Shirley B

Thanks for your message Debra.  The land came with planning permission for a house anyway, so we will built there.  We are able to, as you say, add 20sq.mtr buildings (which we can utilise as shower/toilet facilities for the fishermen.  As for static caravans, I am not sure at this time, but we probably wont need them anyway.  Regards. Shirley

[quote]This is my very first posting to the forum. I am hoping for advice to assist with our plans. We are actively looking (and will be visiting during February) at fishing lakes within the Pays de la Loi...[/quote] I am eternally grateful to all of the members who have so kindly responded with information and advice on my question of some time ago, so I thought that I should update you. We purchased 12 acres with a 2.5 lake at the end of February this year (completion of purchase finalised in June).  We were lucky enough to find the land in a private ad on the web and it came with planning permission to build a house and was also far far cheaper than anything that we had seen in the specialised agents advertisements.  We have now sold in the UK and, fingers crossed, will be off to France (near Chateau Gontier & Laval) in about 2 months time.  I was also extremely lucky to find an incredibly reasonable rental house for a year, whilst ours is being built. We will spend the coming year developing some business ideas that we have and also I am able to take my employment with me and as we will have no mortgage, we should (quite a big should) be able to survive quite well.  The lake is to be extended to 5 acres and the cost of doing this is quite reasonable, we will also make certain areas a bit deeper.  There are carp already in the lake but they are small, so we will add a few larger ones and wait......... about 3-4 years according to my fishermen brothers!. We have no desire to make a fortune, but to enjoy a less stressful way of life and escape from the 9-5 and traffic of the UK.  We love the UK but need a new challenge and would have to be millionaires to be able to afford the same here in the UK. We are under no illusion about the difficulties that we will face - we have some extremely knowledgeable family and friends and if this whole thing falls flat, then it will not be for the lack of trying. With a lot hard work and some luck thrown in, I hope to be able to post our successful progress on the site. Thanks once again for all your input.  Please don't stop the advice - every single little bit will help.

This is my very first posting to the forum.  I am hoping for advice to assist with our plans.  We are actively looking (and will be visiting during February) at fishing lakes within the Pays de la Loire and surrounding regions.  It is our hope to purchase something, with or without a property, that we can develop to offer fishing holidays.  We do realise that there are many of these types of holidays already available in France, however, we are optimistic that the market could stand one more!!. We have a budget of around £250,000 but that would have to buy us an income and also perhaps a small property to live in, or we could, as recommended by some, rent a home until the business was settled.  We also have some income coming from other property that we own overseas, but not quite enough to pay all the bills - I understand that living in France on the whole is really no cheaper than the UK. I am sure that there is someone out there that could give us advice - any comments would be more than welcome.  We wish to try and be realistic and go into this venture with our eyes fully open. We are fairly desperate to escape the congestion and rat-race of the South East of England, but not so desperate as to buy or invest in something with little or no chance of success.