Pamela

Hi Karen no idea about the specific business but I have had a lot of useful advice given to me in the thread below "on the payroll or as a consultant" There are quite a lot of replies there about what I would have to do if I decided to go self employed and most of them would be relevant for your friend. It seems that being self-employed in France costs quite a lot in social charges (sort of NI equivalent) and taxes. regards Pamela

Thanks everyone for your really useful advice as ever. It seems that the "easiest way" (I use the term loosely of course!) for my employers (and hence they are more likely to agree) would be for me to set up as self-employed consultant and invoice them monthly for the work I do.  This would mean no paperwork as such for them, no 'employee related' expenses for them and all the paperwork / charges down to me - but I would be fully 'above board', legal, covered for all health, social charges etc. in France.  I think I could realistically ask for a higher pro-rata rate if i were going down this route and hence use this to cover the additional charges.  For example if I were to be getting a part time rate of 10K as an employee - I;d only end up with about 6K in my pocket but if I were able to persuade them to give me 15K I'd end up with 9K in my pocket?  Does anyone see a flaw in this arguement?  (Except the fact that I have to deal with all the paperwork etc.!) So the only thing to find out now is what the chamber of commerce would make of a 'salesy/marketying/scientificy type product manager' working in such a niche scientific market that I doubt theres an equivalent of!! ho hum.... what did we all do before there was the internet to research these projects?  regards Pamela

The plan is for me to continue to do about 20hours a week for my current employer when we move to France (e.g. about 1/2 time).  Based from home, office/PC work etc. Does anyone know the benefits / drawbacks / implications of the two alternatives that I think would be open to me. 1.  To stay as a full employee of the company, I guess they would continue to pay my salary into a UK a/c, I'd have UK tax, NI etc. deducted at source as now and I;d have to transfer the funds over myself when required.  Presumably I'd have this UK tax already paid taken into account when doing my 'total income' tax return for the French. 2.Alternatively i could go as a consultant - less security for me I know, but I could probably ask for more money from the company because they wouldnt have to pay all the associated employee charges etc. - i would just send an invoice each month and they would pay it  - possibly even in Euros.  I;d have to declare all that as income in France and then pay tax on the total in France. if it makes any difference, my husband will not be working (for a salary) - he will be working on our property etc.  We also have a young child so I believe we count as 2.5 for taxation purposes. Anyone like to hazard a guess - or have any concrete information - as to which process would leave me better off? thanks Pamela

OK I know its one of those 'how long's a piece of string' questions but, .... when renovating any property - assuming 4 walls and a roof are relatively sound - what do you assess proportion of costs to be related to a) labour b) materials I have the impression from research, reading various forums and (dare I say it) TV programmes - that the labour element of any project is the most substantive - is this a correct impression? Assuming you need stone masons, carpenters, plumbers, electricians etc. but you were providing materials - how do you think the costs would split?  75% labour costs?  50% labour? Any hard facts, gut feelings or "finger in the wind" calculations gratefully received. Many thanks Pamela

Thanks Will - I did wonder if the first notaire would be a bit put out at you choosing someone else for him to share his fees with - I think I would too! Seems like the best thing to do is contact an English speaking French lawyer - and a couple of people have PM'd me some details (thank you folks) Thanks for your help Pamela

I think we have two requirements for legal advice in english when we buy our French property (someone tell me if there are more than two) First of all we need to take advise on the best way to buy our property in France - regarding the inheritance situation as we are in the second marriage / several children situation.  Despite reading extensively on this and other forums I believe that the only way to get the best advise is to speak to someone directly about OUR particular situation.  (It seems that even on a highly knowleged based forum like this there is still a considerable amount of confusion!) Secondly we need to have the contracts that we will sign 'checked' or translated into English and explained to us so that we do not end up with the proverbial pig in a poke. Now I have read on the forum that for this second point we only need to use an English speaking French notaire who is different from the one doing the property transaction and that this will not cost us any more because they share fees?  - is this correct?  and is it advisable? Secondly I have also read that these notaires aren't necessarily the best people to give advise on the inheritance situation? (although that sseeems strange) and that I should look to a French law specialist in the UK?  I have a feeling the UK option will be more expensive. Can anyone advise on the best option for these two situations? Many thanks Pamela

Thanks Paolo - and everyone else that has contributed to this thread - have been reading with great interest.  It has previously struck me when renting gites that much of the marketing that appeared to be done was limited in the extreme.  First of all I tend to do all my holiday bookings via the web - I have previously (about 10 years ago) used a brochure (VF? possibly? cant really remember) and to my mind the extremely limited information found in these brochures is no way to base a decision on - for me - what is supposed to be 2 of the best weeks of the year!! Searching for rental accomodation / gites / houses to rent - call them what you will - on the internet has not always been a straightforward business.  (For example if I want to rent somewhere in a specific town or area I would expect a search for the "town name" and "rental accomodation" or "gite" to come up with a hit if your business was anywhere near there - however the 'hits' are limited in the extreme in some areas. Almost certainly not an indication of a lack of 'beds' in the area - rather a poor internet marketing strategy. As a Marketing Manager in 'real life' the promotion and marketing of any business (gites or otherwise) that we undertake in France will be my responsibility (hubby gets to do all the building work and rennovations) and my over-riding feeling at the moment is that I have far more ideas of what I could do in this area than I have seen on many web sites. Much of what Paolo says about the web site being a resource is exactly how I am intending to approach the project - so I am encouraged to see that my belief that I could really make a difference in the promotion of our business is probably not mistaken.  (I like the idea of the January photographs - I'll be borrowing that particular one!!) One final point / question to ask - the point was raised about the situation regarding the ferry crossings - P&O cutting back etc.  Surely at this moment there have never been so many ways to get all over France with the cheap airlines flying from so many different UK airports?  Even for the 'family market' (which is to my knowledge definately not the whole picture - and perhaps in some areas not even the main focus?) these airlines offer extremely good value for money - even when combined with car hire - and certainly a flight to Toulouse or Montpellier certainly beats the long drive from 'north of Watford' with two screaming kids in the car!! We will continue with our plans - which are to continue researching everything and anything remotely useful!  We are flying to Pau in February for a further fact finding / "looking at properties to get a feel for the opportunities"  trip (67quid for 2 adults return!) and hope to put our house in the UK on the market around May/June. Now that I have found this great resource I will be visiting regularly and surely will have further questions - in the meantime I'm off to surf all the links in everyone's signatures. many thanks for sharing your experiences Pamela

This is interesting to me - as we are hoping to re-locate in 2005 and running a gite / B&B is part of our overall plan.  I havent seen the article - but as existing gite owners / business people, what would your one piece of advice be to 'new comers' like myself hoping to enter this market.  Assuming of course your advice wouldnt just be ' don't start one - we don't want any more competition?' regards Pamela