Renting Your Property
 

Reading the recent thread ‘Buying property - market trends?’ my property is also slow in selling.
Advice has been given to rent for a few months to ‘check out’ France before buying.
I’m thinking about renting mine out until hopefully the market picks up a little. Are there any members with experience of this? I’m sure there are many pitfalls.

Re: Renting Your Property
 

Reading a French newspaper daily, and watching TV news at least once a day I'm very much aware of the many reports of problems encountered by owners renting their properties. These include non-payment, constant late payments, drugs, excessive noise and disorder, and frequent cases of difficulties in getting an eviction. The French laws would appear to be more favourable to the tenant rather than the owner, which is why many people prefer not to rent out their properties.
On the other hand you could get lucky.

In order to get some idea of the problems, simply Google something like 'Problems, locataires, france.'
HERE is just one random hit of many.

Slightly off-topic, but fwiw we let-out our furnished property in UK for over 20 years, and were pretty lucky - bar the ever increasing agents fees - but that's life. The very last tenant was again a professional person (a dentist). Payments were always on the date, but after 3 years of his tenancy, one day I make an impromptu visit, only to find the place had virtually been trashed - an absolute pigsty. The guy still lived there but had been sub-letting and sharing with medical students.
Via the 'big-name' agency (who were also a waste of space) I gave him immediate notice to vacate, and as a result of that bad experience had to trash all the furniture.
Bottom line, think very carefully about letting property, wherever you may be.

Re: Renting Your Property
 

Do you mean let your UK house and rent on in France to enable you to move, or let your French house out?

I've done the former and six years down the line am now trying to sell it and the market still seems just as slow. I wouldn't fancy letting my French house as I've read of so many pitfalls.

I'm currently putting my French house on property swap websites and I've tried putting the UK one on them too but that one is difficult because I have it half mortgaged and so can't do a direct swap but need a part ex. Have you thought of doing that?

Re: Renting Your Property
 

Just read Tweedpipe's reply - yes, I too have heard of heartbreaking stories of property letting gone wrong in France and it's really put me off doing that, even though I've let my UK house with no difficulties. People do it with no problems too, but I guess we don't hear about the good experiences so much.

Re: Renting Your Property
 

There are indeed many pitfells. In France the tenant has many more rights than in the UK.

The terms of the lease depend upon wether the property is furnished or unfurnished. The latter is longer than the former. Off the top of my head I believe two years .

We have three properties close to us which are rentals. All have experienced huge problems - as have all their neighbours. I am talking damage, nuisance at the least and criminal activity at worst.

Thankfully the Irish owner of one property has withdrawn it. Another has rented to an utterly charming man, after no fewer than three disastrous lets. The owner said he would, from now on, rent to an older person who came with several local recommendations. T

His advice is always to do it through a reputable agency. It costs, but once the contract is signed the agency has the responsibility for collecting the rent and making good any damage.

The third is let to nice enough people but who are causing problems by creeping beyond their property and sneaking ever gorwing bits of land to which they are not entitled, eg storing their winter log supply on their car parking space then creeping into someone elses.

We and others foresee problems and are trying to come up with subtle ways of stamping on the creep before it gets out of hand.

Why don't you ask two or three agences to come round and give advice, suggest rents etc?

Re: Renting Your Property
 

You need to ask yourself the hard question 'why is my house not selling ?'

Your house will sell if it is priced correctly.

Re: Renting Your Property
 

Hi, French Laws don't appear to be more favourable to the tenant, they ARE!
We invested in an appartment, letting it until such times as one of our daughters would eventually live there.
I won't go into details about our personal difficulties evicting tenants who didn't pay their rent, the amount you eventually receive (from those who do pay) after the Syndic and Immo have deducted expenses and their fees, not to mention the nightmare of filling in the annual Déclaration des Revenus, and being responsible for any structural problems in the appart.
Unless you live in the vicinity, are good with figures, and can hold your own before a French Court (we only ticked one of these), I would strongly advise against letting property. Too much stress for too little income....:(

Re: Renting Your Property
 

If you look on the "moving back to the UK" forum you will come across returning expats who are possibly experiencing problems either buying or renting in the UK because of lack of credit rating.
They are perhaps looking to rent in order to check out possible areas before committing to a purchase.
It may be possible to come to some arrangement with someone in a similar position to yourself to rent to a returning expat.

I have just checked the MBTUK forum and there is a UK expat who is trying to sell their French house but is having difficulty.
Could you do a swap?

Re: Renting Your Property
 

I've got my properties on two swap sites (and my UK house on the UK version of one of them) but I'm not sure if I'm allowed to provide links to those on here?

Re: Renting Your Property
 

I suppose someone can delete the links if it's not allowed:

Echange de maison definitif, appartement, immobilier
Exchange your Property with International Property Swap
Exchange your Property with UK Property Swap

It's worth having a look to see if someone has something you would like to swap for. The middle one has a joining fee but the other two are free.

Re: Renting Your Property
 

Thank you all for your advice on renting. My notaire also has the same negative opinions.
I was thinking about a professional tenant for a furnished let but after reading your experiences Tweedpipe, my ideas are now filed in the poubelle.:(
I had hopes that being a landlord in France might be more tightly controlled.
Thanks again.

Re: Renting Your Property
 

Don't bank on a professional tenant being any better than any other. French colleagues have had nightmares with tenants who variously work for the tax office or the legal profession. It would appear that they know their rights more than their landlords and can exploit that knowledge . . .

Re: Renting Your Property
 

The tenant mentioned in #7 is, or at least was, an Avocate! But she didn't come to the Hearing and we pleaded our case in her absence. (The Judge found for us, but she never did pay the outstanding rent).

Re: Renting Your Property
 

Unbelievable, mind you with my recent involvement with the legal system I’m not surprised. Hopefully I will never have to deal with them again.
Thanks to all for sharing your experiences.

Re: Renting Your Property
 

Looks like the non-payment of rent is quite a common practice - all the way up to the highest levels

French leader didn't pay his rent for three years