Mathias Gold is a down-on-his-luck New Yorker who inherits a Parisian apartment from his estranged father. But when he arrives in France to sell the vast domicile, he’s shocked to discover a live-in tenant who is not prepared to budge. His apartment is a viager-an ancient French real estate system with complex rules pertaining to its resale-and the feisty Englishwoman Mathilde Girard, who has lived in the apartment with her daughter Chloe for many years, can by contract collect monthly payments from Mathias until her death.