Selling a Luxury Property: Choosing Your Mandate
Before choosing an agency, the type of agreement you sign determines your room for maneuver for the months ahead — and sometimes well beyond the end of the contract.
Simple mandate or exclusive mandate: two opposing approaches
Even before discussing price or marketing strategy, the choice of mandate type determines the entire subsequent sales process. A non-exclusive mandate allows the sale to be handled by several agencies simultaneously, without any fixed legal time constraints. An exclusive mandate binds the seller to a single agency—a choice that entails specific rules that are best understood before signing.
Simple Mandate
- Several agencies in parallel
- No fixed legal duration is imposed
- Automatic renewal is possible if the seller is informed
- Termination is generally more flexible
Exclusive Mandate
- Only one agency authorized to sell
- Mandatory irrevocability clause of 3 months
- Tacit renewal prohibited
- Generally more involved follow-up from the agency
The irrevocability of 3 months, a strict framework
Article 78 of Decree No. 72-678 of July 20, 1972, precisely governs exclusive mandates: the irrevocability clause cannot exceed three months. After this period, even if the mandate runs for a longer duration—12 or 18 months, for example—the seller regains the right to terminate it, provided they give 15 days' notice by registered letter with acknowledgment of receipt.
Important note: do not confuse the duration of the mandate with the irrevocability period. A 12-month exclusive mandate with a 3-month irrevocability period remains valid for one year, but becomes freely terminable from the 4th month onwards — a distinction that some contracts deliberately maintain to delay the seller's exit.
The penalty clause can survive the end of the mandate
A penalty clause may provide for compensation to the agency if the seller concludes, even after the end of the mandate, with a buyer that the agency had presented to him — over a period of up to 24 months.
The amount of this compensation can never exceed the fees initially stipulated in the mandate — a legal protection to be verified in the contract.
Every mandate must mention the agency's registration number in the mandate register — a guarantee of traceability and compliance with the Hoguet law.
The penalty clause must be written in very conspicuous characters in the contract — a hidden or illegible clause may be challenged.
Why this choice relies more on a prestigious property
For a high-value property, the difference in fees between a poorly negotiated mandate and a well-managed one can represent considerable sums—hence the importance of carefully reading each clause before signing, rather than relying solely on the agency's reputation. An exclusive mandate is often justified for a rare property, where the consistency of a single, controlled marketing channel takes precedence over using multiple intermediaries; a non-exclusive mandate remains useful for testing several networks simultaneously in a broader or more uncertain market.
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