Fax to the French land registry: plans and corrections

Short answer: the cadastral plan is consulted online and extracts can be downloaded free of charge from cadastre.gouv.fr — there is no need to fax anything for that. On the other hand, a centre des impôts foncier (property tax centre, CDIF), a service de la documentation foncière (land documentation office) or a pôle de topographie et de gestion cadastrale (topography and cadastral management unit, PTGC) of the DGFiP (French public finances directorate) very commonly accepts by fax anything belonging to an adversarial case file: a request to correct a floor area or a land-use category, a challenge to the valuation of a building, a report of a construction wrongly linked to a parcel, the transmission of a boundary-marking report, a surveyor's sketch, or a reply to a letter requesting information. The golden rule: state at the top the exact cadastral references (municipality, INSEE code, section, parcel number) and the tax identifier of the premises, address the named office — not "the land registry" in general — and keep the transmission receipt, the only document able to prove that the reply was sent before the deadline stated in the letter.

Three offices that are systematically confused

Saying "I'm writing to the land registry" means nothing to the administration, because three distinct entities share the work — and a fax sent to the wrong door will go round in circles for weeks.

The centre des impôts foncier (property tax centre, CDIF), sometimes merged into a service départemental des impôts fonciers (departmental property tax office, SDIF), handles valuation: the weighted floor area of your house, its category, its classification, and the rental value used as the basis for property tax. This is the office to contact when the property tax appears to be calculated on a house that no longer exists, on a filled-in swimming pool, or on a floor area twice the actual size.

The pôle de topographie et de gestion cadastrale (topography and cadastral management unit, PTGC) handles the plan: the drawing of parcels, their numbering, the survey documents drawn up by chartered surveyors, and updates after a subdivision or a new build. This is the office to contact when a building does not appear on the plan, when a boundary looks shifted, or when a parcel has vanished after a subdivision.

The service de la publicité foncière (land registration office, SPF), formerly the mortgage registry, handles ownership: who owns what, under which published deeds. It is the office that issues mortgage status reports and copies of deeds. Its work is done on a statutory form — and it is the office where a fax has the least chance of getting through.

The key point: a fax never creates the procedure, it carries a document within a procedure already under way. An initial correction request can perfectly well be sent by fax, but it must be drafted as a formal claim, not as a message.

What makes a cadastral fax usable

A CDIF officer handles files sorted by municipality and by parcel. If they cannot match your sheet to a file within ten seconds, it goes into a pending tray.

The references to state at the top

Three blocks must appear above everything else, even before the opening courtesy formula:

• The complete cadastral location: name of the municipality, five-digit INSEE code, prefix where applicable (essential in merged municipalities), section (one or two letters), parcel number. An example of a format accepted everywhere: "Commune de Saint-Médard (33422), préfixe 000, section AB, parcelle 147" ("Municipality of Saint-Médard (33422), prefix 000, section AB, parcel 147").
• The identifier of the premises when valuation is at stake: it appears on your property tax notice, as a ten-digit "invariant" number. It is the key that opens the valuation file.
• Your thirteen-digit tax number, the one on your tax notice, and the reference of the letter you are replying to if the administration has written to you.

A reusable header template can be built in five minutes, and the site's cover sheet generator lets you lock it in once and for all: see the cover sheet that proves your case and the fax cover sheet generator tool.

The documents that tip a case

A floor-area correction with no supporting document will not be granted. What convinces:

• A dimensioned sketch of each level, with interior measurements, outbuildings and covered areas. No architect's drawing is needed: a clean pencil survey, tidied up with a ruler, is often enough. A laser distance measurer for building work gives far more defensible dimensions than a tape measure stretched by guesswork, and that is precisely what the officer will check if they come out to the site.
• Dated photographs of the façade, of the disputed room, of the demolished outbuilding.
• Deeds and authorisations: notarial deed, building permit, prior declaration, certificate of completion, demolition order.
• The boundary-marking report or the survey document if a chartered surveyor has been involved.
• The property tax notices for the years concerned, which document the error over time.

Print quality matters more here than anywhere else: a dimensioned sketch loses its figures as soon as it is faxed in standard mode. A portable sheet-fed document scanner or, failing that, your phone's scanning app resting on a stable support will produce a crisp PDF. The exact settings are detailed in preparing a PDF that gets through: hard black and white, 200 to 300 dpi, no greyscale, dimensions written large enough.

The four requests that work best by fax

Correcting a floor area or a property category

This is the most common situation. The rental value of a house depends on its weighted floor area and its classification into one of eight categories, a framework inherited from the 1970 revision and still in force for residential premises. A conservatory counted as a room, a basement counted as habitable space, an over-favourable category assigned to the neighbouring dwelling and then duplicated: discrepancies are common.

The request goes to the CDIF, as a contentious claim if it concerns a property tax already issued. The time limit is then the one set by article R*196-2 of the livre des procédures fiscales (Book of Tax Procedures): until 31 December of the year following the year of collection. A fax sent on 30 December with a time-stamped transmission receipt meets that deadline; a letter posted on 30 December only meets it if you keep proof of posting. Claim mechanisms and calendar pitfalls are developed in fax and taxes: claims, formal notices, deadlines.

Reporting a construction, a demolition, a change of substance

A conservatory added, a swimming pool built, a barn converted into a dwelling, an outbuilding knocked down: any change must be declared within 90 days of completion, normally via the 6650-series forms or the "Gérer mes biens immobiliers" ("Manage my real estate") online service in your personal account. Here the fax serves as a supplement: sending the certificate of completion, the certificate of non-objection, photographs of the demolition, after filing the declaration through the designated channel.

Correcting the plan with the PTGC

Drawing errors do happen: a missing building, a building positioned on the neighbouring parcel, a parcel number assigned twice after an old subdivision, a path still shown although it has been removed. The PTGC handles such reports as case files, with a hand-annotated plan extract and a written explanation. Be careful: the cadastral plan has no legal force for fixing a property boundary — only adversarial boundary marking, carried out by a chartered surveyor, determines it. A fax to the PTGC corrects a representation; it does not settle a neighbour dispute. For the latter, the conciliateur de justice (court-appointed conciliator) remains the quick and free route: see faxing a dispute file to the conciliator.

Obtaining information about a parcel or its owner

Cadastral data is communicable, but subject to limits: the DGFiP (French public finances directorate) provides information on a request stating its grounds, parcel by parcel, while restricting the release of personal details. A request faxed to the CDIF, with the exact references and the genuine reason (purchase plan, easement, party wall, inheritance), often succeeds. A blanket request covering an entire section is refused.

What a fax will never do for you

Three illusions to dispel straight away.

A fax does not replace boundary marking, does not suspend payment of a tax, and does not count as filing a survey document.

It does not mark boundaries. A dividing boundary is fixed by amicable boundary marking (a report signed by both neighbours) or by court order. The cadastral plan is a tax document: its lines are accurate to within about a metre on old sheets sometimes last updated sixty years ago.

It does not suspend collection. A claim, even an admissible one, leaves the tax payable unless you expressly request a stay of payment, which must be set out in the written document and may be subject to guarantees above a certain amount. So it must be written in black and white in the fax, not assumed.

It does not count as professional filing. Documents amending cadastral parcel boundaries go through the chartered surveyors' channel and their dedicated applications. A private individual who faxes a sketch to the PTGC is reporting an anomaly, not filing a survey document.

Organising your file before pressing send

A cadastral file has a long life: a floor-area correction obtained in 2027 may well be reopened in 2031 during a sale. Three filing habits.

Gather a single PDF per transmission, in logical order — cover sheet, letter, sketch, supporting documents — rather than five separate faxes that will end up in five different trays. The assemble a PDF file tool does exactly that.

Keep the transmission receipt with the number called, the date, the time and the number of pages. It is the only item that will prove, if challenged, that the reply was sent within the deadline. Recommended retention periods are summarised in archiving your fax receipts.

Keep a paper set of the file, in an expanding folder, alongside the property tax notices and the title deed. An A4 elasticated folder is enough, but an archive box labelled by parcel saves a considerable amount of time ten years later. And because measurements taken on site always end up scribbled on the back of an envelope, a squared surveying notebook makes the final sketch far more credible.

Finally, check the number before every transmission: CDIFs have been merged into departmental SDIFs in many departments since 2021, and many numbers circulating on the web are no longer in service. The checking method is detailed in finding the right fax number for a government office, and official contact details appear in the directory of offices.

Frequently asked questions

Can I obtain a cadastral plan extract by fax?

That is no longer the practice: plan extracts can be downloaded free of charge and instantly from cadastre.gouv.fr, as scaled PDFs. For a certified extract intended for a notary or a court, the request goes to the competent office — but the freely available version is enough in the vast majority of cases, including for a building permit application.

Can a property statement be obtained by fax?

The property statement, which lists all the assets attached to an account, can be downloaded from your personal account on impots.gouv.fr, under "Gérer mes biens immobiliers" ("Manage my real estate"). For an inherited property, a jointly owned property or an old account that cannot be found online, a written request to the CDIF — faxed with proof of identity and proof of heir status — remains a frequent fallback.

Is my claim fax enough to put the property tax on hold?

No. A claim does not suspend payability: you must expressly request a stay of payment in the body of the document. Without that wording, collection reminders continue, and a surcharge may apply even if the claim is ultimately accepted.

How long does a reply take?

Allow several weeks, often two to six months for a floor-area correction that requires an officer to visit. The tax administration has six months to rule on a contentious claim; once that period passes without a reply, silence counts as rejection and opens the way to the administrative court, whose filing rules are described in fax to the administrative court: still admissible?.

Do I need to involve a chartered surveyor?

For a correction to a built floor area or a land-use category, no: a carefully drawn dimensioned sketch is generally enough. For anything touching on a property boundary, yes, and it is essential: only a chartered surveyor can draw up a boundary-marking report enforceable against neighbours. The land registry will never be a substitute for it.

What if the office tells me it no longer has a fax?

That is possible; fax fleets are shrinking. The thing to do then is to use the secure messaging service in your personal account on impots.gouv.fr, which time-stamps the transmission and keeps a consultable record. The choice between the two channels is compared in fax or secure messaging.

In summary

• The plan and the property statement are no longer requested by fax: cadastre.gouv.fr and your personal account on impots.gouv.fr provide them online, free of charge.
• The fax remains relevant for documents in an adversarial case file: correction of a floor area or category, reporting a construction or a demolition, correcting a plan, replying to a request for information.
• Three offices, three remits: CDIF for valuation, PTGC for the plan, the land registration office for ownership — the latter operating on statutory forms.
• The cadastral references and the premises' "invariant" number must be stated at the top of the first page: without them, the fax cannot be matched to a file.
• A dimensioned sketch, dated photographs and the deeds are worth more than three pages of argument.
• The deadline to watch is 31 December of the year following collection for a property tax claim, and the transmission receipt is the proof that you met it.
• A stay of payment must be requested explicitly, otherwise collection continues.
• The land registry does not mark boundaries: for a disputed boundary, use a chartered surveyor or a court-appointed conciliator, not a fax.