Apartment Rental in Paris
 

I'm wondering if anyone has booked an apartment with Holidays France Rentals. I can't seem to find any info on them other than their website. Also - they require a copy of my passport and a copy of my homeowners liability insurance. Is that the norm when booking an apartment in Paris?
Thanks!
Elizabeth

Hi Elizabeth, I've rented apartments twice in Paris and haven't had to provide my passport or my homeowners liability insurance (which wouldn't cover anything overseas anyway) on either occasion.

Keep looking, I think you can do better. cheers, Cathie

I have also rented apartments twice in Paris with Paris Vacation Apartments and have only had to initially pay deposit and then sign agreement. No copy of passport or insurance policy.

Should have included that I've used parisbestlodge.com and alacarte-paris-apartments.com.

Both were fabulous, a la carte apartments even organised an emergency dental appt for me when I broke a tooth. A la carte are very expensive, but their apartments are gorgeous.

And Thierry from Paris Best is fabulous. We rented an apartment on Blvd St Michele from Thierry and shortly after moving in found that we didn't have an ironing board. One of my Paris regrets is NOT seeing Thierry racing up the Blvd St Michele on his motor bike with an ironing board under his arm!!

We have been renting in Francefor many years and never were we asked for our homeowners policy---yikes! Keep looking. Our favorite in Paris is www.guestapartment.com Of all our apartments, Hibiscus was our favorite. Now, if that's too pricy, take a look at www.VRBO.com or www.homeaway.com or the many sites recommended on Fodors.

Whether or not you should "keep looking" depends on how appealing the apartment and what the rate happens to be.

What's the big deal with providing a copy of your passport and homeowners policy (they probably won't be able to understand it anyway)?

Providing passport copies and insurance (often you are required to purchase a policy from a recommended resource - which typically also includes generous cancellation insurance for a very reasonable premium), for whatever reason, is becoming more common.

Other considerations are a reasonable damage deposit (best if it's returned day of departure, as many report great difficulty with deposits promised to be returned later), payment options, and so on.

You may want to search other forums, such as TripAdvisor (sort by date), for reviews of Holidays France Rentals.

I've heard of agencies requiring passport copies (I think in fact the last one I rented from required that, but I'm not sure). as for insurance, I believe France does require you do have an insurance policy and some agencies are more lax than others in requiring you to buy one or prove you have one. The last agency I used had an arrangement with a French insurance company that provided such short-term rental insurance policies for only 20-30 euro and it was easy to sign up for that. I'm not sure my own homeowners policy would have covered it or not, I suspect not (that they would cover my belongings, but not any damage I did to another apt or things like that).

I wouldn't care if someone wanted a copy of my homeowners insurance policy, anyway, there's nothing personal in there. So what, why is that such a big yikes. It's kind of odd they'd accept that, but if so, I don't see the harm in it -- they probably won't be able to read it or know if it covers your situation, anyway, and it's just some standard thing they do.

It's like the Czech Republic having some silly requirement that foreigners have to show a health insurance ID card to be admitted to the country, without the slightest understanding that in the US, at least, such a card wouldn't provide any indication whatsoever if the policy covered the member abroad or if it was still even valid as insurance cards have no expiration date on them usually (health insurance, anyway).

I do actually think the French govt legally requires you to have insurance there (which surprised me as in the US, the owner must have insurance to cover the building, not the tenants, but I did read the French law), and the fact that an agency is requiring some of the IDs and records is actually a possible good sign that they are professional and know what they are doing.

We have rented apartments in Paris a number of times with Rentals in Paris (www.rentals-paris.com) and they require a photocopy of our passport, similar to many European hotels, when you check in. I haven't found this strange. They have never asked for our insurance policies and they did tell us that they were insured for their own items, just not our own personal items. I imagine that the passport is for security issues; they want to be sure that the person checking in is the same person who rented the apartment. This seems reasonable to me.

I've rented apartments in Paris on several occassions and have not been asked for a passport or insurance info. That wouldn't be a deal breaker for me though if I was able to get more info about the company.

If you'd like other options you might check this thread with 200+ recs for Paris apartments.
http://www.fodors.com/community/euro...ent-thread.cfm

Thank you everyone - for your help!! Greatly appreciated!