We are looking to buy an apartment, we sign a preliminary agreement, and three weeks later the notary discovers a judicial mortgage that has been registered for years on the property. The financing file gets blocked, and the sale is delayed. This situation can be resolved in advance, provided that the right information has been requested from the right service, using the correct form: the Cerfa 3233-SD.
Cerfa 3233-SD: what is this form used for before buying real estate
The Cerfa 3233-SD is the official document that allows you to request information about the legal status of a property from the land registry service (SPF). It is used to obtain what is called a mortgage statement, which is an extract from the property file listing everything that encumbers a property: conventional mortgages, judicial mortgages, lender privileges, and any potential seizures.
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This form covers the period from January 1, 1956. For information prior to this date, a different form must be used. In practice, the vast majority of real estate searches go through the 3233-SD.
Even before formalizing a purchase offer, it is in your best interest to fill out the cerfa 3233-sd form and send it to the competent SPF. Crédit Agricole now recommends conducting all necessary checks regarding the property in question before making an offer, and the mortgage situation is part of that.
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Search by property or by person: choosing the right section on the form
The Cerfa 3233-SD offers two types of searches, and you do not fill in the same boxes depending on the objective. This is the point that generates the most errors when attempting it without assistance.
The property sheet
You check this option when you want to know the legal status of a specific property. You need to provide the municipality, the cadastral section, the parcel number, and, for a condominium unit, the lot number. These cadastral references can be found on the property statement or on the cadastral plan available online.
Without exact cadastral references, the SPF will reject the request. The postal address alone is not sufficient. If you do not have this information, you can obtain it for free on the cadastral website before filling out the form.
The sheet by person
This search allows you to find out which real estate properties are owned by a natural or legal person, and what registrations encumber these properties. You then provide the complete identity of the owner (name, first names, date and place of birth for a natural person, name and SIREN number for a company).
This option is useful when you want to verify the overall real estate assets of a seller, particularly to detect any potential cross-seizures between multiple properties.
Filling out the Cerfa 3233-SD without errors: the problematic boxes
The form contains several sections. You do not fill them all out, and that is precisely what trips people up. Here are the specific points of caution:
- Section “Designation of properties”: provide the municipality of the property (not that of the applicant), the department, and the complete cadastral references. For a condominium property, add the lot number as it appears in the condominium regulations.
- Section “Designated person”: to be filled out only if you are conducting a search by person. For natural persons, the first names must match exactly those on the civil status documents, not the commonly used names.
- Section “Nature of requested information”: check the boxes corresponding to the desired information (existing registrations, mutations, etc.). Forgetting a box means missing information in the SPF’s response.
- Section “Applicant”: provide your complete contact information. Anyone can make this request; you do not need to be an owner or a notary. It is a public document.
Responses vary regarding the SPF’s response times. Generally, you receive the mortgage statement within a few days to a few weeks, depending on the service’s workload and the complexity of the request.
Mortgages and real estate purchase: why check before the offer and not after
Traditionally, it is the notary who requests the mortgage statement when preparing the sale. The problem is that this verification often occurs after the preliminary agreement is signed, when the buyer is already morally committed (and sometimes financially with the deposit).
In a context where banks have tightened their verification requirements before arranging credit, requesting a mortgage statement yourself before signing allows you to detect blocking situations: a mortgage not lifted after repayment of the initial loan, an active lender privilege, or worse, a seizure registration.
A property encumbered by a mortgage is not necessarily unsellable. The mortgage is often lifted at the time of sale thanks to the sale price, which reimburses the creditor. However, a registered seizure blocks the sale until it is canceled. It is better to know this before signing anything.
Cost of the request and competent land registry service
The request for mortgage information is not free. The cost is set by a national scale, detailed in notice 3241-NOT-SD. The amount depends on the type of search (by property or by person) and the number of registrations to be recorded.
You send the form to the SPF of the location of the property, not to that of your home. To find the competent service, you can use the land registry services directory on the site impots.gouv.fr, entering the municipality where the property is located.
Payment is made by check payable to the public treasury, attached to the form. Some SPFs accept bank transfers, but this is not widespread. Checking with the relevant service before sending avoids rejection due to non-payment.
The validity period of a mortgage statement is not set by law. In practice, notaries and banks consider it relevant for a few months. Beyond that, a new registration may have been published in the meantime, making the document obsolete for securing a transaction.