Greg76 Posted February 5, 2005 Share Posted February 5, 2005 What are the chances of two reliable, hardworking young men being able to hire themselves out as general handimen/garden services on an hourly basis as extra income on top of running a holiday cottage in the Dordogne region? We are basically ready to buy a property now, but the only thing holding us back is a concern that our income will be a bit tight in the winter (out of season) months, and wouldn't mind a small (a few hundred euros a month) secure income during the year...is this a service that would come in handy? Pretty much anything goes, as both of us are pretty handy at anything within the house and out. Hope someone can help...an idea of what people are likely to pay would be good as well... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alexis Posted February 6, 2005 Share Posted February 6, 2005 I think you will be joining a long queue. Others will know more than me because I have always worked for an employer here, but the charges could take all your earnings.Winter isn't really the time for gardening. Summer is when the grass grows as you look at it and you could be too busy then. You can always sign on at the tempory agencies. I don't know what work there is but there might be something in a factory for example.Don't let it put you off, something always turned up for me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
zeb Posted February 6, 2005 Share Posted February 6, 2005 Hello Greg - you could always try to rent your property out as a long let over the winter months - that would give you an income.Regarding the gardening adn property maintenance - we run this sort of business in the Charente and I'm sure that if you go to your local bricos and supermarkets, there will be lots of cards advertising this sort of service by Brits. Hardly any of our work came by advertising. We have gradually built it up over the last couple of years and most of the regular work has come by word of mouth. Remember, the majority of gardening work is from March to November so try to get established clients who want property maintenance done all the year round.Your problem, as two guys, may be registering as one business but I'm not sure about that and you will have to ask at the local chambre de commerce or MSA. My OH is "conjoint collaberateur" on our registration and is entitled to health and pension benefits as such. Social security charges are high (we paid something like 3800euros plus a monthly health/accident insurance on top as well as several other subscriptions and the second year was more!! So make sure you have plenty of work lined up - I think the MSA let us off the first 6 months as they laughed at our order book (we didn't have much work then) and I think we have to show we were working a certain number of hours to register properly (but after 6 months we were snowed under!!).good luck Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
phylisbide Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 helloIf you are going to let your property out over the winter, take care on long lets because I believe the French system for long tenancies is different - and you might struggle to get tenants out at the end of the period. Temp agencies seem to have plenty of work. Manpower have branches in UK and in the Dordogne - you can speak to them in UK about work over there. Hope this helps Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vrooje<BR>Cheers,<br>-Brooke<BR><br><B><A TARGET=blank HREF="http:www.experienceburgundy.com">http:www.experienceburgundy.com<A><B> Posted February 7, 2005 Share Posted February 7, 2005 Well, if you were in Burgundy, we would hire you! So there must be a market for it...We were also advised to be careful during long-term winter lets. We have a contract that specifies that our property is a furnished vacation rental with the letting period not to exceed six months. Supposedly that will keep us in the landlord-favored part of the law, but if we have a serious inquiry on a longer let this winter we will certainly be contacting a lawyer, just to be sure. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Greg76 Posted February 7, 2005 Author Share Posted February 7, 2005 Hi there - thanks for all the responses! Will definitely be checking out the temp agencies, as we hadn't thought of those before - the idea originally I think was to partly cater to the holiday home owners and kinda prepare their cottages for occupancy - ie garden and internal work - in the town we are settling in (potentially anyway) there is a high percentage expat population, so the scope could be high...there are people doing this already, but apparently are unreliable etc so were hoping to move in on their territory.One thing we do need to know - what ARE the insurances and taxes payable on a gite? Are they variable and what penalties would apply if we had both businesses running ie the property maintenance and the cottage?Cheers!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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