Renting French Property

[Pangur]

Myself and my husband plan on moving to France in Feb/March and intend renting in the short-medium term. However most of the information on this forum (and elsewhere) seems to be geared towards those buying. Does anyone have any experience from the renter's perpective?

For instance, as many French people seem to rent for life, is it difficult to find appartments/houses with a one year minimum lease as is normal in the UK, or should we expect to have to sign up for a lot longer than that?

How do people get around the problem of references when you're new in the country and probably jobless? And finally, has anyone found a French equivalent of loot.com? If it makes a difference, we're heading for Haute Savoie.

Looking forward to hearing about your experiences!

[Evianers]

This subject has been asked before. However, firstly welcome to the forum. We own a house in Haute Savoie (it doesn't take a genius to guess where!). It is at present rented out to a French family, who, under French law, have had to sign for a minimum of three years. This in effect means absolutely nothing as all the rights are on the tenants' side and very few on the owners'. You will probably have to sign a rental agreement for three years, but as tenants, can break it with three months notice. If we wanted to live in our own house, we would have to give a minimum of six months notice and then not between September and March, the winter months. If you need any further information, put a request in our private box and I will respond to you directly.

[letrangere]

>Looking forward to hearing about your
>experiences!

I would like to share my positively nightmare experience of trying to find an apartment to rent in Paris. I don't know whether this is typical of elsewhere in the country but in the neighbourhoods we were looking in there was a definite shortage of places to live and landlords could accordingly afford to be very selective. Viewings were an open affair at a set time so you'd turn up with perhaps as many as 50 other people. As a result, you didn't see too much of the 90m2 that you were fighting to pay a fortune for. I remember the first time I saw what was later to be MY bathroom, the epitome of chic in tight skirt and high heels was standing in the bath testing out the shower fitting for height! In order to get out, she had to take off her shoes and another onlooker (there must have been six of us crammed in this bathroom) lent her a hand as she gingerly climbed over the bath.

It was like an interview or audition and, believe me, despite the Hermes scarf, being an ordinary looking British woman no one wanted to rent to me. We had to sign up for a three year lease with a minimum term of one year. And, yes, we did have to bring paperwork, evidence of husband's employment, cheque book, definitely passports. But I only once got to the stage where this was required and must have looked at 20 or more places in the interim. But finally we fell upon a landlady who was as foreign as we were - she was an Iranian exile - and the first thing she noticed in my husband's passport was his old Teheran residence visa so we were in! Yippee!

Envy you moving to Annecy. What a seriously beautiful place.

M

[Pangur]

Unfortunately I don't think we'll be able to afford to live in Annecy itself either - but in one of the nearby towns such as La Roche sur Foron. And there are drawbacks to such pretty places: apparently it can be hellish for residents living in the town centre during high season with the hordes of tourists.

[Craig McGinty]

Hi
Another possible route could be to let a holiday home for three to six months especially if you are likely to be in France from Feb.

That is what I did and it has worked out smoothly for me as owners often end up with their homes standing empty through the winter and would be delighted to let it long term.

Prepare a short email in advance outlining what you require, how much you are willing to pay and if you will be bringing over any pets.

Naturally renting out of season will not only widen your options, but you should be able to get a good two or three bedroom home for around Euro600 a month.

Just make sure that the heating is sufficient to keep the cold out.

You could do this in the short term and then look for something for twelve months or more once over here.

Don't forget that there is a French version of Google (http://www.google.fr/) as well as Yahoo (http://fr.yahoo.com).

Another place to cast an eye over is the property pages in the French regional newspaper for the area you are keen on.

Hope this helps.

All the best

Craig
http://www.thisfrenchlife.com