Difficulties of finding a rental!

[Philouis]

When we sold our house, I went into a Immo's in Ruffec to get details of the rental properties advertised in their window. I explained my circumstances but found the assistant very evasive. After much beating around the bush, she explained that she would not let to Brits. It would appear that the Brits have a bad track record in France for doing a moonlight back to the UK without paying outstanding rental money.

Once out of France, they cannot be sued for any debts that they may have occured!  This was one isolated example, but is not practised by all. Give a dog a bad name etc.

[Panda]

There are plenty of Brits prepared to rent to other Brits, see the AngloInfo forums, they are full of them.  They will want the same assurances of income and ability to pay though if they have any sense because threads of people not paying are also rife.  There were actually warnngs about renting to Brits on this forum a while back

EDIT

As regards the french immo's if you are cash rich having just sold a house but have no income you would not meet the requirements of most agents in France regardless of nationality.  The french law prohibits them taking anything more than a standard deposit so you having money in the bank means nothing.  Perhaps in your case the interest would be taken into account with the normal restriction that the monthly rent must not surpass 30% of your income.  They also need a tax return and often a reference.

[Nell]

We rented for 12 months from a very good Immo in Gourdon (dept 46). We signed a 3 year lease, but were told from the outset that we could cancel with 3 months notice at any time. The house was rented from a French couple via a French Immo. No Problems at all.... They also contacted all utilities for us and set up all our direct debits etc.... They even got phone and internet connected for us, which was way past their responsibility. I could not have wished for a better sevice. When we gave notice there was no problems at all. everything was dealt with accordingly and we moved to our permenat abode, with regret that we would miss 2 great French friends from the Immo in Gourdon. I know I cannot mention the name here, but if anyone wants a recommendation of a good Immo in Gourdon that also cover the surrounding areas, I would be more than pleased to tell you the name via private email

[Panda]

I assume Nell though that you met the normal requirements of income or are you saying these were waived?

[Nell]

I showed UK bank statements and CA bank Statement. Yes we probably did meet the criteria. I remember a question of monthly income, I think that was why I showd the UK statement showing our monthly pension income being paid into a UK bank

[Panda]

I agree that there are some good immo's and nationality wouldn't come into it if you walked in any immo with the required details.  For a lot of Brits the problem is they have no track record in France and no established income stream, this makes them a high risk renter and one the immo's will avoid if they can and who would blame them?

EDIT

I see you have posted a Wanted Ad, Phil or Louise on AI, it reads really well, I'm sure you will get success with that!

[ams]

One of the problems that owners have with renting to non french nationals is that they assume rightly or wrongly that the tenant is really looking for a short term rental whilst they look for a house to build, renovate or purchase. The owners would like a tenant to stay at least 2 years. In addition to the above tenants over 60 years have additional rights and have the right to terminate a lease by giving 1 months notice rather than the standard 3, if they can provide medical reasons. As other posters have said, income streams for french landlords and agents are very imortant and they are reluctant to move outside the box and look at foreign income streams.

 

We have found that the average 3 year rental agreement lasts 11 months. Last February a number of changes were made in respect of renting legislation to help tenants, one of the new rules is to prohibit the asking for guarantees in respect of rent and damages. As a result of these changes the number of properties to rent has  been reduced.

 

I would suggest that you offer a bank guarantee to any prospective owner, on the assumption that you have the cash in the bank, then it essentially will cost you nothing other than a small administrative charge. The owner will have a bank guarantee and you will have a suitable property, the guarantee can then be terminated by giving the appropiate notice which would be 1 or 3 months. Whilst you have the rent guarantee in a blocking account you still retain the interest, thus you will have no financial loss.

 

ams

 

 

[chessfou]

There are a few pitfalls that can apply to the guarantee:

1. Can your bank provide one? Ours (Caisse d'Epargne) could not  (not would not, could not), so we had, hurriedly, to set up an additional (more expensive) account with Crédit Agricole Britline (they're not the only bank that can do this but they were the only ones who ould undertake to do so late on a Friday afternoon);

2. It was a real pain to put £10k into an account that paid nothing (well, a pittance but charges were deducted from the pittance, so we were lending the bank money essentially for free);

3. The Immo will probably ask for a ridiculous length of time for the guarantee (as did ours) but we negotiated them down to a year (I forget whether they wanted 2 or 3 years - £20 or £30k of guarantee, not deposit, which would be illegal).

Nonetheless, we got what we wanted from the deal (our home) but it was hard work to convince the Immo that, unlike their previous UK clients, we were not going to just hand in the keys (if they were lucky) and disappear back to Blighty or Spain or Cyprus or wherever.

[Logan]

There is a very good web site for long term letting in France www.rentaplaceinfrance.com The properties are mostly brit owned and the rents seem very reasonable. Failing that most local immos will have rental properties on their books. In the current market, owners are holding on to properties rather than trying to sell. Renting is a good second option. The downsides are difficult however when the tenant does not pay. Doing a 'moonlight' is probably the best thing that can happen from an owners point of view when a tenancy goes bad. Getting them out is difficult and expensive especially during the winter months.

[rockstitch]

Hi Nell, We are moving to France in April 09 and wish to rent long term in dept 24 or 46 we would ideally like to be near my brother who lives near Domme. Can you email me with the rental company that you rented from as I have been to a few in Gourdon but could not find one that would do rentals.

We would like to find an unfurnished house if possible but furnished would do to start with.

                                        Thanks Susan (rockstitch)

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[rosienoo]

Hi, just saw your post!!  bit late I know but I'm new to the site.

That's a laugh, we had 2 French non-paying tenants, one of which we had to evict and took us 2 years and lots of money and the other did a moonlight flit!!  Apparently it's the French that have a bad name from what we can make out as long term tenants (although I guess they are around in every walk of life).  Anyway, they weren't our choice, we unfortunately inherited them from the dodgey bloke who sold us our house :-) lovely house mind.  We hope our choice in people is better :-)

Hope you found somewhere anyway, we are going to look in to offering long terms lets in our property this coming year...

[Nell]

Rockstitch - I have sent you a private email. Sorry for the delay - I missed this posting, only spotted it when Rosienoo posted yesterday

Cheers