#13: Do you really need a project manager for your French renovation?
Episode 13, Season 1
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Do you really need a project manager for your French renovation?
Project management is one of those things that renovators in France often try to skip - either to save money, or because they don’t fully understand what it involves. In this episode, Rosie and Sue pull back the curtain on what project management in France actually means, who’s qualified to do it, what it costs, and - critically - what can go wrong when you try to cut corners.
Contents
What the law says about who’s responsible for your renovation project in France
What a project manager (maître d’œuvre) actually does day-to-day
Who should - and shouldn’t - be managing your project
The ‘attestation de vigilance’: what it is and why it could save you thousands
How much project management costs, and why it’s often false economy to skip it
Special considerations if you’re opening a gîte or other public-facing business
Red flags to watch for when hiring a project manager
When you probably don’t need one at all
First, the legal bit: who’s responsible for what?
In France, when you commission renovation works, you are legally the maître d’ouvrage - the project owner. This means you sign the devis, approve any variations, pay the invoices, and formally accept the completed works at the end. Importantly, this role cannot be transferred to anyone else, even if you hire a project manager.
This surprises a lot of foreign homeowners, who assume that handing the keys to someone else means handing over the responsibility too. It doesn’t. You remain legally on the hook throughout.
The person you hire to manage the project on your behalf is called the maître d’œuvre. Their job is to coordinate trades, sequence the works, attend site meetings, oversee progress, and act as the link between you and the artisans. If they’re negligent in carrying out those duties, they can be held liable under their professional insurance - but only if they have the right insurance in the first place (more on that shortly).
What does a project manager actually do?
More than most homeowners realise. Here’s a flavour of what good project management involves on a renovation in France:
Scheduling and sequencing - knowing which trade needs to be on site and when, and in what order. First, fix electrics before plasterboard goes up. Floors after plastering. Tiling after plumbing. It sounds obvious until you’re the one coordinating four different artisans who each have five other jobs on the go.
Managing variations - renovation projects change. Walls come down and reveal surprises. Clients change their minds. Dimensions shift. Every change potentially affects the plumber’s devis, the electrician’s devis, and the timeline. Someone needs to go through every line of every quote, recalculate, and make sure it all still makes sense. (Rosie recently spent three days doing exactly this on one project after the clients expanded a bathroom from 4m² to 15m² and incorporated an extra bedroom - before a single tile was laid.)
Keeping the client informed - filtering what the client needs to know and shielding them from the noise. A good project manager doesn’t call the client every time a delivery is late or a minor snag appears. They deal with it and update when it matters.
Checking paperwork - including the attestation de vigilance from URSSAF for every artisan or subcontractor on site (see the glossary below for why this matters more than you might think).
Leveraging relationships - this one’s underrated. A project manager who works regularly in your area has a little black book of trusted artisans, and the leverage to get them on site. An artisan is far more likely to prioritise a call from a professional they work with regularly than a homeowner they’ve never met before - especially if that homeowner has been shouting down the phone at them.
Who should - and shouldn’t - be your project manager?
This is where Rosie and Sue get quite direct, and it’s worth paying attention.
Good options:
A qualified maître d’œuvre - usually an architect or a courtier de travaux - with the relevant insurances and a track record of managing renovation projects
A building company with multi-trade registration that can take on the whole project and effectively manage it in-house. Rosie and Sue’s companies both operate this way - there’s site management from the team on the ground, and client-facing project coordination handled from the office
Approach with caution:
A sole artisan who subcontracts everything but also tries to project manage. The risk here is that they’re stretched between doing the work and running the project, with no backup in the office
Avoid:
Handholders and property managers who’ve reinvented themselves as renovation coordinators. Unless they have genuine, extensive experience running building projects in France - and the insurances to back it up - they are unlikely to know the sequencing of works, the paperwork requirements, or what questions to ask. As Rosie puts it: you may actually be better off managing it yourself for free than paying an inexperienced person to do it badly
The attestation de vigilance - and why it matters
This is something most homeowners have never heard of, but it can have serious financial consequences.
Any artisan working in France pays social charges (cotisations) to URSSAF — the French body broadly equivalent to National Insurance in the UK. The attestation de vigilance is a certificate showing that an artisan is up to date with their declarations. If you - or your project manager - use an artisan who turns out to have unpaid social charges, you as the maître d’ouvrage could potentially be liable for those unpaid charges, which can quickly run into tens of thousands of euros.
A good project manager will request this document from every artisan and subcontractor they use. A handholder almost certainly won’t.
Note: Sue points out that the certificate confirms declarations are up to date, not necessarily that every penny has been paid - so it’s not a perfect safeguard, but it is a layer of protection you want in place.
Check your project manager’s insurance
Before you hire anyone, ask specifically about their insurance. A maître d’œuvre should hold décennale insurance (10-year structural liability) and appropriate professional indemnity cover. If they can’t tell you clearly what they’re covered for, that’s a red flag.
Property managers and handholders operating as project managers may not hold any of this. If something goes wrong on site and it transpires your “project manager” wasn’t qualified or insured to be doing what they were doing, the liability chain comes back to you.
How much does project management cost in France?
Typically 8–12% of the total project cost, though this varies depending on complexity. On a €200,000 renovation, that could be €16,000–€24,000 — a figure that makes many homeowners immediately look for a way around it.
But consider this: if hiring a project manager gets your gîte or chambre d’hôtes open 18 months earlier than if you manage it yourself, how much revenue does that represent? Almost certainly more than the fee. Rosie and Sue have seen homeowners spend five years on a renovation they could have completed in two…
A good project manager can also save you money by catching problems early, avoiding costly do-overs, and making sure you’re not paying twice because works were done in the wrong order.
When you might not need one
Smaller jobs involving just one or two artisans are generally manageable without a dedicated project manager, provided you’re organised, communicative, and available. If you’ve already completed a few projects in France and have established relationships with reliable trades, you’ll be in a stronger position to run things yourself.
The key questions to ask yourself honestly are: how complex is the project, and how capable am I of managing it? If you’re living abroad, if there are multiple trades involved, if you’re opening a business, or if the budget runs past €100k - seriously consider getting professional help.
Opening a business? This is not optional.
If your renovation project is going to become a public-facing business - a gîte, chambre d’hôtes, restaurant or wedding venue, for example - the stakes are significantly higher. You’ll need to pass an ERP (Établissement Recevant du Public) inspection, which covers fire exits, disabled access, specific materials, and structural requirements. An architect will handle the planning stage, but someone needs to be on site regularly making sure everything is being built to those approved plans - not just assumed to be.
If a staircase isn’t built to fire regulation standards and something goes wrong, “I didn’t know” is not a defence. The liability - potentially criminal - sits with the project owner.
Red flags when hiring a project manager
Before you sign anything, ask:
What are your qualifications, and how do you define your role as maître d’œuvre?
What insurances do you hold? (Ask specifically about décennale and professional indemnity)
Can you show me previous projects you’ve managed?
How often will you be on site, and at what stages?
What exactly is included in your fee - and what isn’t?
How will variations and changes be managed and communicated?
What does the payment schedule look like?
If any of these questions are met with vague answers or deflection, walk away.
One last thing: calm beats loud, every time
If you do manage your own project, the single most counterproductive thing you can do is lose your temper with your artisans. French professional culture does not reward aggression the way it sometimes does in the UK or the US. Shout down the phone at an artisan who has five other jobs on the go, and the most likely outcome is that they quietly deprioritise you and go where the energy is better. A good project manager has no emotional stake (or financial investment) in the property - they can stay calm, keep things professional, and get results without burning bridges.
Glossary
Maître d’ouvrage - the project owner; legally, always the homeowner/client
Maître d’œuvre - the project manager; the person contracted to manage works on the owner’s behalf
Courtier de travaux - a works broker or specialist project coordinator
Décennale - mandatory 10-year structural liability insurance held by artisans and project managers
Devis - a formal written quote for works
Attestation de vigilance - a certificate from URSSAF confirming an artisan is up to date with their social charge declarations
URSSAF - the French body that collects social charges (broadly equivalent to National Insurance in the UK)
Cotisations - social charges; contributions paid by anyone working in France
ERP - Établissement Recevant du Public; public-facing building classification with strict safety and access requirements
Premier fixe / deuxième fixe - first fix / second fix; the two phases of trades work (structural and service installation vs. finishing and fitting)
TVA - French VAT
Connect
Email: frenchrenodiaries@gmail.com
Maison Bretagne (Rosie Ellis)
S.R. Charpenterie (Sue Peake-Russell)
Paul Wilkins Electricien (Micala Wilkins)
Got a story about renovating in France that you want to share? We’d love to hear it!
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