The final contract or Acte de Vente can be a long winded document. It goes over all sorts of stuff you really don’t need to know about. (Like who built the house and who owned it next and so on and so on). You should receive a copy of this from the notaire in advance of the final sale. Your agent, if you are buying through one, ought to be able to explain anything in it that you are not sure about, but essentially all you have to check that your name and address are correctly written.
You need to transfer the remaining funds to the notaire’s bank account in advance of the sale - about ten days should be fine. On the day of the sale, you can either attend the office of the notaire or not. If you want to appoint someone to sign in your place, you need to let the notaire know a few weeks in advance. You can ask the agent, if you are using one, or a friend if you have one in the area, or the notaire will appoint one of his clerks to sign the Acte de Vente for you.
The actual signature process is not very exciting and is usually all done in French, though your agent should translate and explain it all for you. The notaire will read through the Acte de Vente, usually at great speed, and everyone present initials and/or signs every single page of the Acte (this can take a long time if there are lots of vendors!). Then the money is transferred to the seller, and that’s it. You get an attestation to prove that you are the owner, but you won’t get the actual deed to the property for several months.
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