lbogardis<P>sysadmin - Leggett Immobilier <a target=_blank

Although I work as the sysadmin for an agence immobiliere (who is with the FNAIM) - this post is not aimed at advertising our site, so bear that in mind!  (We do advertise with LF magazine though.) I can see that there is a lot of feeling, both positive and negative towards french property websites, and I empathise with both sides, having been there now.  As the sometime webmaster for our site, I can say that it is often hard to be both revealing and concealing.  We do want you to get a lot of information from our site, but also we want to talk to you about your needs.  We also do need to consider confidentiality and be protective of our houses against poaching by other agents, as previously discussed, the market here is so very different to the market in the uk. If you have a very specific ideal and found every single piece of information from a site you would probably never go and see a house.  It is often true that buyers may find themselves surprised by what they do buy, and how much it differs from their previous ideas.  We are currently offering video portfolios for our vendors, because we hope to encourage buyers to ask more questions, get more enthused and want to come and see these properties. We are always looking for ways to improve your online experience without blowing our budget, for advertising or bandwidth!  I have only just joined the forums so will try to trawl them for your ideas, but if you feel strongly about something you see on our site, please mail me offline. kind regards leigh [email protected]

Hi, first post here... We were advised by two notaires that we would be liable to capital gains tax in France.  The question of off set costs though are unclear.  One said we could be free of the capgains if we sold after 15 yrs, the other said we would have to amortise the costs of the house over some period and therefore we would have less to offset over time... argh the second notaire is the one we tend to believe, he told us that the impots would want 33% of the gain, after any offset costs which, of course now, only includes factures from registered French artisans, no building materials can be offset if a DIYer did the work. the only ray of sunshine in this morass of dark cloud is the fact that uk inland revenue will allow you to offset the costs of french taxation against any gains made in the uk. nightmare all round. lb