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Renting to a friend


Bannon

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A good friend of ours has asked to rent our gite from us for a year - but we are worried about entering into a landlord/tenant relationship with him - a bit like mixing business with pleasure I suppose.

Has anybody had a good or bad experience of such an arrangement?

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I've been renting a house to a good friend for the last five years with no problems.  However, we both made it clear that, for the sake of our friendship, we should have a water-tight contract which detailed everything (who's responsible for what, landlord's obligations, tenant's obligations, etc.) and we wrote it up at the start of the tenancy and included it in the contract.  There were no disagreements at all there and it is good to know that if there are any problems then we can both refer to the contract that we jointly prepared and use that as the 'referee'./  But it hasn't come to that.

So good luck.  I think the secret of keeping your friend as a tenant, and vice-vers, is making sure that EVERYTHING is down in writing at the start!

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After reading the first page I was going to post exactly what Nectarine has written at the top of the second page! Have a contract drawn up if you really want to rent to a friend.

Another thing (for your friend) to bear in mind, is that if he isn't already, after 6 months he will be officially resident in France and will need to complete tax returns etc.  What about his health cover?  Has he thought all this through?

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I had thought of a contract but it did seem a bit formal so something else to think about and probably do now. There are lots of threads on this forum so that will be a big help.

As regards to being in the country over six months, he's actually been here for a couple of years and is now retired. The reason for the rental request is that his house here in France has to be sold for personal reasons and he needs a long let before 'downsizing' to smaller place. Give the market at the moment this could take some months and a long let with us would ease the pressure on him quite a bit.

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You can buy a standard contract form at a ¨Papeterie"

see here

I would suggest that it is an essential precaution.

My friend had been attacked in his flat and injured, so I gave him immediate access to the house, and helped him get himself together.

That doesn't mean that I didn't get him to sign a contract (which in any case he needed to produce later for other things)

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