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Long term let required.


SteveWinn
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We are looking to rent a house or apartment in France as soon as possible.

Requirements

- 2 bedrooms

- Self-contained

- Ideally furnished

- Parking

- Happy for dog

- Near-ish a school

Reasons

We are looking to move to France permanently. We will buy but we don’t have time before the Brexit deadline. So, we are looking for a house or apartment to rent while we find and buy a house (about 6 months – 1 year).

Work

We are planning to start a micro-enterprise to get in the French system and exercise our treaty rights before Brexit. You would need to be happy to give us a rental contract, and we would need our own EDF agreements etc to start this business at the property. The business is online only (I am a web developer) so no visitors / noise or fuss. Essentially this would be out primary residence until we buy

Who

We are a couple (38 & 37) with a child (7)

Where

We are flexible on location

Rent

Under 1,500 euros a month

Income

We run a business in the UK which is managed by our staff. We have an income that will continue in France.
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Thanks. We've spend a lot of time visiting flats and have submitted applications for two now only to be pipped at the post in favour of French people. Hence turning to the expat community. We even offered to pay all the rent up front (as we didn't have a french person to guarantee) but still missed the apartment we really wanted.

Unfurnished is totally fine.
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This might help .. or it might lead to smthg helpful ..

https://garantme.fr/en

Disclaimer : I picked the site up elsewhere and have no affiliation to it.

Edit : When OH and I were looking for a rental in France, having none of the legal requirements necessary to rent here, we eventually found a private non-furnished rental. The proprietor took us on face value, but insisted we stayed at least a year. No problem for us.

If you don't have the necessary background to provide all the required detail for a legal contract then you need to think outside the box.
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@ Steve

What area are you looking at ?

You have a lot of things to consider.

1) Finding a flat through a French agency is going to be a bureaucratic nightmare because quite simply you don't have the right paperwork. Even then, no one is going to accept you with Brexit.

2) Going to the expat community is a good idea except that expats tend to have houses in rural areas where quite frankly you do not want to bring a young child.

3) You cannot pay all you rent in one go. That is illegal.

4) You need to choose the school first and then the accommodation. That is so important. Where you live dictates which school they go to and good schools are few and far between.

5) If you send your child to a catholic private school then you are not tied to a particular location.

6) Schooling is generally though a horrible nightmare in France even for French parents. It is my biggest problem in France. School, education, careers......it drives me mad. A lot of kids in school are quite problematic. Some are not very nice. With social media and all that, it is a full time job being a parent. With Brexit, they could get picked on.

7) Is your French strong enough to support them ? Your child is only 4 years away from college. You don't want them to repeat years.

8) The new school term starts tomorrow. You are too late for your child to stand half a chance of completing this year.

9) Setting up a ME to get into the system ? With Brexit looming, I don't think you have the time.

10) Your income from the UK is going to be taxed heavily.

11) Is moving to France worth it ? What does France really offer you ?

If you do go for it, you need to be in a city/outskirts of a city. Don't go rural with a child.
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From personal experience while the majority of the above is undoubtbly correct as far as i can judge it ignores the work arrounds.
EG paying 1 years rent upfront is illegal - true ( unfurnished yes, furnished not sure), I got round that one by depositing a number of months rent in an interest bearing account and the bank guarranteeing an equivalent months rent to the owner. there was a cost to the guarrantee yes.The reason owners ask for the docs they do is because they insure for non payment. And as we all know insurers ask for everything including inside leg measurements before refusing payment because you did not tell them your mothers name was Mary. As it happened in my case the owner preferred the guarrantee to the insurance there is a surprise.
Learning talk to the owner direct not the agent.
JFB

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 The Haute Savoie is an expensive part of France with more than it's fair share of crappy bits too. If it is 'cheaper' then ask yourself 'why'.

And what are you expecting of France??? What makes you think it will be 'better'? It is different I give you that, but there is the good, bad and ugly in France and paperwork can be a right nightmare, as if it is not bad enough in the UK now. I am still having problems with some french paperwork and I am an old hand at it.

I was very sorry to hear ALBF's comments about schooling. Personally I hate it and wish that I had realised before my kids got to secondary school, but too late now and we are still living with the consequences.

In fairness, if your child conforms and does well in the system, it works and works well, but with neither of those things and it apparently is still the same, from what ALBF said, it is a different kettle of fish.

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I'm not so naive to think that everything is amazing just because we have had some good holidays there, and I imagine that some things (that we don't yet know) we won't like.

For example, my wife is not keen on having some documents in her maiden name as she does not consider that her name anymore.

We have always planned to try a few years in france to see if we really do like it, so Brexit is only bringing forward existing plans rather than creating new ones.
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@ Idun....we don't have any problems ourselves so far as the kids are doing really well at school...but of course they are French....and a little bit English. But is is really hard work for Mum...I don't get involved. It needs to be managed.

I don't like French schooling one bit. Whether it is Paris, rural or where we live now. The problems are always the same. You would not believe (well I guess you would) how many kids are from broken families.

@ Steve

Are you looking more towards Annecy or more towards the mountains/ski resorts like Charmonix ?

Or somewhere in between ?
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@alittlebitfrench

In actual fact, we are are looking to buy in Evian, which is something were always planning after finishing the contract we have now (1-2 years).

Brexit means we don't have time to wait (or to buy) potentially so this is why we are looking for somewhere to rent, as close to Evian as we can but basically we are not fussy about where in France as we could move anywhere and then buy where we like in 6 months.
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There is someone on this forum who lives in Evian.

I can't remember their name....maybe someone else can help in that respect so you could PM them.

I don't think you can go wrong with Evian. Very expensive mind you. I would move there tomorrow.

Have you tried Le Bon Coin ?

Plenty to rent..

https://www.leboncoin.fr/recherche/?category=10&locations=Evian-les-Bains_74500&zlat=46.40154&zlng=6.58724&zdefradius=2586

If you click on 'Particuliers' (just above the first advertisement) they will be the ones advertised not through an agency...i.e direct with the owner.

Like this..

https://www.leboncoin.fr/recherche/?category=10&locations=Evian-les-Bains_74500&zlat=46.40154&zlng=6.58724&zdefradius=2586&owner_type=pro

You would have more chance with them. Offer them slightly more rent for 6 months ?

I don't think will have a chance with an agency to be honest.

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I am afraid that the name on her birth certificate is her name and that is that in France. So IF Miss Smith marries Mr Jones, she would on some forms, state, Smith epouse Jones.

My carte de sejour states my name is my maiden name and then nom marital, and I signed it in my married name as I did with all things. Also banques will state Monsieur OU Madame followed by the marital name, if you so wish.

AND there is a thing, if you have a joint account, don't tell the banque to say Monsieur et Madame, you would both have to sign everything. Monsieur OU Madame means that either of you can sign.

Still don't understand such moves, but I never have, so how you think life will be 'better' in France???

And yes I moved to France many years ago and lived there for a very very long time and we moved back to the UK, as planned upon retirement. We had only moved for a bit of an adventure and that was it, and it certainly was not 'better' than our lives in England prior to the move, just  different, very different.

Yes ALBF, as the only brits in the village, I would see all sorts of problems with all the children and certainly during primary school I was very involved with the school and was chair of our FCPE.

Our problems with our youngest intensified to a real nightmare when college started although primary had not been as I had expected either, very disappointing from my point of view, but manageable.

College wasn't an easy  for our eldest either, where the lovely lovely profs contented themselves in wearing down his self esteem and left him at 15, feeling completely useless and worthless.

The youngest, wouldn't know where to start and the nightmare continues to be honest and he is now in his mid thirties. [:(][:@]

I was wondering if the mentality of the profs has changed or are their petits chouchous still that top 10% who get 18's and 19's out of 20 all the time? And the rest are looked down upon, and for those in the bottom 20% were not worth their time. I would love you tell me that there are great improvements, I really would.

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As said the Evian area is lovely but expensive. Your wife is really going to have to come to terms with the name issue as it is only one of the things that a lot of British immigrants find to be an unacceptable difference to what they call normal. When moving to another country you can’t just cherry pick the customs and ways that you like, you need to compromise and adapt. Over the years I’ve seen too many people move to their dream home in France then try to change as much as possible to make it like the place they have left. When in Rome...
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