This worries me a bit as 2nd home owners will find it difficult to organise unless it can be done by email.
Although you don’t actually need to have pre-booked accommodation as long as you have recourse to 120€/day throughout your stay - which is one of the reasons this requirement is a bit unclear.
It is unclear, because one could argue that someone who owns a property here is not actually “visiting” anyone!
When you look at the procedure for this attestation the first step is all about the person who will be welcoming this stranger into his or her house, their nationality etc etc. And the motive of this cumbersome bureaucracy is to keep track of TCNs. So since a second home owner is not being welcomed by anyone, and is already obvious to the authorities through the taxe d’hab etc this process is rather redundant!
No doubt the British Embassy or Ambassade de France will clarify soon…
This is the link to the original law - it’s nothing new as this has been in force since 2004, but was then only 15€! However no mention of second home owners. I will carry on digging when the next shower of rain appears…
To be blunt this was my first thought for gite/ chambre d’hote owners when they have friends or family come to stay, make them a booking form for the accommodation, then where they end up sleeping and whether cash is exchanged is between them and the pillow they put their head on… 
It was more 2nd home owners who want to have friends/family to stay that I was thinking about.
I guess you have to do it by email in advance?
Or even first home owners! Not sure how joined up all of this is going to get, but of course if friends or family are staying as “paying guests”, that then necessitates payment of taxe de sejour!
IIRC from times past on visits to France, Hotels were required to maintain a register of guests (and may have even taken the passports, I can’t recall exactly) but it was the case that the Police/Gendarme would visit and inspect the records of all guests in the hotel.
This stopped if I recall with Schengen but now the big B has impacted on visitors, I can well see this will be resurrected.
Welcome to the wonderful world of Brexit!
Hotels and gîtes still have to keep registers of TCNs… now under terrorism laws but we have to have a register of details of all non-Europeans and hold it for 6 months. It has ever been thus.
The only change is that Brits are now TCNs (troublesome country nationals)
Here’s an interesting set of metrics:
Say are there are around 100,000 British families units living in France permanently…a guess but probably not wildly wrong.
Say each unit has just one family visit a year…so that’s at a minimum 100,000 forms or 1,000 per dept per annum meaning 20 a week!
Whilst per commune (Marie) it might not be a lot but given the Brit population tends to be in clustered areas some Marie’s are going to be busy.
The last time this type of form was required was, I believe, in the early '90s (maybe earlier?) when travel mobility was far less common.
In the 1980/90s…(40 years ago!!) overseas travel was less common and much more of a big event…people have got used to spontaneous travel. In 2017 12.5m Brits visited France…will they really want to make it difficult…particularly for happy holiday makers, a significant number will be visiting relocated friends or traveling on their own flexible itineraries?
I suspect once travel returns to normal this will be questioned.
Time will tell once travel resumes as Covid-19 restrictions reduce.
…or am I clutching at straws and barking up the wrong tree?
There are over 4 million non-european TCNs living in France, who have always been caught up in this regulation. Whether this has been demanded at every border I don’t know, but I imagine the answer is yes for flights coming in from Africa.
And maybe 12 million UK visitors, but 78million from other countries.
I am constantly amazed that British people seem to think our position here is far more significant than it is!
So far 135,000 WARP applications, so maybe 80,000 - 100,000 families. Which is significantly less than 4 million! We truly are troublesome country nationals.
Quite, Brits really are a drop in the ocean of foreigners here in France, and I’ve been selling the said timbres fiscaux ; attestation d’accueil to other TCNs for a numebr of years !
More details here
British visitors are the single biggest nationality at nearing 20% of all visitors so I don’t think it unreasonable view!
My point is also that with the UK being next to France there is a greater propensity for travellers to be able to, and want to, go without additional paperwork, this is now not going to be possible.
Furthermore it is now the only European country from which travellers to France will arrive and need to get this application.
True that there are many TCN who have always had this but probably don’t have, due to distance and consequential costs, the same level of visits
Wrong tree, this has always been an obligation for a TCN visitor, my friend is Lebanese and has had to do one every time her daughter visits. The UK is now a third country.
The UK is no longer in Europe. Their choice. Fecking edjits!
Not everyone’s choice, some of us were not fecking edjits.
I know I know, not referring to people on here! Just the whatever % it was that did vote!
Don’t count on it.
Apparently simply owning a property or a business counts for nothing.
You have to comply with the short term visit rules or permanent resident rules.
I’m not planing on not complying with the rules - though it is something of a requirement to know what the rules are in order to be able to comply with them.
Wasn’t it John Major and Blair that would not sign up to the Schengen Area, it would have saved a lot of hassle now.
You know what I implied …geographical Europe, not political Europe…or should I have said an island landmass adjacent to mainland Europe.
It makes no difference to the fact that the largest and most constant inflow of people from a single country are now going to create significant additional admin’ for a limited number of French municipalities.