Your project to purchase your farm or vineyard is progressing well. You are about to sign the sales agreement, but you have been told that the SAFER is going to preempt and prevent your project from going ahead. Don't panic! This risk is not that high, and you certainly have solutions to put in place.
Let's go back to basics to understand how the right of pre-emption and the SAFER work.
The right of pre-emption is a right granted to a generally public body to purchase a property (to substitute itself) in place of the purchaser initially intended in the contract. For example, municipalities very often benefit from a right of pre-emption on real estate sales, which allows them to control transactions in their municipalities.
The objective of this right of pre-emption is therefore to implement a public policy, to control, at least in part, private operations.
The SAFER (Société d'Aménagement Foncier et d'Etablissement Rural) is a private body but endowed with a public service mission by law. The SAFER is organized into companies at the level of each French region.
According to article L141-1 of the rural and maritime fishing code, the SAFER must fulfill 4 missions:
To carry out its missions, it has been equipped with legal tools including the right of pre-emption. It was granted to it in order to avoid speculation on agricultural land and to limit the price of agricultural land.
This right applies only to agricultural buildings: land, agricultural buildings, houses in agricultural zones, etc.
For more details, you can consult the presentation created by the SAFER itself.
When a sales agreement is signed for agricultural buildings, the notary will then send a notification to the SAFER specifying the terms of the sale: the seller, the buyer, the description of the property sold, the sale price, etc.
It then has a period of 2 months to act. If at the end of the 2 months nothing has happened, this means that the SAFER is not preempting.
During these 2 months, the SAFER will investigate the file. It transmits it to the local land advisor who will examine the sale project, look at the prices practiced in light of local usage, see if other buyers may be interested, if they are priorities, contact them, etc. After examination, if the advisor thinks they should preempt, they submit the file to a Technical Committee which will then make the decision to preempt or not.
Note that the SAFER also benefits from a similar right on sales of woods and forests in the Ile-de-France region.
Yes, when the SAFER preempts, it does not do so against a candidate but to favor another priority candidate.
One of the missions of the SAFER is to favor the installation of young farmers and the transmission of agricultural holdings.
Priority orders are defined by law and by regional regulations. Indeed, each region determines a Regional Master Plan for Agricultural Holdings (SDREA). It is this document that determines the priorities of the Control of Structures. The SAFER preempts if it considers that a priority buyer should buy the property rather than another.
Once the SAFER has notified the notary of its decision to preempt, it will then look for candidates for the allocation of the property. It makes an official advertisement for the property. Anyone interested can apply by completing a motivation file.
The land technician in charge of the file will then summarize the application files, review the financing arrangements, and transmit the file to the Technical Committee, which will give an opinion on the resale (retrocession). This decision is then passed to the Board of Directors, which makes an official decision.
Government commissioners, representatives of the State, then validate the decisions taken by the Board of Directors. Government commissioners are representatives of the ministries in charge of Agriculture and Finance.
Note that when the pre-emption decision is notified to the seller, the latter cannot withdraw their property from the sale. They are then obliged to proceed with the sale but for the benefit of the SAFER.
Yes, pre-emption and retrocession decisions are administrative decisions that can be subject to judicial appeals and are liable to cancellation.
There are also many cases of litigation against SAFER decisions with favorable or unfavorable outcomes.
The SAFER Technical Committee consists of representatives from different organizations represented in 3 different colleges:
Agricultural organizations: Chamber of Agriculture, representative agricultural unions (FDSEA, Jeunes Agriculteurs, Confédération Paysanne, Coordination Rurale, ...), mutual banks and insurers.
Public authorities: regional and departmental councils, associations of mayors, etc.
Others: Payment Service Agency, environmental protection associations, unions of landowners and forest owners, chamber of notaries, etc.
The presence of agricultural representatives within the SAFER allows land technicians to have an important network of informants in the countryside.
When the SAFER considers that a transfer is being made at an abnormally high price compared to the market price, it can decide to preempt with a price revision.
In practice, it notifies the notary that it wishes to exercise its right but at a price lower than that provided for in the sales agreement. It must justify its decision by proving that the intended price is higher than the average values practiced.
But it cannot impose this price on the seller. Indeed, the seller then has a period of 6 months to make their decision. They have 2 options:
The SAFER has its own data on the agricultural land market. To know the market value of land before a possible pre-emption, our land price observatory is a useful complementary source: based on DVF data (actual recorded transactions), it gives access to average and median prices and transaction ranges for each department. In 2024, the national average price is €6,038/ha, but the gap between departments reaches a factor of 10x (Saône-et-Loire: €2,400/ha vs Var: €24,000/ha).
The SAFER has been designated by the Sempastous Law to exercise the control provided for by the Sempastous Law aimed at fighting against the grabbing of agricultural land through partial transfers of agricultural companies.
The SAFER receives almost no more subsidies and is remunerated by fees that increase the purchase price for the beneficiary of the retrocession.
But to avoid driving up the bill too much, operations carried out by the SAFER are exempt from registration duties. The cost of its intervention is therefore covered, at least partially, by a saving on acquisition costs.
According to SAFER figures, in 2020, the SAFER carried out 1,240 pre-emptions, which is only 0.4% of the 322,400 sale projects notified to it! The risk of pre-emption is therefore in reality very low.
If you are buying a farm, an equestrian property, a vineyard, etc., including buildings, land, and a house, the risk of pre-emption is low because the SAFER will find it quite difficult to find a competing and priority buyer.
If your purchase only concerns a few hectares of land, the risk of pre-emption will be greater because many neighboring farmers are likely to be interested in these plots.
One of the ways to avoid SAFER pre-emption is to anticipate and therefore know the local context. Contact the SAFER, introduce yourself, and argue your project. The local technician might be able to tell you how to set up your project and move up the priority list.
In fact, it is even often the SAFER land technician who contacts the buyer or seller of a property even before notification to inform them that it is considering pre-emption on the file.
You can also contact your potential local competitors and try to find an agreement so that they do not apply.
If a project escapes you, you will very likely have new opportunities to acquire agricultural buildings in the months and years to come. Indeed, many farmers will stop their activity in the coming years, thus freeing up many farms and land plots.
You now have a real understanding of what the SAFER is and its right of pre-emption, and therefore the keys to making the right decisions for your purchase project. Do not hesitate to consult all our articles dedicated to buying a farm for more information.
