[quote user="Will"]A couple of points. First, if a house has been on the market for a long time, it could be that it has been poorly marketed - most (not all) notaires and a lot of French agents have little grasp of marketing. [/quote] Will, thanks for the reply. I very much agree with this statement. I'm amazed at some of the photographs that are used to sell houses... ironing boards up with clothes waiting to be ironed etc. I understand your point about pricing. My general presumption (right or wrong) is that the vendor may be more likely to accept an offer in the off season. [quote user="Will"] Secondly, your plan of staying in the NHS and using an EHIC, splitting your time between France and Britain is quite OK in principle. The only difficulty is if you intend to take your six months all in one go. That can cause difficulty because if you are in France for more than three months you are considered to have taken up residence, so you will be expected (in the near future) to get a certificate from the mairie, arrange health insurance etc. Likewise if you are out of Britain for more than three months, then you can, as far as the NHS is concerned, be deemed to have moved away, so you could be refused free treatment, EHIC etc. So as long as you time your stays in the respective countries in sensibly-sized chunks you should be fine. [/quote] Thanks for clarifying the 3 month rule. I think this would work OK for us. Initially I would be at the house more often than my wife but probably for not more 4 to 8 weeks at a time.