There are a number of challenges to understanding French contracts— such as the compromis de vente that you will sign when buying French property— that pose difficulties even if you have a high level of French. As in English, contracts (and legel documents in general) may use language and formulae which are no longer part of everyday usage but which are kept in legalese because they are "tried and tested" wording. It can be difficult to track down such words in general dictionaries, even quite comprehensive ones. There may also be some words that are familiar but which take on a different meaning in a legal context, for example if the common meaning has changed compared to an older meaning which is retainde in a legal setting. And, of course, contracts may deal with concepts tied to the legal system that not only do you not generally need to deal with in everyday life, but which may be tied specifically to the French legal system without the same concept necessarily existing within the framework of the English system.
The information below draws upon French-English contract translations that I have carried out in collaboration with other colleagues specialising in real estate law or in French legal translation. I hope it will be useful to those needing to gain an initial grasp of the content of a French contract.
There are some French words that you may be familiar with, but which tend to have a different meaning in a legal context, or which turn out to be faux amis.
The first example of a faux ami that you may have come across is the word compromis as in compromis de vente. The word, not to be confused with the English word compromise, refers to a promise or undertaking. A compromis de vente is thus an "undertaking to sell". The concept does not exist in quite the same way in UK law, and can be seen translated in various ways, including the literal promise of sale. However, it is also important to understand that when you sign a compromis de vente, you are generally making something more than a simple "promise": if certain conditions are completed, the other party can force you to make the sale.
Another faux ami is the word acte. This refers to a legal deed, such as the very contract that you are signing. An acte de vente is thus a "deed of sale". An act in the legal sense of "statute", "piece of law" is usually referred to simple as a loi.
Talking about deeds, you may have seen one referred to as authentique. In a legal sense, this refers to a deed that has gone through the due legal process and executed by an authorised public official. In simple terms, the acte authentique will in effect be the "final, official" deed of sale in a property transaction, signed on the day that the property is actually handed over.
You are probably used to the word état meaning "state", as in either the condition of something or in the political sense ("Member States", "The United States"). However, it is frequently used in contracts to refer to an inventory or survey. For example, the état parasitaire is a survey of termite activity required for property in some regions of France. More generally, an état sanitaire is an inventory of health and safety information.
Yet another faux ami to watch out for in contracts is that the word propriété usually refers to ownership, rather than the property itself, which is referred to as le bien or les biens.
The word disposition is nothing to do with being of a nervous disposition, though you might be by the time you've signed the contract. Instead, les dispositions are the "terms" or "clauses" of a statute or contract. If you see a phrase such as conformément aux dispositions de... this effectively means "in accordance with...", "under the terms of...".
In English, it is possible to create a variety of words based on below- and above- with various other words, e.g. below-designated, above-stated, as well as various words based on here and there which are not used in every language: herein, hereinafter, hereto, hereby thereto, thereby etc.
Similar schemes exist in French using the prefixes sus- ("above"), sous- ("below") and ci- ("here", "herein"). So for example, we can create compounds such as sus-visé, sus-désigné, sus-mentionné etc. Here are some common combinations, plus a few similar words:
Article written by Neil Coffey. Current version: 1 January 2014