Stuxy

Hi Guys,

My name is Stuart and I am really looking for advice, so thank you in advance for any participation in this topic.

My father moved to France around 9 years ago, he moved there with the intention of a quieter life and wanted to get into the property market (on a hobby level) renovating small affordable homes to French residents and British expats.

Anyway to cut a very long story short he lives in a village in Brittany and has completely run out of money! EDF are due to cut his power off next week and his very kind neighbours are supporting him to the point of food etc.

I'm assuming that he does not qualify for any kind of financial aid and I really am not sure what direction to help him take. He owns his house out right but with the slump in the market at the moment it just simply isn't selling. He has dropped the price several times under the market value and it is listed with all the agents he could find.

Sorry to drag a negative thread on here but I quite frankly do not know what to do. Has anyone had any good experience in regards to selling houses fast with brokers/auction houses in the UK etc?

Any advice welcome, all options we can think of have be genuinely explored and time is running out to get the situation resolved.

Again, thank you for taking the time to read, and any advice/direction will be greatly welcomed.

Stuart

Ka Ora!

Welcome to the Forum, Regrettably houses can take a while to sell here. It's the nature of the market.

LPC

Ka Ora is quite right. Property sales are very difficult here at the moment, as they are still in the UK. However, I have a couple of suggestions:

Assuming your father is willing to sign on for work, he could go to the ANPE (the equivalent of an employment exchange); see http://www.pole-emploi.fr/accueil/

If he is not entitled to any other benefits (e.g. based on a contribution record), he could then approach the CAF for financial help, called RSA. Here is the address: http://www.rsa.gouv.fr/

I don't know the ins and outs of the rules, as I've never claimed anything. However, I do hope that the above will be of help, at least in the short term until he finds a buyer. Good luck!

cyrian

Sounds like a difficult situation.
You could have a look at the classifieds section in this forum.
Sounds like his best bet if he can't sell the house is to rent it out.
This would mean that he would be homeless but that also might be the case if he cant pay EDF.
He can advertise on a site in France (Le boncoin?) - I think that it was dennerlymum who sold her house like that last year.
Do a search on the forum.

Hope it works out for him

TinaBee

If he does decide to rent out his house, there are ways of finding free accommodation in France in exchange for some work (it sounds like he has useful skills) Have a look at this site
http://www.helpx.net/search_now_pagi...=328&network=3

Also, there is a good guide here on how to rent out property in France
http://www.french-property.com/guide...ting-property/

Also, he should try to see his "assistante sociale" as soon as possible - the details should be available at the town hall (Mairie). An assistante sociale is a local social worker who helps people in difficulties, specifically to deal with the appropriate bureaucracy.

As long as he has been legally resident in France for more than 5 years, he should be able to get help with EDF, etc.

Stuxy

Thank you very much for all the information I will go through it with him and see what we can achieve.

dennerlymum

Yes we sold our house very quickly through leboncoin; we had to accept less than we wanted but we were in a less dire but similar position to your father... our families fed us for 6 months:

Good luck to your father; I hope it gets better soon

Im_and_Er

Even if he does manage to get some help I doubt it's going to make for a comfortable lifestyle.

If it's got to that stage it's maybe time to cut and run, I believe there are ways to auction a house in France. Selling under the Viager scheme may be worth investigating ?

http://www.viager.net

Remember, ALL property will sell if the price is right.

Tweedpipe

I certainly agree with the previous comment but the difficult question these days is how to determine the right price.
I say this as I know an elderly French gent who put his very nice detached house in a pleasant location - near Couiza (Aude 11) up for sale 3 years ago for 400k€. I thought that was a little overpriced at the time but both agents acting for him thought it realistic. Fast forward: the property is still for sale, price has progressively be lowered, currently at 180k€ and still very little interest.
Contrasting slightly with this, a fairly young lady purchased a typical very small terraced house in a village near here 7 years ago for 70k€. After little more that a few coats of paints, almost 4 years ago she put the house up for sale at 135k€ thinking (wishfully!) then that was approx the current price. Needless to say together with the recession it hasn't sold and is still for sale at that over-zealous price.
Such is the very realistic, slow pace of the property market still in many places in France. Partially due to the agents who seem to be unable to set the right price, and - as it's been said before - want their % of the deal without working for it.

Ka Ora!

And the Estate Agents are qualified in what? Only luck will bring you to an experienced agent so always ask about because folk are pretty quick about saying what agents should be avoided. Don't do exclusive contracts with an agent in France.

Stuxy

Thank you again for the further advice. I think the house is priced reasonably he certainly hasn't been greedy with it. But like with anything it is only worth what someone is prepared to pay for it!

I will certainly recommend putting it up for auction. Does anyone have any previous experience with this?

The agents don't actually seem to do anything from what I have seen. The advertisement photo's are rubbish, the description is non descriptive (ironically) and every time he calls for advice (from the supposed professionals) he receives a tally of useless comments and 'i don't knows'.

Im_and_Er

When selling under duress, particularly to return to UK, a lot of people seem to get fixated on € valuations an lose sight of the effect of the exchange rate.

9 years ago the rate was around 1.5/1.6 so a notional €100,000 property will have cost between £62 and £66k. With today's rate of 1.133 selling for the same €100,000 would equate to some €88k so you'd still walk away with a profit, or to put it another way, you could sell for €70,000 odd and and get your money back.

Very rough calculations of course which do not take into account money spent on a property but I'm sure you get the gist of what I'm saying.

vin rouge

So sorry to hear of your fathers financial problem Stuxy.

If you or someone else with basic computer skills, it would be an advantage to set up a web site showing his property to the best possible effect with lots of good quality pictures and detaled information about the area - links to the uk - .

Our property is rented out for the summer months to help with the running costs and we set up our www hosted, quite cheap and easy to set up.

If you can please pay his EDF bill for him!

Wish your father all the very best and hope for a sale v.soon.
Kind regards