request for payment. When one arrives, match the named stage to the schedule and ask what dated evidence supports it. Agree the documentary process with the developer and your notaire early: what will be supplied, who issues it, and what your lender needs before releasing funds. Do not assume every development uses the same format.
Photographs are useful context. Ask for the building and date to be identified, especially in a scheme with several blocks. A wide shot can show progress on the roof; a closer view might show windows being installed. Neither photograph, by itself, tells you everything about the contractual position or the condition of your own apartment.
Keep technical questions specific. “Which stage does this request certify?” produces a more useful response than “Does everything look fine?” If the answer and the paperwork disagree, send the discrepancy to the appropriate professional promptly. Obtain advice on payment obligations rather than deciding unilaterally to withhold a due instalment.
If you want an independent visit, discuss access, scope and cost in advance. Treat it as an arranged professional appointment. A construction site is a workplace, and turning up during a ski weekend with your own tape measure is not a reliable inspection strategy.
Give the bank enough time to move
Before the first construction payment, ask your lender for its release checklist and normal processing time. Establish who submits the request, which supporting documents are required and whether any personal contribution must be used first under your loan terms. Save the answer with the schedule. This is a question for your particular bank, rather than something to infer from another buyer’s experience.
For money held outside the euro area, plan around the actual euro obligation. Ask your bank or payment provider about transfer limits, beneficiary verification and processing cut-offs. Build reasonable time into your own workflow without treating a forecast construction date as a guaranteed date for an exchange transaction.
Verify payment instructions through a contact route you already trust, especially if bank details change. Record the confirmation and retain the transfer reference. That small habit is worthwhile when large sums and several organisations are involved.
Ask the lender to model the financing cost during construction using your agreed loan terms and a delayed-delivery scenario. Keep that estimate separate from furniture, travel and your normal household budget. The useful figure is the cash you may need before the apartment is usable. Avoid basing affordability on rental receipts from a home whose handover date remains uncertain.
Keep the delivery forecast separate from the evidence
A progress report and a contractual delivery deadline answer different questions. Use your project tracker to record both: the deadline in the deed, the developer’s current forecast and the latest documented construction stage. This makes a changed forecast visible without silently rewriting the original commitment.
Service Public’s delivery guidance explains that VEFA contracts may include clauses allowing the deadline to be extended for specified events, including weather that prevents work. Ask for the contractual basis and supporting explanation for a proposed extension. Snow on a mountain is a photograph; its effect on the contractual timetable requires a more precise conversation.
Keep a brief issue log with the question, the person responsible, the date raised and the written response. Separate a technical query from a request to change something. If you want a different finish, make that explicit and ask whether it affects cost or timing. An informal conversation should not be your only record of an agreed change.
For travel planning, favour arrangements you can alter until the handover appointment is confirmed. For letting, ask the manager how they handle a delayed start. A provisional opening calendar is easier to revise before guests have been promised a particular week.
Prepare the final payment before collecting the keys
The last 5% of the price needs deliberate preparation. Service Public explains that the balance is payable at delivery where there are no relevant conformity reservations, and describes consigning it with a third party where qualifying defects or non-conformities are recorded. Consignment is a formal process. Ask your notaire about the arrangements before the appointment if a dispute appears likely.
Bring the current contractual plans, specification and accepted changes to handover. Arrange professional help if you want it, and allow time to compare what is delivered with what was agreed. Make your own observations clear enough that someone reading the record later can identify the room, item and issue. “Finish poor” is less useful than a precise description supported by a photograph.
Keep the final account and the handover record in the same folder as the construction ledger. Close out unanswered payment questions and record who will follow up outstanding items. This gives you a usable ownership file rather than an inbox full of fragments.
If you are comparing new-build ski properties, DOMOSNO can help you assemble the questions to put to each development team. Tell us what you are looking for, and we can start with the homes and practical details that suit your plans.
