how easy is it?

[Honeybuzz]

We have finally made the decision to move to the Dordogne in July after we bought our house at the same period last year. We have a good command of the French language (we are hoping, so far), we are looking for work in the Perigord Vert area, most certainly key-holding, change over cleaning, home maintenance, decorating, pet-sitting etc...

Do you have any experience to share we us, how easy is it to start, self-employed status in France?, how to go from there, most importantly how easy is it to find work?, what sort of hourly rates are we expecting?, looking forward to hearing from you all,
many thanks,

Maggie.

[opas]

if you put a search on the site for most of the subjects you have covered you will find all the details you need.

[Cerise]

Not impossible, but not too easy either. I am not trying to put you off as everyone has to have a go at their dreams, but realistically don't try it if you need to support a mortgage etc. Lots of people have managed to set up businesses like this but you probably need a fairly good cushion to get started.

One of the problems is the amount you will need to charge to cover the dreaded cotisations if you set up your own business - we have just undertaken a very scary (all in French) one day session at the Chambre de Commerce which was enough to put most people off. Many of the services you want to offer (e.g decorating and any sort of DIY) cannot legally be paid for by Cheque d'Emploi (that's not to say nobody does)and non-residents i.e many English gite owners, can't use them either. This means that if you want to be legal you need to set up business and pay, pay, pay.

The other thing to bear in mind is that everybody wants their changeovers at the weekend and you can't do more than one or two in a day. Therefore you need to look for other more year round offers. We have also found that many people hope you will clean their pool, cut their grass, mind their dog etc as a 'friend' which basically means they want to pay you cash and not too much of it!!

Hope I haven't made it sound too gloomy, but we are still banging our heads on the wall trying to find something that my husband can legally do which won't leave us poorer than we were before. Having said that, we are still here - enjoying our new life, getting our Chambre d'Hotes off the ground and trying not to worry too much about the decreasing bank balance.

Good luck with your dreams. E-mail me privately if you want to know anymore about the info we have already gleaned as it might save you a few hours of administration.

Maggi