Fees added to rent in Pau

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There are many fees which can  appear when you rent an apartment:

The rent (loyer) is of course your principal concern.

Separate from the rent are the fees for maintenance of the building (charges). The charges recur monthly, so you should just consider them part of the rent. They're like condominium fees, but occur with all apartments in France.

There's a 2.5% monthly rental tax (droit au bail or DAB) that's applied to all rent. It's not applied to the charges.

Warning: The person who occupies the apartment on January 1 of each year is responsible for another tax, this one annual, which is typically some (large) fraction of the rent, exclusive of charges.

Beware of the agency fees (frais agences). These are typically between half a month's rent and a full month's rent. These are a one-time cost that you just have to pay if the apartment is rented by an agency.

The heating (chaufage), electricity (électricité), and water (eau) are usually not included in the rent. You usually have to pay these directly to the appropriate company.

A surpising fee that some enterprising agencies will charge is the ``apartment inspection fee'' (l'état des lieux or EDL). This very detailed inspection occurs before you move into an apartment, and you'll be asked to sign the inspection report. When you move out, you'll be responsible for any damages or degradations that have occurred. But most agencies include this in their overall agency fee.

You'll likely be asked to supply a two month damage deposit (caution) which, in principal, is returned when you move out. It's not clear that you'll receive that whole amount back if you're dealing with an agency; check whether they deduct a mandatory cleaning charge when you move out.

I hope this is of help and explains your questions?

SimCityAT
Expat Team

Great response, SimCityAT!
I'll just add that the charges are balanced at the end of the calendar year, and the renter pays the true-up cost (ours last year was a couple of euros more, so not much).
If the rent is quoted with "CC" (charges comprises), then the number includes the estimate for the charges. If "HC" (hors charges), then you will have to add them to know your total.
Julie