What to check in a rental before you sign

What you need to do

For an arriving student a tenancy agreement is more than housing. It is the document your registration, residence permit and often your bank account depend on. So it is checked not as a domestic paper but as part of the file.

Five questions, each before signing:

1. Will the landlord confirm the address. Registration needs their willingness to confirm that you live here. Reluctance is not fussiness, it is a refusal.
2. Who is named in the contract. The person registered is the person in the contract. Living with a friend whose contract is in their name is not the same as having an address.
3. Is a guarantor required and who will it be. In some countries no contract is concluded without one, and separate state guarantee schemes exist for foreigners.
4. What the payment includes. Deposit, housing insurance, utilities, agency fee — beyond the monthly rent there may be another month's worth.
5. How it is terminated. The notice period and the deposit return conditions determine what changing plans will cost.

Why this matters more than it looks

Registration at an address is the entrance to every other procedure. Without it most countries will not issue a residence permit, and often not an account. A contract that does not allow registration stops not your domestic life but your legalisation.

And it cannot be fixed later: moving means starting again, while the deadlines for registration and for the permit run regardless of your moves.

What goes wrong

People pay to reserve before a viewing and before a contract. Prepaying for housing you have not seen and have no paper for is the scheme universities themselves warn about.

People accept housing «without registration, but cheaper». Cheaper exactly until the first procedure that requires it.

The guarantor clause goes unread. Learning about it at signing means finding a guarantor in a foreign country in a day.

Where this is stated officially

• Your Europe — residence documents and formalities: what is required of an arriving person and in which order.
• Service-Public — the French state portal: the section on the foreign student, the visa and the residence permit.

How to check the requirement is still current

Rental rules are national and local at once: notice periods and deposits are governed by the country's law, registration by the local administration. Check both levels.

Deadlines and amounts by country are collected below, each with its source and verification date.