Apparently the French always refer to women using their maiden name (or the name on the birth certificate) on any legal documents. It dates to a law from the French Revolution. In all our searching about property buying, the name issue never popped up.
The Compromis does not state that Jane Smith is Jane Jones. But it seems logical now with the French naming convention. I guess to make it clearer, we could follow the convention in the first link below and have the first instance of the document state "Jane Smith épouse Jones".
In the USA and Switzerland, all our legal stuff has my married name. Sometimes my maiden name appears after the married name, in brackets.
Sources:
That was very strange to me when we first moved to France but I got used to it.
It wasn’t the case in Germany so I got used to being called by my married name again.
We then moved to Belgium where they also follow the french convention. I managed to persuade them to issue my ID card in my married name as all my documents other than my birth certificate have that name in them. The commune had to get permission from somewhere higher up but it was eventually approved.
Everyone always asked for my maiden name bit I ignored them and gave my married name as that’s what appeared on all my documents.
When I gave birth I got loads of surprised comments about how my son and I shared the same surname, they all assumed I was married to somebody who had the same name as my maiden name.
Well, this thread has taken an unexpectedly dark turn!
For sure, don't sign before you understand the reason for the variance, but it is important to understand that there are strict requirements for what counts as a m2 for legal purposes.
Our house is basically a 10m x 12m footprint over three floors -- which I would describe in normal terms as being a house of 360 m2. However, because we have a sloping roof-line on the top level; open staircases and atriums; and storage spaces, our official surface area for tax/contractual purposes is more like 280m2.
More here:
https://www.french-property.com/news...n_surface_area