sam in france

Hi Peterw I hope i did not confuse you, i put the post on the forum about being inspected The inspection has cost 4000 euros but that was to rectify the faults that were picked up by the fireman carrying out the inspection The bulk of our problem was the requirement to have a fire alarm, i would suggest you contact your fire department tell them what you are going to do and get their advice We had varying qoutes for the alarm ranging from 3000 euros to 6000 euros Regards Sam Edwards www.chaletwensam.com

Hi Miki I think your case is quite different to many other CdH's. If I had a few euros for all the people I know, that have been led by the nose by accountants and other "advisors" I would be quite a rich Miki !! In fact our accountant was confused as to why they insisted on going to the levels they did It all started when we visited the Marie for the drinks licence, we only wanted the very basic licence and that is all we have, we do not sell alcohol as such but it is included in our price I have just noticed on your web site that it appears that you actually have 6 rooms (inc the family room ?) if so, that alone would be a reason, if no other, for you to be inspected. I think that perhaps this has more to it....? We only had 4 rooms at the time of the inspection with my wife and i living in the apartment under the chalet, max of 10 persons It seems to me that the French interpret the rules in their own way, still we are very happy and my point is nothing seems to be written down in a simple way that explains what is what We got most of our advice from this forum, which means well but cannot second guess what each mayor in each department will see as his responsibility  Regards Sam Edwards www.chaletwensam.com   

My wife and i have a ski chalet in the French Alps and sky is important for our guests With us we had Sky+ multi room both box's in France and they were registered to a uk address, we kept getting letters about the box's not being connected and in the end they doubled our subscription, When our 12 month contract period ended we cancelled the multi room part of our contract and we now have one sky+ box working with the full contract and the other does all the free view channels, we pay for one full subscription Regards Sam Edwards www.chaletwensam.com  

Hi My wife and i have a chalet in the fench alps on the edge of the Portes du  Soleil For advertising you could try www.chaletgroup.com and www.chaletfinder.com We advertise through both and are getting positive result I dont know how big you are but if your chalet is new you can claim a very large slice of your TVA back if you register for it, of course you would need an accountant for this, but be warned accountants are very expensive in France If you have any specific questions i can help with email me direct at [email protected] Regards and good luck Sam Edwards www.chaletwensam.com  

Just a quick point re your question My wife and i have a ski chalet in the French Alps where we do catered ski holidays, at first we had 4 rooms but now we have 5 www.chaletwensam.com We did all the research when we were buying and basically we got the impression like you that there were no rules for premises with 5 rooms or less, how wrong were we We did everything properly got an accountant, registered as a business and visited the Marie and applied for our drinks licence, it was then that we were told that we would be inspected an appointment was made and on the due date the Mayor, a Gendarme, a fireman, and another person from the department at Thonon turned up and looked around the chalet Our chalet was new and the end result of it all was we have to install a fire alarm to a certain spec, fit emergency exit directions, also have a set amount of fire extinguishers depending on the chalet size, move a gas cylinder, and keep a record  of all inspections, ie the alarm and extinguishers etc The cost of the inspection is in excess of 4000 euros so far In all honesty if you go legal and do everything properly you just cant tell what will be required of you They have classified us as a Chambres d'hote I know this is probably not what you want to hear, but in all honesty it would of helped us if we knew more before we started because some of the work ie location of gas cylinder could of been taken care of when we were having the chalet built Regards Sam Edwards www.chaletwensam.com

Hi Does anybody know if there is an organisation for Chambres d'hote, like the one for gites de france Regards Sam  

Hi Well i got a reply from the french property law group and they only seemed interested in setting up a meeting, at a price may i add of £235, they gave no indication as to whether the regulations say that my size chalet requires a fire alarm, i think it would be cheaper to fit an alarm, so i will not be going for a meeting, Can anybody tell me where i can find the regulations with regards to Chambres d'hote, i have trawled through the internet with no joy so far, they must be written down somewhere Regards Sam Edwards 

Hi I just tried the link i suggested above, it dint work so to find the article, type in www.frenchpropertylaw.co.uk click on the news / articles box and about 3/4 of the way down on the right you will find the article gite ruraux, chambres dhote, tables dhote Hope that works Regards sam  

Hi I did the post earlier (do we really need a fire alarm) since then i have been trying to find information about the regulations for chambre d'hote, not yet succeeded I came across this article, could i invite you to have a look it may assist you www.frenchpropertylaw.co.uk/gitespdf I have contacted this group for information about my problem By the way as it happens the chalet is our home and we eat with our guests Regards Sam              

Hi ian Yes this is our principal business, but what difference does that make We didn't see the mayor before setting up but we did a lot of research which indicated that with 5 rooms or less there were no regulations, i hope that they have got their facts wrong, because i dont want to go down the road of having a fire alarm fited, by the way they showed no interest in the doors Regards Sam  

We use www.webvilla.com you build your own site using their templates and updating is very simple Hope that is of use to you Sam  

Hi my wife and i have now set up our ski chalet, we have 5 rooms and are doing half board during the ski season and plan to do b and b during the summer Our problem is that when getting our drinks licence from the maire, they made an appointment for us to be inspected, well about six weeks later a fireman, policeman, another person from another department and the mayor turned up and inspected the chalet We were picked up on 3 things, 2 we have no problems with and will sort out, but they said we needed to fit a fire alarm, So the question is, is this correct, from all the research i have done i believed there were no regulations for our size chalet, by the way we have smoke detectors in all the rooms I would appreciate some advice with regards to this Thank you for any advice given Sam            

When with the accountant he sugested we register to be able to provide transport IE pick ups from the airport and also lifts out to the piste He said that if we did this we would be able to pick customers for other chalets then Regards Sam

Thanks for your input CJ You don't say what service you do The accountant, broke down the TVA which we would have to pay and he estimated it would be 8% There are differing rates for food accommodation and transport, unfortunately i did not get the individual rates, does anybody know them ? In relation to his cost they were high, however we have a accountant friend in the uk who said he will show us how to do the accounting, so once we know where we are we could prepare this stuff ourselves This leaves us with the reason we are asking for advice, We will receive 40,000 to 45000 euros back from the tax man, 75% of the TVA paid on our chalet If we go down the TVA route i could invest this and earn 5% tax free without taking risks 2000 euros per year, also for each year we trade we get to keep 5% of the 40,000 paid to us IE we would not have to repay it if we closed the business down, another 2000 euros per year So you can see how attractive the TVA route appears at the moment I would appreciate it if somebody could breakdown our TVA percentages for our services which are Food, breakfast and evening meal Bed Free bar Transport, from the airport and to the pistes Thank you in advance for any input Sam Edwards www.chaletwensam.com      

 I have posted this question in the b and b thread but i thought it might be worth trying this area as well My wife and i own a ski chalet and we dont know how best to move forward with our business, i went to see an accountant yesterday and he opened a door which we were not thinking of, he outlined two different accounting ways one being micro bic, which i was thinking of doing and the other being full accounting including paying TVA Now at first we had no intention of getting involved with TVA, but the way he did it we ended up with the same tax bill with both methods on a estimated income of 50,000 euros, you can bring things like depreciation into the calculations The disadvantage being higher accountancy bills The Carrot, our chalet is new less than a year old, we can claim back the TVA paid on the chalet and also all the items we have purchased since, well 75% of, which amounts to about 40,000 euros, so as you can see that is a big carrot If we stop the business we would have to pay back the TVA on the chalet less 5% for each year, at the moment we intend this to be a long term thing Has anybody got any thoughts based on your own experiences Regards Sam Edwards www.chaletwensam.com