Moving to France Advice

[flam]

Hi All,

Considering moving to France to purchase a gite / chambre d'hotes business as our income stream. The usual motivation of being in control of our own destiny, weather, lifestyle, food & wine etc is the driver. Were probably going to be looking somewhere around 1hr or so from Bordeaux. Poitou Charentes, Aquitaine sort of area.

I have read quite a few threads on here about this and gathered some insight (thank you), but would really appreciate some further high level advice or direction to useful source information / websites etc on considerations based on buying process, residential status, taxation for such businesses, pitfalls & general advice etc.

We have spent a lot of time on holiday in France and I worked there when I was younger so for me its a "no brainer". We love the place & the people but the more I read, the more I feel uneasy about the process. I'm sure this is lack of detailed knowledge, hence the post.

Appreciate anything you could offer.

Many Thanks

[RedWhiteMonkey]

For obvious reasons isn’t it all a bit too unknown at the moment? What’s your plan for getting a visa and residency rights?

[rdjohn]

RedWhiteMonkey said:

For obvious reasons isn’t it all a bit too unknown at the moment? What’s your plan for getting a visa and residency rights?

https://www.gov.uk/guidance/living-in-france?utm_source=19e3d4f3-aa7a-4002-9e52-eab8ce5990ad&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=govuk-notifications&utm_content=weekly#registration-in-france

https://mobile.interieur.gouv.fr/Actualites/Le-min...

While things are obviously going to change, I suspect IF the UK leaves, things will only revert to how they were in about 2003 when you needed to exchange your driving license and obtain a residency permit. Providing you are able to support yourselves financially, there is no logical reason why any permit should be refused. Warning. French bureaucracy is not very user friendly and quite formal.

Living in France is great, but it is important to recognise that France is very proud of its language, so without being able to communicate, in French, life could inevitably be difficult.

I am writing this from sunny Marbella because, while the summers are very pleasant, the winters can be quite harsh. This can be magnified if you are in a small rural village, in a house without affordable heating and are unable to have frequent social contact with your immediate neighbours.

Are you both fully committed to living in France - and it’s inevitable consequences? Most people that we know who have returned to the UK it has generally been the case that the wife cannot bear to be away from family/grandchildren etc. Have a look at recent postings from Protek? He could continue to work from France, but his wife could not make the change.

There a good number of people here who can answer most of your specifics. One of the hardest things is deciding where to live. Renting in the area, before buying is highly recommended, though we did not do that, but had visited the area many times, before deciding to buy.

Good luck - don’t do anything in haste.

[housen]

get used to 0 customer service and the word non

[feef]

I know the Charentes area reasonably well, my folks have a place between Matha and St Jean d'Angely.

It's a good area for what you're proposing, and if you aren't relying solely on British trade (which many who move out for that sort of thing seem to try and do), then it should be a goer.

I'm contemplating moving out to France myself in about 10-15 years. I'd do it sooner, but familial responsibilities are holding be here for now.

[paulwirral]

My advice based on personal experience of myself and others I met when we lived there would choose the area you want to live in and rent somewhere , preferably for 12 months if possible, and visit it and try to live the real life as much as your time will allow you , especially over the down season when it's cold and rainy and invariably lonely , this may sound like a waste of money but long term it could save a huge amount of money and grief as you'll experience the reality of living there .When we tried living there but it wasn't for us but everyone's different.
I ended up building a holiday house after living there and we grew bored of that too , to the extent of taking holidays from our holiday house , that may be a reflection on us though!
i was lucky in the fact we made a small profit on the houses both times , most we met who moved back lost out , a couple of them substantially .
If your planning on a chambre de hotes with gites buy something up and running and get to work as a host , you'll find plenty for sale so keep that in mind ! Don't even consider trying to develop one yourself unless you want to make a small fortune out of a large one , I also know a couple of people who have gone down that route and ran out of money to the extent of living apart mostly so one can work in England to make decent wages to support the remaining partner in france .
Sorry if this sounds like I'm on a complete downer about the place , I'm not , we holiday there and I work there for a couple of friends every year , it's just I've lived the real life and worked there for quite a few people and it's really not like "escape to the chateau " or the like in real life .
There are a few on here that have made the transition successfully and I'm sure they can submit a different perspective of life in france , but listen to all sides before making that life changing purchase , and as I said at the start , rent somewhere first , if it's 6 months make sure it's October to March , everywheres nice in the sun .
Bon courage

And remember to add a good 10% to your purchase price for fees , the agents will haggle on their fees alone in order to get a sale , it's worth asking at your decided on area local marie if anyone in the area is selling , it's not a problem doing a private sale - purchase in france and it'll save you the agents fees as you pay them on top of the agreed purchase price , along with the notaries fees , one notarie acts for the sale on both parties behalfs and you'll sit in the office together and sign everything together .

Edited by paulwirral on Sunday 20th January 19:47

[Terryg4]

paulwirral said:

My advice based on personal experience of myself and others I met when we lived there would choose the area you want to live in and rent somewhere , preferably for 12 months if possible, and visit it and try to live the real life as much as your time will allow you , especially over the down season when it's cold and rainy and invariably lonely , ]

This is good advice, but I wonder if any of us living here had actaully done this, would we have chosen to go on and ultimately buy here. The problem being that the grass is always greener somewhere else. It's very different living in France, somethings are better, somethings worse, it's a diificult judgement call.
15 years ago we decided without any real research to just jump in and buy. It took us a few years to few settled, I am not sure what we would have done had we had an option after a year.
Good Luck
Terry

[Rushjob]

Very good advice there from Paul

It's great place to live IF the lifestyle suits you.

We're lucky, it does, but you have to really think it through, not just decide that its all going to be idyllic.

Certainly property over here for the greatest part is not a good investment, there is no UK style property market where you can buy something, sit on it for 5 years and simply take the market uplift and move on.

Having said all that, don't let yourself be put off, just go into it with your eyes wide open.

[paulwirral]

Terryg4 said:

This is good advice, but I wonder if any of us living here had actaully done this, would we have chosen to go on and ultimately buy here. The problem being that the grass is always greener somewhere else. It's very different living in France, somethings are better, somethings worse, it's a diificult judgement call.
15 years ago we decided without any real research to just jump in and buy. It took us a few years to few settled, I am not sure what we would have done had we had an option after a year.
Good Luck
Terry

We jumped straight in also , it was great to begin with , very exciting and a complete voyage of discovery to be honest . We didn't rent to start with as we just assumed it would be perfect , but unlike most who move we bought a small more up to date house and extended it and put a pool in , I'm a general builder so did everything myself much like pvapour I think he's called , then boredom set in . I ended up doing a few jobs for people , the wife was very bored by herself in the house and looked at working there but the options were limited and what was available was very poorly paid and a waste of her education and talents .
I've always said the best thing we never did was buy the big house and try the hotel gite route , we looked at plenty of places but I still remember the day after looking at a perfect place , huge house with plenty of rooms and outbuildings, the wife asked me why wasn't I bidding on it there and then , the reality was it would never be finished . A couple we met down there did the big property hotel route and he estimated he would be up and running in 5 years . 15 years later he's not finished his own house never mind the started the rental gites and his wife works in England to earn money to keep the project alive , and he's in the building trade all his life like me .
We sold but kept the plot next door and I built another small house on it alone over a few years and as I said , sold that too by a fluke in a private sale . I posted a build thread under the heading " French self build " but my posting skills are terrible and most who looked probably couldn't make much sense of the thread , I know I couldn't !
I don't regret any of it and our life is far richer for the experience, but we'd never do it again .

Just while I'm here I know my mothers friend ran a gite business for a dozen or so years and sold up a couple of years ago , the couple that bought it rang her after one season and asked if she'd like to buy it back at a 50k loss !
As I've said , I love the place but anyone thinking of doing it , as pointed out by others here , eyes wide open and make sure your fully committed , we played our " get out of jail free " card twice , I'd love to say it was all clever planning by myself but even though I did do things to suit the French market building wise , we were ultimately lucky too .

Edited by paulwirral on Monday 21st January 14:47

[rdjohn]

Terryg4 said:

This is good advice, but I wonder if any of us living here had actaully done this, would we have chosen to go on and ultimately buy here. The problem being that the grass is always greener somewhere else. It's very different living in France, somethings are better, somethings worse, it's a diificult judgement call.

We know a couple who rented for 12-months. At the end, he was in awe of France, but she could not bear to be away from family. The irony was that she was their step-mother.

We don’t have kids, so it’s never been an issue for us, but family ties are strong - particularly on the maternal side. The fact that it’s only a few hours away seems irrelevant.

[magooagain]

I have seen a lot of Brits failing here. The main reasons they say is it's just not for them or they miss family etc.

But I can bet that nearly every one of them have not grasped the French language or inter grated into at least thier commune or immidiate neighbors. Many fall into a local Brit community and the damage is done.

Renting is a great idea but use the time wisely.
If possible keep a financial foot in the UK.

[paulwirral]

magooagain said:

I have seen a lot of Brits failing here. The main reasons they say is it's just not for them or they miss family etc.

But I can bet that nearly every one of them have not grasped the French language or inter grated into at least thier commune or immidiate neighbors. Many fall into a local Brit community and the damage is done.

Renting is a great idea but use the time wisely.
If possible keep a financial foot in the UK.

This too is excellent advice , once your there you can never try to hard . And I found every time I gave it a go I was warmly welcomed by nearly all

[feef]

magooagain said:

I have seen a lot of Brits failing here. The main reasons they say is it's just not for them or they miss family etc.

But I can bet that nearly every one of them have not grasped the French language or inter grated into at least thier commune or immidiate neighbors. Many fall into a local Brit community and the damage is done.

Renting is a great idea but use the time wisely.
If possible keep a financial foot in the UK.

I'm aware of a lot of this with the brits I know who have, or are considering a move to France.

My French is pretty good (such that I can often be chatting for a good few minutes before they twig that I'm not French), but I forget that not everyone has that skill to help them, and without it, it DOES get much harder to integrate.

[paulwirral]

One other thing for the op to keep in mind , if your buying an up and running hotel - gite business, and I advise you to do so , so you hit the ground running and start earning straight away if hospitality is your talent , you'll probably be asked to buy the fixtures and fittings separately up front , it's commonplace as it avoids tax for the vendor . Cash may help the deal if you have access to it , so someone told me !
You'll be grilled in the notaries office about the deal you've struck but they're just covering their own backs , keep in mind the notarie is a glorified tax collector.
Op Good luck if you continue with your plans , it's not all gloom and doom , it is a great place to live and the people are fantastic once you integrate, as I said earlier , keep working at it and don't stop .

[YankeePorker]

Another pitfall to avoid - buying a place and doing it up off the books, i.e. a lot of personal labour or builders coming out from the U.K. If you greatly improve the value of the asset and don’t have the invoices to show for it, the 50% tax on the increase in value can sting a bit the day that you sell.

They do like to milk the ex pats! I was lucky and made a huge loss, so they couldn’t tax me! I have a cunning plan...

[paulwirral]

YankeePorker said:

Another pitfall to avoid - buying a place and doing it up off the books, i.e. a lot of personal labour or builders coming out from the U.K. If you greatly improve the value of the asset and don’t have the invoices to show for it, the 50% tax on the increase in value can sting a bit the day that you sell.

They do like to milk the ex pats! I was lucky and made a huge loss, so they couldn’t tax me! I have a cunning plan...

I wasn't , I built the entire house myself so had no invoices for labour , I got a huge tax receipt , they don't give you a bill , the notiare takes it off your selling price and gives you the balance !
Luckily there was some bloody expensive furniture and fittings in my house that the buyer wanted me to leave !

[WyrleyD]

On the fixtures and fittings point, is there a maximum acceptable value?

We are at the price negotiating stage (very early on in the process and no compromis yet) and the buyer is sure she want's to buy but has baulked at the notaires/legal fees and it's been suggested that f&f might reduce the cost a bit. She was told yesterday, don't know by whom, that the legal costs of buying here would be 10% and she was a bit taken aback by this as she assumed, wrongly, that legal fees would be on a par or slightly more than the UK and I was a bit surprised that she had got to this stage not knowing that the legal fees can be more than double those in the UK, a case of not doing enough homework before jumping in. In any case the legal fees in our department are 7% and not 10%, still a sizeable chunk though and we are exploring ways to reduce the bill as much as possible; we have said that we can reduce the sale price slightly to help but that it won't be a significant reduction.

[magooagain]

paulwirral said:

YankeePorker said:

Another pitfall to avoid - buying a place and doing it up off the books, i.e. a lot of personal labour or builders coming out from the U.K. If you greatly improve the value of the asset and don’t have the invoices to show for it, the 50% tax on the increase in value can sting a bit the day that you sell.

They do like to milk the ex pats! I was lucky and made a huge loss, so they couldn’t tax me! I have a cunning plan...

I wasn't , I built the entire house myself so had no invoices for labour , I got a huge tax receipt , they don't give you a bill , the notiare takes it off your selling price and gives you the balance !
Luckily there was some bloody expensive furniture and fittings in my house that the buyer wanted me to leave !

I can only presume that you are both talking about holiday homes here?
I think the tax on profit situation is not like that on a principal property. Which the OP intends to do.
Happy to be corrected if wrong.

[paulwirral]

magooagain said:

I can only presume that you are both talking about holiday homes here?
I think the tax on profit situation is not like that on a principal property. Which the OP intends to do.
Happy to be corrected if wrong.

Yes , maison secondaire or holiday homes , your principal residence is exempt from cgt as long as your a resident .
They don't take any costs of materials into account either , unless you've employed a registered tradesperson or business to do the job and they bought them as part of the job .

[Pvapour]

paulwirral said:

magooagain said:

I have seen a lot of Brits failing here. The main reasons they say is it's just not for them or they miss family etc.

But I can bet that nearly every one of them have not grasped the French language or inter grated into at least thier commune or immidiate neighbors. Many fall into a local Brit community and the damage is done.

Renting is a great idea but use the time wisely.
If possible keep a financial foot in the UK.

This too is excellent advice , once your there you can never try to hard . And I found every time I gave it a go I was warmly welcomed by nearly all

Without doubbt this ^ and pauls advice

We rented for 2 years in various places before deciding on area, gave same advice to parents who moved here 2 years ago, theyve now moved back to uk, winters very little to do, isolated due to lack of language skills and expat comunity was very flaky.

Id say people who like to socialise find it hardest, people who come here for proper solitude rarely return (not the ones who ‘think’ they like solitude)

Remember that summer laid back summer holiday feeling spills over into every single little aspect of french life so you will get frustrated initialy with things taking three times as long and maybe not being able to get things done at all

I can speak french but still,have difficulty with understanding whats said back, but that works very well for me and tbh i dont think the french actualy listen to eachother anyway.