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self buid questions...


gayns
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Hi all,

Can anyone advise?  We are in the middle of buying a plot of land to build a 3 bedroom bungalow on.  Building in France is the only way we can fulfill our ambition of building our own home owing to the astronomical price of land in UK. 

The thing is, if we were in the UK, we would know the procedure to do a self build, that is, we could get project insurance to cover us doing the build (qualified builder already) as opposed to having to employ an NHBC builder.  Then of course you would have the building inspector coming out periodically to check off your work.  At the end of the build you would have it signed off as it were, to certify that the whole build has been carried out to Building Regulations.  If this isn't done, you've built yourself a white elephant and wouldn't be able to sell it on, at a future date.

However, we just can't seem to get any information with regards to the procedure over here in France.  The last thing we want is to do this build ourselves and find that, if at a later date we move on to pastures new, we are not able to sell the property on because we didn't do a particular thing. 

Also, as we will be building the property ourselves and will not be working for anyone whilst we are doing this, will we need to register as builders to do this and/or do we need to take out insurance for personal liability?

If anyone out there has done a 'self-build' self-build, if you know what I mean (not someone who pays someone else to build it for them), we'd appreciate your advice.

 

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There is nothing to stopyou building a new house in France - until you want to sell it.

There are no "building regulations" here. You would, typically, get an architect to design the property and build it to that spec. However, as you are not a registered builder here, you would not be able to get the French equivalent of an "NHBC" guarantee. Furthermore, even if you are a qualified & registered builder, you cannot charge yourself for the work you do, so you will have a huge CGT bill to play if you sell within 15 years.

IMHO, most "self-builders" are actually Project Managers.

 

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hi,ive been doing a barn conversion classed as a new build for two and a half years on my own more or less,completly striped it out and started from scratch,new floors ,new roof two inner gable walls splitting it into three parts,total four hundred sqaure metres of living space,six bedrooms five bathrooms two kitchens three lounges.never seen a building inspecter since i got here, they just send out forms for you to fill in every year to ask how far you have come

if you do sell it,and i have been into this,then you have to prove it is your principal home to avoid cgt,this means you must live in it for a period of time and the prefared method of proof by the tax man is to fill in tax forms as soon as you can even if you have no income from any where while you are doing a self build,

depending on how long you think its going to take you to do the build and assuming your going to need a job here at some stage it could be worth your while regestering for work from the start even if you cant do any work for any one else at the moment,its another proof you live here and the discount you get on matierials can out way the tva payable

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[quote user="Mysfloss"]No building regs in france ,I'll tell the inspector from Apave that this afternoon,and then chuck my  copy of the DTU in the dustbin.[/quote]

 

bit nit picky that,since having my plans passed not one inspector as been, it certainly isnt like the uk

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Yes, thank you for your replies (even if they did seem to wander off to a bit of a 'slap'-fest!)

The CGT issue is simple enough if it is your main residence, which it will be - you do not pay it.  It would be helpful to get a solid answer regarding selling on at a later date - there must be some sort of structural warranty which is required which would result in an inspector from the insurance company making a number of visits to the site to sign off stages for the warranty to be valid.

Anyone had any experience in this?

And, please boys and girls, lets not quarrel!!!

 

gayns

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