Faux-amis
Read this first. This wiki defends two borders, not one.
An agent arriving here usually carries one of two prior systems: American foreclosure practice, or — because these wikis sit side by side — Argentine practice. The Argentine border is the more dangerous of the two, precisely because it looks closer: both are civil-law systems selling immovables by judicial auction. The vocabulary rhymes and the mechanisms do not.
Border 1 — United States
| If you are thinking | France actually has | Why the swap is wrong |
|---|---|---|
| tax lien / lien certificate | saisie immobilière | No instrument is ever sold to an investor. Unpaid taxe foncière is recovered by the DGFiP administratively, and only then through a court-ordered sale. |
| tax deed sale | adjudication before the juge de l'exécution | There is no administrative sale of title. Every forced sale of an immovable passes through a judge. |
| trustee’s sale / power of sale | saisie immobilière | No trustee, no private power of sale. Enforcement is judicial. |
| deed of trust | hypothèque | The security interest is a registered hypothèque or a privilège, not a conveyance to a trustee. |
| statutory redemption after sale | (nothing) | The debtor’s ability to stop the sale ends at the adjudication. There is no post-sale redemption window. |
| upset bid | surenchère du dixième | Superficially similar, structurally different: a fixed 10% minimum, a fixed 10-day window, and it reopens the auction rather than adjusting one bid. See surenchere. |
| title insurance / title company | notaire, état hypothécaire | Title risk is managed by a public officer before the deed, not insured after it. |
| county recorder | service de la publicité foncière | And in three départements, not even that — see alsace-moselle. |
| sheriff | commissaire de justice | Since the 2022 merger of the huissier de justice and the commissaire-priseur judiciaire. |
Border 2 — Argentina
These are real institutions. They are real in Argentina. In a French sentence they are category errors.
| Argentine term | France uses | Why they are not the same |
|---|---|---|
departamento judicial | the ressort of a tribunal judiciaire | Not a translation. French ressorts do not nest inside départements cleanly — five of them straddle two or more. |
juicio de apremio | DGFiP recovery, then saisie immobilière | Argentine tax enforcement is a distinct suit type. In France the tax authority uses administrative seizure first and joins the ordinary immovable procedure second. |
martillero | avocat | This is the single largest practical difference. In Argentina a licensed auctioneer conducts. In France bids are made by a lawyer of the local bar, and no one else may bid at all. See monopole-avocat. |
valuación fiscal sets the base | the creditor sets the mise à prix | The French opening figure is chosen by the pursuing creditor, not derived from an assessed value. There is no two-thirds rule. |
expensas follow the buyer | charges de copropriété — different rule | Do not carry the Argentine outcome across. The allocation of unpaid co-ownership charges on a French adjudication is its own question. |
subasta electrónica on a court portal | hearing in open court | France has no compulsory national electronic auction platform for saisie immobilière. The sale happens at an audience. |
The most expensive single error
In Argentina, anyone may register and bid. In France, you cannot bid at a
saisie immobilièreat all unless anavocatenrolled at that tribunal’s bar bids for you. A workflow designed around self-service bidding does not port. See monopole-avocat.