purelyfrance

The Legal Process

Once you have an agreed price for the property you are going to buy, a meeting is arranged at a Notaire to sign the Compromis (draft sale) document.  Apart from yourselves, in attendence will be the sellers and also the Real Estate agent.

We think the Notaire system is very good and provides you with a great deal of confidence.  Their prime responsibility is to ensure that the transaction is completed in accordance with existing French law, and that the correct amount of taxes are applied. (and collected!) So essentially they are independant, not acting for you or the seller, but for the French government.  If you are a non-French speaker the Notaire must arrange for a translator to be present.

You are quite entitled to appoint your own Avocat to represent you but we have never felt a need to do so.  The only exception was when we bought our first property and we we couldn’t be in France when the final documents were signed. We provided a Power of Attorney to an Avocate who signed for us. To this day we have never met her - she was away on holiday when we called by her office to collect the keys!!

I should mention here that this article is a very broad brush of our experiences and a guide only. You should of course seek expert professional advice for any property transaction you undertake. Particularly as the laws appear to be modified quite frequently. You can find excellent information at www.notaires.fr including an english version!

The Compromis is wordy (naturally!) but many of the subject headings are the same as what you would see in your own country. One very important set of clauses are the Conditions Suspensive. Here you must insert any ’subject to’ conditions you wish to apply, such as raising a loan, or selling an existing property. Once you have signed the Compromis, and if all the Conditions Suspensive have been fulfilled then the sale must proceed. Otherwise you forfeit your deposit. (usually 10%)

Once the Compromis has been signed there is usually a two or three month gap until you sign the final sale document, the Acte de Vente. During this time the Notaire undertakes the neccessary searches and checks. The seller must also present a report detailing the whereabouts of any lead, termites and asbestos on the property. They are not compelled to remove these, merely make you aware of where they exist. The Notaire also advises the local Mairie of the transaction as usually the town/village/commune has the right to purchase the property at the agreed price!!

A few days prior to signing the Acte de Vente you will need to have paid the balance of the purchase price into the Notaire”s bank account. After you have completed signing the Acte de Vente (this can take two or three hours) the Notaire will present you with the keys to your new home and you become the proud new owners from that time.

We were intrigued with the imprecise possession date applied to our existing property. We took ownership of the keys on the 20th of December, two months later in February the previous owners were still removing various items from the property!!  They are a lovely family so we didn’t at all mind, were just amused by it.

A Bientôt, Bruce.

As well as being a fashion statement on and off for decades, it is fair to say the hugely distinguishable beret is always associated with France and being ‘French’.

Why is it so?  The number of berets I have sighted in France in 7 years you could count on one hand. That discounts the beret my brother brings when he comes to stay. He has the misguided belief it lifts the quality of his petanque playing. Admittedly, most of my time has been spent swanning around Provence, the French Riviera and Burgundy, so perhaps I need to head (pardon that pathetic pun) for the Basque region.

 I did buy a beret once, in a specialty hat shop in Cahors, or perhaps it was Sarlat. My memory of the whole transaction is somewhat hazy as I had instantly fallen in love with the female sales assistant.  It could have been the broad warm smile, the big round hazel coloured eyes, the semi-Mediterranean bronzed skin, the subtle hint of her décolletée, or her husky heavily accented english that turned me to jelly. Or it may have been all five!!  I do recall that it was the longest time ever I have spent in a hat shop. Sigh…………………!!

The beret has in reality been a comparative newcomer in French history terms. It did indeed originate in the Pyrenees and up until the 1850’s was rarely seen in the rest of the country. That all changed with Napoleon the Third. He conscripted large numbers of young men from the Pyrenees and eventually the beret became part of the national dress. In recent years the popularity of the beret has declined, there are now around 850,000 berets produced each year with half of those for the military.

In the Basque country they have a saying - “two cabbage leaves stuffed inside your beret will give you protection from the sun”. Perhaps that is where the expression ‘cabbage head’ comes from - je ne sais pas!

A Bientot, Bruce.

 Marketing - not the be all, but some is far better than none

Websites. Where would we be without the wide world web?  Probably not offering holiday accommodation. And certainly not operating at 100% fully booked!

Isn’t it just the most incredible facility. I can still remember when our first B n B website went live in December 2000.  You don’t really expect anything to happen too quickly, but the very next day, there were booking requests arriving in your inbox. Encroyable. As the days went by requests trickled in from all over the world. From the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Croatia, Korea, Mexico, on and on it has gone ever since.

So one of the first steps for promoting your holiday accommodation is to create a website. Our advice is to have your site developed professionally.  Yes it costs money, but it is a one-off cost and once it is established it can be updated easily. A quality designed website conveys much about you to prospective guests.  It projects high standards, efficiency and a sense that you are heavily committed to your accommodation product and not just ‘playing’ at it.

The best single most important advice I can give is to ensure your site ‘is uncluttered, simple and user friendly’.  Do the clients notice the difference?  You bet. There are a lot of choices out there for them.  We regularly receive admiring comments from our guests about our site http://www.maisonchaudenay.com/ and how it influences their decision making.

Does your website need to be in more than one language?  We don’t believe so. One of the reasons guests book with us is that they know we speak english and can help them with any language difficulties. (normally there are many!)  If your accommodation and/or location specifically appeals to say the German market you may consider a german language version. But our experience is that all our guests speak fluent english, whether they be Swiss, Dutch, German, Italian, Belgian or Scandinavian.

Internet accommodation directories.  These are a neccessary evil and we suggest you list your property with one or two of them.  I do have a bit of a beef with many of them, mainly because in my view their charges are exorbitant.

They charge you an annual fee even though they hardly undertake any work for you once your property is listed.  They keep on ‘boasting’ about how many more properties have been listed with them which effectively provides more competition for you. The cost of I.T. in general has diminished over the years. They keep on adding ‘features’, some admittedly are helpful for prospective guests but many of them are designed to allow you to ‘manage’ your listing thereby removing work for themselves. I would not object to many of these initiatives if they reduced their prices. I believe there is strong justification for them to do so.

Now that I have that off my chest that feels better!!  Here are some specific observations from our experience!!

www.ownersdirect.co.uk  Very strong booking enquiries, very good value for money, our favourite for ‘user friendly’, the best availability chart

www.frenchconnections.co.uk  Originally had a friendly, informal style, but revamped site very ‘corporate’ and quite busy. It does pull a reasonable level of bookings. Availability matrix not easy to read. High end of cost.

www.stopoverconnections.com  One of the few who work on a commission basis, so only a cost if you receive a firm booking. Reasonable level of enquiries, seems to get good search engine positions.

www.holiday-rentals.com Used them in 2000/1 for our Provence B n B, were not overly strong in France at that time, very few enquiries, let our listing lapse.

www.sawdays.co.uk  Alistair Sawday has strong brand recognition in the UK, also publish excellent book directories. Is recognised as one of the market leaders. Usually require two year contract but cost is worthwhile. Exercise control over the quality of properties.

www.karenbrown.com  One of the ‘bibles’ for the USA market, has been around a long time and pulls very strongly. Keep good influence over property standards. Very good value for money.

www.pour-les-vacances.com An ‘oddball’ one, but excellent value for money. It is French based but has an english version. Ranks very highly in engine searches and often shows as the strongest number of ‘visits’ in our tracking statistics.

www.ibbp.com  USA based, also used them in 2000/1, very reasonably priced but not overly strong in Europe accommodation.

www.cheznous.co.uk  Haven’t used them but have nearby friends with a Gite who receive a very good level of bookings from them.

Magazine editorial  If you can get editorial coverage of your property in a magazine (nearly any magazine will do) it is hugely advantageous. If you can swing a feature article with pictures it is like gold.  Editorial text carries so much more weight than advertising and of course magazines have a long life.  We still get enquiries from a House and Garden article that appeared over three years ago. 

Editorial text is not easy to achieve, you have to work at it. The best way is if you know of a journalist, or know a ‘friend of  a friend’. (our H & G article)  Another method is to despatch a proposal off to various selected magazines. The proposals need to be presented professionally and the first question an Editor asks is ‘will this story be of interest to my readers’.  So select your magazine titles carefully.  We succeeded with this method with a New Zealand glossy magazine, it dragged in enquiries galore.

European expat market  If you haven’t tapped into this market segment then you should.  Pockets of ‘expats’ exist all over Europe. Some we have actively solicited, others we have merely stumbled over.  We had an American doctor based in Germany stay with us, he referred three other families to us.  We have canvassed the New Zealand and Australian Embassies around Europe resulting in visits from Ambassadors and Consular staff from Paris, Geneva, London and Brussels. Often they have family visiting from ‘home’ who they want to occupy for a week or so!

We have had expats from Basel, two big pharmaceutical centres there; from W.H.O. in Geneva where there are over 2000 expats; the International school in Paris and also in Frankfurt, both you can find on a Google search; and our website has picked up expats in places like Prague (plus referrals) and Dubai.

The expat market is a really productive, strongly word-of- mouth source of business.

Some people feel it is beneficial to place advertisements in the english language ‘French’ magazines. It probably works for them but it is something we have never felt a need to do.  There are many other promotional avenues of course but many of them are peripheral and need careful evaluation before you spend your hard earnt euro.

Till next time. A Bientot, Bruce.

Le Bricolage - French D.I.Y.

Every foreigner who has relocated to France has a story to tell about some do-it-yourself project that didn’t quite go to plan.  If we are being honest, many of us have a cupboard  full of how our inexperience (i.e. naivety) has caused us more harm than good.

One of our early such projects was to tile our roof top terrasse located up 6 flights of stairs. Anne’s brother Michael was visiting so it seemed an opportune time. Buying tiles and cement was no problem but sand and gravel required a little more research. We located a quarry, Gambinos, a family operated business located 3 kms outside of our village. Indeed Gambino junior tells us how his father and grandfather worked the quarry before him.

He explains, ‘for them they had to work by hand using a shovel, (la pelle) for me it is easy, I just push this lever he says with a broad grin sitting on his seat in a monstrous front end loader. He knows about Nouvelle Zelande (le Rugby) so that makes us instant friends. Anyway, he has sand to burn and loads up a truck (un camion) for us. With our ‘expert’ eye the load looks insufficient. He raises a more expert eyebrow and tells us it consists of  2 cubic metres. We defer to his superior knowledge.

Meanwhile, outside our house, back in the village we had instigated a cunning plan to ensure when the truck arrives there is actually somewhere to put 2 metres of sand. The village streets are of course narrow, and the small square in front of our home is usually full of parked cars. We had earlier observed a French practice of placing a chair in the street when you want to reserve a space for some reason.  My wife Anne, was gang-pressed into being our chair.

So Anne dutifully stood on the corner protecting the nominated space, telling many people ‘le camion arrive tout de suite’.  Of course the camion did not arrive tout de suite as back at the quarry we were being treated to the Gambino family history and of course we had to discuss le Rugby. After a time our ‘chair’ was becoming impatient, particularly as it started to rain.  But the ‘chair’ could not retreat inside to claim a raincoat in fear of losing the critical space.

The camion did duly arrive and the sand dumped onto the street. So far, so good. The next step, well 60 steps actually was to get the sand to the terrasse. Six hours, 300 buckets of wet sand and a countless number of steps later the sand was sitting on the terrasse. We wondered about the weight and stress on our ancient terrasse, and crossed our fingers.

The next day we proudly surveyed our pile of sand.  A friendly tradesman asked us whereabouts was our ‘Mamouth’ (pronounced mamoot) At that moment our ‘Mamouth’ was nowhere, seeing as we didn’t know it existed let alone what one did with it. Turns out mamouth is a waterproofing material lined with tar which you apply with a blow-torch to seal the terrasse, particularly the join along the walls. Oh~~~!!

And of course you install your mamouth before spreading the sand. So this meant shifting all the sand to one half of the terrasse to apply the indispensable mamouth, and then shifting all the sand back again to the other half of the terrasse. My back still shudders at the thought.

Eventually the job was done and we had a beautifully tiled roof top terrasse. It is amazing how on completion, and following a couple of beers, you can convince yourself that your ’innocence’ made the project so much more fun!!

A Bientot, Bruce.

 Cutting the ‘deal’.

We had found our ‘dream’ home, here in Chaudenay, Burgundy. Now the fun started, making the offer and clinching a deal. It is always the most difficult decision, what price to offer. When it comes to property buying, there is a little bit of  a ‘trader’ in most of us and of course one always wishes to avoid ‘over paying’ for a property. 

Our own experience in France is that the difference between the ’settlement’ price and the ‘asking’ price is somewhat narrower than what is often the case in our home countries of New Zealand and Australia.  Yes, we have been told of transactions where the property was bought at 50% of the asking price (I told them I was in town for 24 hours, I can write them a cheque sort of thing) but within a band of 5% to 15% seems to be more common.

When we sold our village house in St Remy de Provence we received our asking price, and in Nice when we sold our apartment we also received our asking price. In both cases some negotiation occurred over fittings.

As you would anywhere, we sought out any negotiating ‘angles’. Why were the owners selling? (ill health) How long has the property been on the market? (two weeks, so that didn’t help us!) How many owners are there? (6 families - quelle horreur)

We sought guidance from the Immobiliere. We reminded ourselves that real estate agents are the same the world over - their goal is to complete a sale. He counselled us not to make a ’silly’ offer, which seemed to be valid advice.

Pushing against all this was our strong desire to purchase the property. It met our spec, was in good condition, had an excellent location and stood up to a key consideration, resale value.

The offer and acceptance process is reasonably straight forward.  The Immobiliere may ask you to complete a simple ‘offer’ document or in our case we forwarded a fax making our offer.  After some minor negotiation, a price was agreed and the deal was done. This photo may give you a better idea of what our half a million+ euros bought!

Attention!!  Fittings/furniture are nearly always negotiable.  It is most important to undestand that ‘fittings’ have quite a different definition in France. The seller is quite entitled to take with them all curtains, floor coverings, light fittings, ovens etc and even cupboards. We learnt this the hard way with our first purchase in St Remy, the house had been stripped bare, naked wires hanging from the walls, a lone free standing kitchen sink was all that remained in the whole house!

So be careful to specify each ‘fitting’ that you wish to retain. There is also another advantage, fittings and or furniture are able to be set aside from the property as a seperate agreed cost and this can create some minor tax savings for you.

So, once you have your agreed price you march off to the Notaire’s office. I will cover this in the next Post of this series.

A Bientot,

Bruce.