buying a holiday house in France

[cosmobrown]

Basically, we are planning our retirement, and I have always dreamt of having a small house in SW France.
Is this still a possibility since Brexit?
If so, what kind of annual costs are we looking at, apart from the cost of the house I mean.

Ideally we'd like to rent it out at some point.
Any info welcome. thanks.

My DP owned a lovely flat near the Promenade in Nice. It was let out long term and worked great, for a while....

Eventually the associated costs such as Fonciere, taxes, and the biggest bogey the Gestion or Management Fee (huge!) left a deficit believe it or not, so after five years he sold it and while he didn't make a huge profit, he did break even after legal costs of sale etc.

We really only got to use it ourselves when the last tenant moved out and the property was on the market. Lovely spot, sad to see it go, but it was impractical and uneconomical to run in the end.

So now we rent for a month or so in different parts of France, Italy and Spain (retired) over the Winter and still Nice and that part is our favourite mostly due to the microclimate that is lovely and mild even in Winter. Anyway just throwing my 2c in. DP bought the place with an inheritance and some of his savings. We are not rich by any means. It was a lovely adventure at the time, but never again.

@RelocatingtoFrance your broker sounds rubbish!

We paid ours because they had relationships with lenders in France already and they helped us accumulate all the various paperwork hoops we had to jump through. They were great. It really wasn't hard at all.

I can give you their details if you'd like. Let me know and I'll log onto Mumsnet via a browser and pm you.

You can only stay for 90 days, then have to be back in the UK 90 days before you can go again. If this isn't an issue then it's fine. My parents live in france but had citizenship before brexit so these rules don't apply to them but a lot of their friends who were previously living there most of the time, have now had to pull back on their visits

Also, be very wary of buying in france as a lot of the houses come with the live in elderly owner til they die, that's quite common place. Also houses that come with dogs. Values don't depreciate much in france so the houses my parents looked at, some of them were total wrecks. Definitely do your research on flooding and forest fires. Depends where you are looking but I can't stress enough, research research research. Don't rely on what you're being told by the agents.

I don’t think that is quite correct. You can only stay 90/180 days but you do not have to exit for 90 days before the next 90 days commence. Technically you can stay 90 days, leave for a few days and then come back for 90 days. You cannot stay more than 180 days per year in two lots of 90/180 days.

I believe it is more like the rolling vat rules you can stay for 90 days return for 30 and then stay for another 30 within the 180 day frame which started at the beginning of the original 90 days. Rolling forward all the time.

You could always only ever stay 180 days in a year in the past anyway. Brexit just reversed it back to the 90 days in 180.

It is correct and that is what lots of people I know personally are having to do.

Tiptoe, buying "en viager" isn't something you can do by accident and isn't particularly common!

Diagnostics have to be done before a house goes on the market. Not a substitute for a British style survey, which is pretty unusual here, but it certainly gives you things like flood risk, asbestos, state of electrics etc.

I assume you mean houses don't appreciate rather than depreciate. They went up in rural areas within easy reach of Paris after Covid, but have dropped again.

@HavfrueDenizKisi they are rubbish, and rude!

details would be much appreciated (when we shopped around, a couple declined helping because our purchase has a value of less than euro250k).

We found this even when we were in the eu, couldn't find a notary to work with us in the village so we couldn't purchase

Both of the above answers re incorrect. It is a rolling 90 days in any 180 day period.

This is complete nonsense.

I own a house in the EU with my husband, it is our second home. In the interests of full disclosure, I travel as a third country EU spouse, but I know plenty of "Brits", Australians, Canadians etc who own property in Spain and elsewhere in the EU. They find it very worthwhile. As a previous poster stated, it is still perfectly possible for most people, and certainly the retired, to get a visa for if you wanted to stay for more than 90 days at a time, or wanted to be there more than half the year.

I know one couple currently trialling the digital nomad visa in Spain, they go out for a while, work remotely during the week and travel and explore at the weekend.

That's called "viager occupé" when the previous owner still lives there. This will certainly be highlighted by the agent and the notaire, so as a pp said, you couldn't possibly by "en viager" by accident.

As for the dog, I have no idea what you're talking about I'm afraid.

@RelocatingtoFrance I have pm'd you the details.

There's no way on earth I would buy a house abroad unless to live there permanently. What a faff. If you're lucky enough to have time and money to spend long periods in Europe why not just rent out a house for a month at a time whenever you want to go? So much cheaper and more convenient than upkeeping a second home.

I would think long and hard about the medical insurance side of things. Since Brexit there's no reciprocation on medical expenses, meaning you'll need to have some kind of private medical insurance. My elderly British Mum lives permanently in SW France and has French nationality and cover under the French health system. But she also has a private complementary insurance as costs can very quickly build up....

One of the main reasons for owning our home rather than renting different places is that both DH and myself spent years touring around the UK with work, and really value going somewhere furnished with your own things and being able to leave your own stuff there.

Even though we would rent it out to other people, it would still be our own stuff.
Doesn't the EHIC card cover medical emergencies?

Doesn't the EHIC card cover medical emergencies?

Info here from UK gov on what the EHIC/GHIC covers and doesn't cover in France under the header 'Health Insurance Cards'
https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/france/health#:~:text=To%20get%20medically%20necessary%20state,to%20apply%20for%20a%20GHIC

The other reason for owning is becoming part of the community.

Hello- so sorry to detail this thread but @HavfrueDenizKisi please could you share the details of your broker? Thank you

@Turning25 I have pm'd you

Goodness yes! We bought our flat via viager occupé, much to the amusement of our friends! It was made very clear at all stages what that actually was. ( obviously we knew before we saw it).

There is no greater convenience to me though, than getting on the plane with just a handbag and travelling to a house full of my own things, with my lovely neighbours. Our house abroad also provides a launching pad for holidays in our own car to other destinations (we also travel to other places as well from the UK, it's not a straitjacket). Different things suit different people., and at this stage of life it makes us very happy.