small hotel or chambre d'hotes??

[Jontefonte]

Ok, I'm confused, and I hope someobody can makes things a bit clearer.

We are planning to open a 7 bedroom "small hotel" in the Charante Maritime (we are in the process of buying a house at the moment) but not sure how to officially describe it?

Will 7 bedrooms mean that it is too big to be a Chambre D'hotes? Is there a limit on how many bedrooms and services a Chambre D'Hotes can offer? We want to be able to offer meals - to residents only - from a limited menu offer two or three choices, as well as a choice of wines and aperitifs. Does this take us beyond the scope of a CDH? And who controls what CDH can offer in France?

Also, if we are too big to be a Chambre D'Hotes - then can we describe our enterprise as a hotel? What regulations do we have to conform to?

And Lastly, what permissions do we need to get and from whom, to allow us to operate a hotel from the house that are buying (it will also be our home). Do we need to get a Permis de Construire as we are changing usage (partly) from residential to business/residential?

Any information will be greatly appreciated! Has anyone else got any experience of opening a simialr size hotel business in France?

[Cassis]

Over 6 rooms then you're a hotel and in for all sorts of extra fire regs, safety regs  etc.  that don't apply to B&B.   I don't know the details, however I think you need professional legal advice.

Phil

[zeb]

Yes, and if you have set your heart on running it as a business, make sure you have the necessary permissions before signing for the property.

Pop in and talk to your Maire. He/she may well be very keen for the extra tourist trade, and will give you details of obtaining the necessary licences (drinks/food), and any start up grants/aid for new businesses available in your area. It's always best to have the Mairie on side, as, if you fall foul of him at the beginning, things could be difficult ever after.

Good luck.

[Quillan]

As already said you will be over the top with 7 bedrooms for a Chambres D’Hotes. You might consider doing something with the 7^th room like if it sits between two bedrooms splitting it and using it for two bathrooms, one for each room. You could knock two rooms in to one to make a family room. If you are considering registering with Gite de France or Clévacances then your grading will be effected by the size of the bedrooms. There is some information on rooms sizes in this thread http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/632229/ShowPost.aspx  By joining one of these organisations you may also get some money for any work needed if grants are being offered in your area.

To serve even a cup of coffee with breakfast you need a licence. The licence we have allows us to serve alcohol with meals only (must be three proper course i.e. more than a sandwich plus crisps and an ice-cream) we can either include the price of the drinks in the meal or sell them separately but with the meal. The licence is called a Grande Licence Restaurant and it cost us nothing. This is a ‘for life’ licence so you don’t need to get it renewed. As I said we paid nothing for ours but others have paid a small fee (possibly an administrative fee) so it depends where you live it would seem. You get this licence from your local Douanes.

I would suggest you see the local taxman and get registered. He should put you on the Micro Bic system which is very advantageous.  Basically you can earn up to around 78,000 Euros per year and you are given about 72% tax relief for your materials and outgoings. Book keeping is very simple for this system, you need to keep a copy of all your invoices, add them up at the end of the year and the taxman will do the rest. You don’t have to keep any other books and none of your receipts for items bought under this system. I have a habit of keeping all receipts anyway, I just throw them in a big box as I go, just to be on the safe side but as I said the taxman is not interested in them.

As to registering with the Chambre of Commerce it’s a bit confusing because of recent events. There’s a very good post about this further down.

http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/663077/ShowPost.aspx

You also have to be aware that what a person says happens to them may not happen to you when visiting officials here in France. Each region seems to interpret the laws as they see fit and quite often the same question will be answered differently depending on which area you live. Actually asking two people in the same office here can get different answers.

You will need to talk to your insurance company because they need to know you are using your house as a CDH. In some areas GDF have got together with insurance agents and done deals for their members. They haven’t done this down here but then it only cost us an extra 25€ per year. This includes insurance against food poisoning.

We changed our house round quite a bit inside to make all the rooms en-suite, no paperwork was needed according to our DDE because we lived in the house as well.

We read a book on running a B&B in France. It was not very good for us because of this thing about different regions doing different things and many things did not apply or were different for us. We also listened to some people where we lived who gave us some bad information. At the end of the day and because our language skills were not very good we hired and interpreter and visited the taxman, Chambres of Commerce and the Duane all on the same day. They were all very helpful, the interpreter was brilliant and by doing this we must have saved a fortune. Paying for that interpreter was the best thing I ever did.

Hope this helps and good luck.

[Cassis]

Quillan's talking a lot of sense.  NB GdF won't take you if you have 7 rooms - maximum is six.

Phil

[Quillan]

The other thing which came to mind today follows a conversation I had with some guests that arrived last night. I always ask 'why us' when we get drive past trade. They said they thought our signs were very good and that’s what attracted them. We have had this comment many times before and perhaps it's because we have had them professionally made and yet they are quite basic.

A lot of the French people seem to have pictures and things which are quite ‘fussy’. We just went for a cream background, our logo in our corporate font and colour (i.e. we use the same font and colour for our name on everything), we are a Chambres D’Hôtes, we are full en-suit and how far we are plus our ratings and a car park sign. We also have normal road signs with our name on pointing at each road junction. All our signs are in French first with English under in brackets. It keeps the French happy this way.

We paid 4,000 Euro’s for all this (seven signs in total) four years ago. We pay the Pub company 100 Euro’s a year to maintain them which means any characters get damaged they are replaced and they get washed and polished 4 times a year and always look like new.

Do remember all signs must be 2M (it might now be 3) from the edge of any highway and you need permission from the DDE unless you put them on private property. If you don’t see the DDE they will remove them which is what happened to me the first time. It’s your responsibility to get permission not the guy making and erecting the signs. It costs nothing to get permission, well it didn’t me. You can attach (if you have permission) your signs to existing posts owned by the DDE near the road. The reason for the 2/3M and getting permission is something to do with insurance although I didn’t really understand at the time.

[Cassis]

I know we're getting a bit off-subject now, but do you need DDE permission if it's a departmental road but within the confines of a village, Quillan?  Unless I misunderstood him, I thought our mayor said he could provide the necessary permission on the D road through our village provided we put the signs within the boundary of the village name signs.  Outside that and within the commune it required both his and the DDE permission.

We decided to put up our signs at a couple of strategic junctions outside the village but inside the commune so we applied for permission from the DDE back in October last year.  Still waiting - Sophie at the Mairie says it's normal!

Apparently it's impossible to get permission on National roads and so it's best to negotiate with a landowner.  Do you know anything about that?

You may want to shift this post outside this thread!!

Phil

[Quillan]

Actually that’s why they removed my signs when they were first put up. I approached the mayor and he said I could put them here, here and there inside the village on the D117. Three days latter they disappeared. A friend phoned the DDE who said they had removed them and I could go and collect them. I went to see the mayor who arranged a meeting 'on site' with the DDE. They told him he may be the mayor but they owned the road. Well the mayor went mad, they spoke too fast and I couldn't keep up but I can see the 'do you want a smack in the mouth or what' look a mile away. I left them to it and had to go fill in a form at the DDE a couple of days later and then I put my signs back. So I guess the mayor doesn't really matter, you tell him as a matter of courtesy but it's the DDE who are the decision makers at the end of the day.

[Cassis]

An interesting life, isn't it?  Do you mean you got permission immediately just by filling in the form at the DDE, or did it have to go through some vetting procedure?  It does seem to be taking ours an inordinate amount of time, but whenever I ask the Mairie they don't seem to think so and I was putting it down to my Anglo-Saxon mentality expecting too rapid a response from officialdom.  Maybe I shouldn't have let the mayor's office deal with it and I should have gone to the DDE myself.

Phil

[Quillan]

Yep, while I waited. I quick example. A friend is building a house, he made a change (to his roof) and completed the form for the change and gave it to the mayors office. Went home to the UK for six months to work and returned. No letter from the DDE, he checked with the mayor’s office and they had forgotten to post it on. He took it himself to the DDE in the afternoon and collected his change permission the following morning. Ok I don't know the correct name of the form for changes but I am sure you get the drift. I now write a letter to the mayor saying what I want to do and ask if it's OK. If he says yes I deal with it myself and 'walk' the forms round. It took us one day to register a car for a friend in France by walking the forms whilst others have waited six weeks in the same village for the mayor to sort it out. I don't think the mayors are quite the gods we are led to believe at times after all they are elected so they can get un-elected. Perhaps it is different in bigger villages and towns.

[Cassis]

I don't think it's the mayor's office's fault in our case as I've been shown the forms and reminder letters that they have sent to the dept.  But I know what you mean! 

On a related subject I've been to a few council meetings here and although all of the councillors seem sensible and educated folk with responsible jobs when you met them individually, once they are in a meeting all sense of purpose seems to vanish.  Everyone wants to put in their two penn'orth on every matter that comes up, tangents are the norm.  Meetings drift this way and that, side arguments break out in the ranks, I'm frankly amazed that anything ever gets done!  As for when we plan for village events like the Comice, the Xmas decorations, the Carnival, the upcoming street theatre weekend - chaos, absolute chaos, with no apparent overbearing plan at all.  And yet it all works out eventually.  We've been involved on all of these and I still don't see how it all comes together in the end.  Extraordinary.

Phil