Can a mobile home remain parked in French home garden?
Sarah Bright-Thomas of Bright Avocats answers a reader query
Expect to pay the taxe d'aménagement
Sinuswelle / Shutterstock
Reader Question: Can I install a mobile home in my garden for family visits?
Yes you can, but you should follow some basic legal rules and pay taxes.
Officially mobile homes are called maisons transportables, and are considered in French planning law as a vehicle not a building.
The mobile home has to be habitable (meaning it has basic services, enough height etc) and destined for someone to live in it on a temporary or a seasonal basis for leisure purposes.
It must keep a tow bar, its wheels and have a carte grise, but even so it cannot be towed on the roads – it has to be moved on a lorry in a convoi exceptionnel because of its width.
While the tow bar and wheels are in place, the mobile home cannot be installed in your garden – they are only allowed on camping sites, villages des vacances which have permission for residents, or a leisure park with structures to accommodate them.
Caravans can, however, be put in gardens without any formalities for three months.
Read more: Tiny houses surge in popularity across France
If you take off the wheels and the tow bar of a mobile home, as most people do, the mobile home stops being a vehicle. It can then be sited in your garden like any other new building.
First, however, you will need to find out what the rules for new buildings are in your commune. There should be no problem unless you are close to an historic monument.
Usually, if the floor surface of the mobile home is under 20m2, the formalities can be limited to a déclaration préalable de travaux.
For larger mobile homes, you need to ask for a permis de construire.
The mobile home will almost certainly mean having to pay the “garden hut tax” (taxe d'aménagement) and, if it is on a concrete pad, will also lead to an increase in your taxe foncière.
You might also be told, if the mobile home has a toilet and shower, to have the toilet linked either to its own septic tank, an existing one, or into the village sewerage system.
Read more: ‘Garden shed’ tax in France: what are the exemptions?
