davidandsarah

Hello everyone this is david and sarah from west sussex and we are new to this site. We are going to move to france in about 12 months time and are just about to start on this journey of how to go about it, what we need to find out, questions to ask ect., so if anyone could offer us any advice on how best and where to start that would be fantastic. We would idealy be looking to buy a property for change or renovation ie a barn in the countryside would be fantastic, so would need to know prices for connection to water electric phones ect., what taxes we need to pay.
We are both 45 and are looking to sell our house in sussex and retire to france, being self sufficent with a smallholding growing own produce and having chickens pigs ect. Thanks in advance David and Sarah

davidandsarah

thanks

G-J-B

Hi David and Sarah, just wanted to wish you the best of luck with your dream. I'm afraid I don't know how much such services might cost, I think that might vary on a case to case basis. Self-sufficiency sounds fantastic, but make sure you also have enough tucked away for tax and potental medical expenses etc. My partner's father used to run a fruit and veg business and still grows all manner of vegetables to feed him and his family. I have to say the quality of home-grown food is so much nicer than back in the UK.

Andrea50

Hiya David and Sarah

What part of West Sussex? My partner used to live in Horsham, and a friend now in France lived at Beare Green!

I was in France before, just south of Cahors in Tarn-et-Garonne, and over a 10 month period renovated (with my ex partner) an almost ruined fermette (small farmhouse with 5 acres), so I won't go into details on here, but if you want more info on an on-going basis, happy to help with specifics. Can give all sorts of tips such as try to be near enough to a Brico Depot for cheap but good value kitchens, bathrooms, etc.

We are hoping to be partially self-sufficient, but I do not have the "dream" of pigs and chickens for pork and eggs etc, as I would get too attached and could never kill anything, and my partner is vegetarian and all he worries about is how many cases of baked beans we can get in the boot of a Clio ......

With regard to getting services connected, speaking a little French will REALLY help you, as dealing with the "utilities" can be a little frazzling to start with, and over the phone you don't have the luxury of hand gestures and a notebook to draw stuff on if you forget a word!!

Good luck anyway, hope to speak to you again.

Andy

themoose

Just to say, why not. Enjoy the journey. France is a place where you can learn to enjoy what you ahve and not what others think you should have. I am sure you will have a great life.

le plumber

Hi, being self sufficient is a great idea - love to do it myself To be 100% self sufficient though why not drill a well (either find an old paysan to do it for you and keep quiet about it or ask your local authority because you may well have to pay tax on that), and for electricity you can have a small wind turbine installed or even better photovoltiaque solar panels - depends on your budget.
Otherwise, your questions are a but vague - bit like asking how long is a piece of string?

good luck anyway, what part of france are you moving to??

davidandsarah

Many thanks for your reply, we live in worthing, dont know yet where we are going to buy in france but we are off to normandy in september to have a look around. You made me LOL with how many tins of beans Ha Ha The more info you can give me the better on anything, we are also looking to buy a ruined property with land in the countryside somewhere, our intention is to buy it then keep going over to renovate it then sell up in worthing and move in about 12 monts time, im looking to start french at northbrook college in september

themoose

Re the lnguage, try the BBC web site for French too. Michel Thomas CD's also very good to start you off.

davidandsarah

Dont know what part yet as we are about to start looking, normandy is first on the list in september, the questions where for approx costs if the supplies were close but not at the property as you see in the adverts, I know its how long is a peice of string but was hoping someone may have had experance in connecting them,

davidandsarah

many thanks for the info but we will be ok for medical insurance payments

Andrea50

Hi David and Sarah

Have either of you any building/renovation experience at all? If not, don't worry, as we didn't either, although my ex was a combustion and structural engineer so we had no probs with doing most of the stuff ourselves. Be careful though, as that quaint little ruin with the beautiful view CAN turn into a money pit.

Have you considered a partial renovation? This is a property where a lot of the "hard work" and expensive stuff (roof, wall structure, woodwork etc) is done, BUT look at the standard of the work done already as the worst thing is to then have to undo someone else's attempts at stuff. If you can find something with the gros oeuvre (big works, literal translation) done, and needing partioning studwork and kitchen/bathroom fitting and decoration to do, all the better. Also, you might like to consider a newer property that is just a shell giving you something to do and you can put your stamp on it, but taking away a lot of the drudge and potential nightmare of the "up to first fix" part of renovation, which can be more fun to WATCH and hear about than actually DO!

If you know anyone at all with any building experience either take them with you, or maybe PLEASE consider paying a reputable suveyor to take a look before you sign anything. We saw some properties that were literally sinking, sliding down hills, attempting to reposition themselves and, on occasion, extraordinarily good looking but totally inaccessible and would have cost over 3-4000 euros to enable delivery lorries to even get there. I knicknamed these the "Posh Properties" (named after Dear Victoria Beckham, very good looking, totally inaccessible and a money pit!!)

Often, there is a reason that ruin is cheap/available. And beware of the French equivalent of "listed" buildings as they can be money-pits too and the beaurocracy will drive you nuts.

First thing to consider is WHERE then WHAT then BUDGET. They all have to match up. Take a notebook with you to look at everything and make notes about the state of the place (take pictures) and get a Brico Depot catalogue (they have a website as well) so you can make rough estimates of what stuff is going to cost you. I got quite good at this after costing 40 knackered barns/character properties described as "habitable et tres jolie" and one turned out to have a septic tank UNDER THE BED in a downstairs room, so beware the French equivalent of "quaint" too.

Good luck, keep in touch.
Andy

davidandsarah

Andrea, many thanks for the infomation. Will try to make sure we dont buy a property with that under the bed Ha Ha.
Where abouts in france is your property and where did you look, how did you go about renovating it. I have no real renovation experiance apart from the usual DIY stuff building stud walls plastering fitting kitchens and bathrooms decorating ect, but if we can find a stone built farmhouse or barn to convert would be best we would even tackle rebuilding the walls and do the roof.
We intend to take our time to find the right one for us and see how long it takes to do it up, we will just take our caravan over for a few weeks at a time as we are in no rush so 1 year even 5 years before we move over permantly.
Many thanks David and Sarah.

Andrea50

Hiya

We chose the northern area of Tarn-et-Garonne in the end, because we found it was a bit cheaper than Dordogne and even Lot at that time, and we found the right property in the right place. It was in between Cahors and Montauban just off the RN20, so we were 28 kilometres from Montauban for the Brico Depot there and that proved a godsend as in the first three months, we made about 40 trips!

One of the best things we did was invested quite quickly in a trailer to get stuff back to the house, but you might be able to borrow someone's if you make friends in the area you choose.

We did rebuild some walls, and also knocked new holes out for windows to make the place "symetrical" (aesthetics - don't underestimate them - stand back from ANY property and look at it - if it looks higgledy-piggledy with the odd door here, window there etc plan to try to make it symetrical).

One useful tip is you can buy ready-made double vitrage (double glazed) units from Brico Depot, so arm yourself with their cataloge very early on, because it is very often cheaper to make an OPENING (window, door, french door etc) to fit an existing size unit - we did this and it saved a fortune, as we largely had non-standard sized openings, if we had had to have custom made units crafted, it would have cost a lot of money.

You will find/hear standard figures bandied about for certain types of renovation work, architects and builders will say figures per square metre for renovation etc, but if you are doing it yourself they don't really apply.

Wall work will vary in difficulty depending upon the type of stone your place is made of. We had a typical Lotoise fermette, made of calcaire, which was quite soft and easier to cut with an angle grinder and then whack with a sledge! If you live somewhere with granite, it might be different.

Don't underestimate the amount of things like cement, sand and aggregate and gravel you will need. Make a rough estimate and then add another third or you can end up keep paying for drib drab deliveries.

I could go on all day, I won't, but one other thing is have an overall PLAN and work out precise measurements for room sizes etc, and work out how much tiling and flooring wood you will need etc as the Brico Depots often do "specials" and you can end up getting there with your pre-written list for the stage you are at, only to find some wonderful tiles on special and you don't know how many you need cos you haven't got that far yet! Have a notebook and keep everything written in it, how big the rooms are, heights, length of beams, area of floors, etc. And don't forget about adhesive for flooring - it's not just the tiles you are buying.

Gosh, better shut up now. You are fortunate not to have a deadline to work to and an on-going project you can do the way you are planning is a lot less stressful than having to finish it off in a set time. Try and enjoy it, that is really important too.

Oops, forgot something vital. With a stone property, you will have to think carefully about your electrics and plumbing and plan it well ahead, as you won't have the luxury of deciding at the last minute to just stick another socket over there or whatever, try to put as much plumbing under floors as you can and consider underfloor heating and look at geothermal and solar to reduce running costs later on. It's MUCH easier to do at the time than as an afterthought.

And one final tip, remember to target your budget at necessities and DON'T be tempted by fripperies - they will come later. Going to buy concrete, oak beams, flooring adhesive, endless wood for shutters etc may seem boring when you want to choose pretty kitchen units but don't get ahead of yourself.

As our old mate Kevin of Grand Designs fame once said:

"Use your money for essentials, and if there is anything left over, go buy cushions"

Ah, a man after my own heart ....................

Part of me envies you - it's a great journey, bit like a roller coaster - steep climb up for the eventual beautiful view, then a downslide when something occurs you have NOT planned for (in our case, a load of rotten beams for a whole FLOOR we hadn't seen until we took the floorboards up!!). So hang on tight and enjoy the ride.

Bon chance, more when you want it, and so as not to bore the rest of the chaps and chapesses on here who have heard it all before, if you want to pm me, I'm happy with that.

Andy