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Renting a House


JohnBoyW
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My wife and I plan to move to France next year(2012). We plan to rent a house in our chosen area and use this as a base from which we can look for a property to buy as our permanent home. My question is this - it seems to be the case that in order to rent a property we will require, among other things, a guarantor for our rental payments - Who or what constitutes an acceptable guarantor - can we use a relative who does not reside in France or does the guarantor need to be resident/based in France?
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When my daughter needed to rent a flat in Nantes she required a guarantor, at the time I was not in a position to be one as I was unemployed. My sister offered to be guarantor, whilst she has a house here and a french bank account she was refused as she is not a french resident.

If you intend to come over after the holiday season you may be able to rent a gite on a fairly loose basis from an english person wanting a little extra winter income, just depends how long you think you might want to let. 

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I presume you are looking for a furnished rental (leaving your furniture in storage until you make the final move?) and need something for a few months while you look around. As I have noted in the post below on renting pitfalls, furnished rentals are normally for one year but particularly in seasonal resort areas many studios and apartments are let for shorter periods, as are gites etc as suggested. Even with a one year rental agreement, the tenant can leave earlier, giving adequate notice. A guarantee may not be necessary but it can be arranged through a bank providing a 'caution bancaire'. Whatever you do, set up your local French bank account as soon as possible, even before you buy, as without it life becomes extremely frustrating. It takes a few weeks but once you buy your property if you want to install a phone, pay the first electricity bill etc and set up standing orders for these, the first question you will asked will be your French bank details!

Hope this helps, good luck - P-D de R.

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Thank you for this very helpful response. We were in fact hoping to rent unfurnished so that we could move all of our belongings with us as the cost of storage is likely to be prohibitive and eat into our capital. We fully intend to set up a French bank account some while before we move especially as we have several holidays a year in France and it woul;d be useful for that alone.
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Thank you. Our move will depend on when we sell our house here in the uk. We are planning to put it on the market around May next year. Depending on when we actually exchange contracts it may be that we will have to remain in the UK for a few months before renting an out of season gite - which does quite appeal. So many ifs and buts!!
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