Buying a French Property for full time living

Buying a French Property as your permanent residential home. What to buy, and where to buy. In addition, however, you really need to consider carefully what kind of services you will need to access on a regular basis and how far is an acceptable distance to access these. You need to think not only about the present time but also about the future. Do look ahead as you consider the right location for your full time home in France.

I remember one couple in there sixties who bought the home they had always dreamed about for 20 years, a small rural cottage up a little track in a small hamlet, about 5 kilometres from the nearest village. Only the husband drove and when I asked them about what might happen if he was ill and unable to take the car out to buy their groceries they said that it really didn’t matter, he was never ill. Unfortunately, 2 years later he died unexpectedly and his wife was forced to sell their cottage, even though she was happy to live there on her own. She just could not make it function on a day-to-day basis for herself and had to buy a house in the village. The sad part about this was that obviously she had to leave a house she had made into her home, but also, she had to leave behind some really good neighbours and start all over again to make friends. Unfortunately it was the husband who spoke fluent French and took care of all details relating to purchasing the property the first time, and with no idea of what had to be done and little knowledge of the language it would have been very difficult to make the move. Luckily she found a very helpful and professional company called VEFUK located in London who were able to help with all legal and buying issues involved in buying a property in France when you are not fully aware of the legalities of French law.

Often, people who are looking for full time homes in France still need to earn an income. How you intend to do this will determine the location of your property. Lots of people are now commuting from France back to work in the UK or Ireland. If this is what you envisage doing, then remember that what may seem a short distance to an airport for an occasional trip, may not seem so short if you are doing it on a weekly or monthly basis. Do also remember that it is not sensible to rely only on one access airport. Be prepared for routes to change, flight times to change, airports to close, train services to be withdrawn and motorways to get busier.  If frequent journeys to the UK or Ireland are an essential part of your future life in France, then make sure you have more than one possible route back.

If you are intending to find paid employment in France, then do make sure that this is likely to be found in the area in which you choose to look for a home.  You will also need to check the local employment situation and find out if you have the necessary skills to be employed. Similarly, if you are planning to create a business, which relies on tourism, make sure you will have sufficient potential clients. Sometimes it is best not to locate yourself where lots of other people are already making a success of tourism related businesses but, on the other hand, trying to create a market can take a lot of time and money. You need to think very carefully about what you are planning to do, how to create a market for what you are doing and how realistic your income projections are.