Matt_clark

Hello,

My partner and I have currently set up a two year plan to move to the south of France.
We understand there are a great deal of pros and cons but for us the pros are out numbering the cons.
So, one of the major cons is obviously the same as most expats, will there be any work! My French is very little, but I'm learning and have two years to improve. By trade I am a landscape Gardner but can also turn my hand to minor brick work, most aspect of roofing, carpentry and drainage.
We want to relocate to the south west where we believe there is a high ammount of English expats, so my question is.. Would you prefer to have your work carried out by a British worker or French?

Any useful/helpfull response would be greatly appreciated

dennerlymum

I go for the person who has the best quote ... generally but not exclusively french. I have found them harder working and easier to keep on the job... but that's my experience

EuroTrash

Forget landscape gardening until you get more used to the French system; landscape gardening comes under MSA and if you don't speak French and aren't accustomed to dealing with French bureaucracy, you won't want to get involved with them as soon as you arrive.

There will always be expats who only want to deal with fellow expats. However, a lot of them are trying to sell up and get back to the UK at the moment, so whether there will be enough left in two years time to give you a living, will depend on where you are. And whether these are the best customers or not, you will find out for yourself

If you want to work as e.g. a roofer and a plumber, you will need to show that you are qualified in both trades and you will need trade insurance for each trade, unless you register as an odd-job man and only do small jobs (not sure if you can do roofing as an odd-job man?)

Personally I have always deliberately chosen French artisans over UK and that is because I live in Normandy and my house is a 17th century columbage cottage; the local French artisans have a lifetime of experience of working on this type of building and know the correct materials to use, whereas the one Brit that I once asked to quote, suggested patching it up with concrete (!). Things may be different in the south.

It is often said that the days when an expat could make a living from the expat community alone are over. Focus on the French

Peabrain

Hi,
My answer would be most definitely that I would want to use someone who understands fully what I want and what my house can have. My house is "en pisay", with walls about 2 feet thick, filled with earth, stones and whatever they could find two hundred years ago. Insulation, for example, needs specialist skills. Experience and language are essential here, as using the wrong approach and technique would ruin the house, literally.
Standards are different over here. I wouldn't use a Portuguese or Spanish builder if they haven't had years of experience working on French houses. I can speak French, so why should I want to use a builder from the UK, Germany, Greece or Denmark? Try asking yourself the same question about work you might want doing in the UK. Would you choose a Polish plumber who doesn't understand English, just because he's cheap? Try asking friends what they would opt for. Price isn't the point; trust and quality are.
Anyone, in any field, wherever the country they are living in lay be, must be able to set up a customer base with the "natives". Language is the key here; the worker has to be able to communicate with the customer, and the customer has to be sure that the worker has understood what he or she wants.
Communication is the basis of business. Language, language, language. It brings credibility.
Good luck
PB

bigglesworth

Matt, I would second the other posters.

There is a huge amount of specialist knowledge involved in working with completely different methods and materials of construction in a very different climate. It takes a long time to learn those skills. It takes far longer if you do not speak French. And most of the British "builders" out here do not.

A further problem the British tradesmen have is the number of British cowboys who preceded them. Of course there are plenty of French cowboys too. But by and large, ( in my experience) they do not belong to the chambre de metiers.

Matt_clark

Good morning and thank you to all

Your input is very much appreciated. In Regards to MSA this is the equivalent of being self employed farmer/farm worker live stock etc is it not? I researched this a month or so ago as we also had te idea of 'living off the land' and also selling live stock. I do t think landscape gardening would fall under these regs but I may be wrong.

I totally understand your concerns that the French would have more experiencein french construction,if I were to spend possibly my life savings I would want a job done properly. I probably should have mentioned I also have a national diploma in construction theory and as amuture as this may sound no matter where you go in Europe a wall is just a wall and a roof a roof with the teqniques adapted.

Also Im very confident my French will be upto scratch by the time we make the move as I and I imagine the French would find it disrespectful for it not to be.

Another market that seems to be untouched is Brits project managing renovation projects for Brits would you say this is the case?

I know a lot of expats are throwing in the towl and coming back to the UK, most if not all due to the credit crunch but it would also seem the uk is not only getting worse financially but also culture wise, by that I mean the life style of the children growing up here and the crime rate etc. it would seem that there are still a great ammount of uk residents wanting to come to France!!

Thank you once again
Matt

L'Acajou

Your input is very much appreciated. In Regards to MSA this is the equivalent of being self employed farmer/farm worker live stock etc is it not? I researched this a month or so ago as we also had te idea of 'living off the land' and also selling live stock. I do t think landscape gardening would fall under these regs but I may be wrong.

You don't say what type of "livestock" you were thinking of selling, but I can assure you (as livestock farmers on 200h) it is, you probably won't be surprised to learn, not straightforward, even on a small scale! You need to prove you have UK farming qualifications and/or proof of several years farming experience. Not impossible but technically probably easier to set up in the UK than in France In fact even the land itself here is very different from the land we farmed in the UK - farmland and garden, it is a steep learning curve!
I would also say that around us we seem to have a lot of landscape garden businesses, sorry, no idea if they are in the MSA.
And as we have a very old house, we employed a local artisan roofer who did a fantastic job on the tuille roof, using reclaimed tiles, zinc guttering etc. I have agree with what others have said about employing people who have experience with traditional materials and methods. Another roofer quoted for re-roofing with new tiles I guess it would have been easier for him.
I don't blame anyone for wanting to live here - it really is not like the UK, which can work against you too

Sue

Matt_clark

Thanks sue
I have no experience in farming at all but I looked into it as we would like to keep something along the lines of chickens for eggs possibley even a sheep or two to graze, the only reason I brought it up really was due to the earlier comment regarding landscape gardening falling into MSA which I believe it isn't!

If you don't mind me asking sue, is farming now your main source of income now your in France?

Kind regards
Matt

EuroTrash

I think you will find that landscape gardening comes fair and square under MSA. All activities are classified under one or other of the umbrellas (artisan / commerce / etc) and all land-based activities are MSA - growing crops or plants, rearing livestock, landscaping, forestry, etc. You cannot even register as a small-scale gardener under the Auto Entrepreneur scheme, for instance. All you can do is register for 'property maintenance' and tidy gardens up as part of that.

I am sure you know your trade and ok you can say 'a wall is just a wall', but there seems to be a lot to learn and a lot to know about the building materials used, as regards their characteristics and how they perform as building materials, and where to source them, as well as the techniques needed to use them. As mentioned, I got a devis from a Brit builder for repairing a wall that was leaning over at a worrying angle, and three separate French artisans who saw what he proposed to do were horrified and said that whilst it would have initially looked as if it had stopped the wall moving, within a few years it would have made the problem worse (because it would have shifted the stresses onto areas that were not designed to be under stress) and increased the risk of the wall collapsing altogether. His quote wasn't even significantly cheaper than the ones who knew what they were doing.

For project management, the caveat will be that if you, as an incomer, are going to be recruiting and managing teams of local French artisans, you will need tact and diplomacy combined with authority to get them on your side and motivated to work for you. French artisans are the salt of the earth but they tend to club together. I am saying this because I have seen threads on expat forums where homeowners have been tearing their hair out over projects gone wrong because for one reason and another the French workmen could not be made to follow instructions but insisted on doing it their way.

I am not meaning to be negative, because from your replies you sound to be sensible and determined which are the two most important qualities, so I wish you the best of luck. Don't underestimate the amount you will have to pay in cotisations, bring plenty of savings with you, be prepared to adapt your business plan when you get here and see what the options are, and there is no reason why you cannot make a go of it.

Matt_clark

Euro trash,

Thank you for your response I hope my initial reply didnt come across that I hadn't taken what you said on board, I sincerely did and it was appreciated! I understand that the French way of doing pretty much anything is very official and to great depth, which to be honest I would gladly take on, maybe if the UK had the same attitude it would still be Great Britain! Saying that I'm sure it will be very testing when I do finally arrive.

If you don't mind me asking, what is your current situation in France, are you keen to stay there, did you retire there or are you currently working?

Kind regards
Matt

EuroTrash

I bought my house in 2007, I'd been self-employed in the UK for a long time so was able to cover my back initially by spending the first year officially as a UK resident working temporarily abroad i.e. on a worker's S1. I registered as an auto entrepreneur in 2009 (professions libérales) but I spent a couple more years with a foot each side just to earn enough to live on. Slowly but surely I have got more and more clients in France and last year about 95% of my income was from France. Yes I do aim to stay here and at the moment things are looking hopeful. If I'd stayed in the UK I would have a lot more money in the bank, a lot more stress day to day and the frustration of having a dream I hadn't ever dared to try and chase. No regrets at the moment.

So you see it can be done, even with no savings to fall back on. But, I already spoke French, I was able to keep working for some of my UK clients, and I have to say it hasn't been easy.

Matt_clark

Thank you euro, its great to get your input and experiences!

'' if its easy the reward is never great''

L'Acajou

[QUOTE=Matt_clark;10610607]Thanks sue

If you don't mind me asking sue, is farming now your main source of income now your in France?

Yes, we are bona-fide farmers, we are both from farming stock. We have between 200-300 beef cattle, we have cows and heifers calving at the moment! It is what we (or more specifically my husband) did in the UK, although there we only rented land and buildings.
We had cows and up to 800 sheep. Now we have 12 sheep and a few hens. Until a couple of years ago we also grew cereals but it wasn't cost-effective as we had to pay a contractor. We have bought most of the farm, ie some of it is rented land. It is indeed pretty much our only source of income. Do we make a living? That is debatable! Once we have finished paying the bank, then yes, we will have a nice living. We have quota for suckler cows which has been phased out in the UK and replaced by some historic payments, we don't know when our quota will be phased out here, maybe 2015, so we are aiming to finish paying the bank off beore the subsidies end! When we bought the farm in 2004 we paid a specialist to "install" us and ensure we had all the correct paperwork in place, at the time there was a rogue agent operating and he left some of his farming clients in a complete mess and they were unable to operate their busineses. He had found the farm for us but luckily we realised there was a problem before we paid him the 30k we wanted for doing nothing else!
We consider ourselves very fortunate, we bought everything, farmhouse, buildings, tractors and machinery and cattle - I won't say how much but where we come from, we could have only bought the farmhouse for the same price . We never thought we would own our own farm, in fact we had been looking to rent a farm for 7 years in the UK/Scotland and had only one interview.
OH does buy and sell a few cattle trailers (one every two years) but the accountants tut if they see the transactions. In fact the (specialist agricultural) accountant told him to sell his cows - so you can surmise that they don't make us any money! And the accountant nearly lost a client on the spot as OH was not very impressed No cows = no quota, simple equasion.
So I do think that as farmers we arrived here for different reasons to other ex-pats, our only motivation for coming to France was to have our own farm, simple as that. The better quality of life etc for us and our children has been a great bonus.

Matt_clark

Sue,

It's great to hear of Brits going over and making a go of things, it fills me with confidence. If your ever in need of a not very qualified farm hand please do get in touch

All the best
Matt

L'Acajou

Ha - I'm the not very qualified farm-hand and we have bred a few future ones... who will, in time, be qualified! I have had a couple of articles printed in the Farmers Guardian (oh the dizzy heights ) about farming in the UK and in France and last year we had a friend of ours doing her MA in visual anthropology using my OH as her subject, looking at how he has been accepted by the local community. I am ashamed to say I am so squeamish I haven't actually seen it yet Can't avoid it forever....
She did get a 1st and was the only one on her course to get a film job, so I guess something worked!
I still think that we have always been viewed as farmers first and foreigners second. France likes its farmers better than the UK does.

Sue