B&B or Hotel? What's in a name?

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

[quote]I don't know that it's so much that people won't stay at places that only offer a single fixed menu but that if they are staying there they won't eat there (unless, of course, the menu happens to corr...[/quote]

Hi Arnold,

Sorry, but that's not what I've read here. Several people have said they'd not stay if they didn't have a choice of meals. I believe that's not what YOU feel. But can I ask you a question. If we lived just a few miles apart, and I asked you over for dinner, would you refuse to eat, if you didn't have a choice of menus? And, as I've said several times, that's the guiding principle of Table d'hôte. You SHARE the meal of the family. Now OK, we all know perfectly well that when we don't have clients, we don't have a five course meal, but the regulations forbid a choice and so at the very least WE who run CdH MUST understand the rules and the reasons for them, and we should make it our responsibility to explain to and educate our clients as to what we are and what we aren't.

You then say

I'd say that there's a long way to go before the restaurants would be that bothered.

Nope, sorry, that's simply not true. Several hotel/restaurant associations are lobbying very hard to oblige CdHs to be subject to exactly the same rules and taxes as they are. You should know, living here in France that the first reflex of the French when presented with competition, is to try to close it down. Dirty tricks and all. The idea of competing by doing better is not their first reaction, nor even their tenth!

One thing that should worry them (but doesn't appear to) is that CdH's seem much more flexible most notably in offering vegetarian options if t'other thread is anything to go by.

I certainly believe that restaurants here in France ought to be much more aware of the needs of vegetarians and vegans. But equally, I believe that's exactly the sort of difference that SHOULD exist between us. They're professionals, we're ordinary people who share our evening meal with our guests.

In fact this is a cultural difference between the French and the rest of the world. There are as yet very few vegetarian French as compared with elsewhere, and it is almost regarded as an affront by many. I belong to french language discussion forums and I've seen many VERY hostile responses to people asking for vegetarian recipes.

However, the fact that the British are more tolerant (or word it how you wish) of vegetarians doesn't justify us giving different menus as CdHs. Hotels and restaurants can and should, IMO. I think that there may well be a potential niche market here. I also think there's room for  "vegetarian friendly" CdHs where clients can ask for a vegetarian meal, which would then become THE meal for that evening. Later clients could then be offered the choice of joining the others for that one meal, or eating elsewhere. D'you see what I mean here?

We would have severe problems in doing a single sitting as we get a lot of guests straight off the plane which arrives at 8pm getting them to us around 9pm. By which time, the inflexibility of the restaurants kicks in and they either eat with us or not at all. Ironically, for those guests, we do operate a more typical CdH type menu.

Arnold - you ARE running an hotel. Everything you've said about yur size, your licence, your off sales, your meal policies demonstrate it. The fact that your hotelier restaurant colleagues are inflexible is one of your competitive edges, but you're not running a CdH. Just be sure that you're registered with the CCI, and keep proper books as an Hotel. Your _attitudes_ may have more in common with CdH, and that too can be a competitive edge vis-a-vis your colleagues. BUT you're not running a CdH. Believe me, you fulfil none of the essential lim

[mascamps.com]

I see where you're coming from Ian re the TdH essentially being "eating with friends" and perhaps that's the best way to look at. My problem is that I'm not really a "fixed menu person" when I eat.

You are right about our flexibility being to our advantage. The French family that stayed with us for réveillon were quite amazed at how flexible we were and stated quite bluntly that no French restaurant would have considered changing even one full stop on their menu for them.

Indeed, we have always considered this place as a hotel. Once you walk in the door, it's quite obvious that you're not talking CdH in terms of the layout etc. although we do retain a CdH feeling about it in many ways.

We're in the process of reregistering as a hotel/restaurant which runs "events" (we're launching a number of tours very shortly) which seems to be a lot closer to what we're about than the present CdH/TdH registration (which a duff accountant assured us was all that we could possibly be registered with).

 

Arnold

 

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi again Arnold,

You said:-

I see where you're coming from Ian re the TdH essentially being "eating with friends" and perhaps that's the best way to look at. My problem is that I'm not really a "fixed menu person" when I eat.

I'm glad to have found a way of decribing what TdH is all about that you can relate to. It's quite different in some ways to B&B in the UK, or to small family run "pensions in other countries. But the Hotel/restaurant lobby here is very powerful, and therefore we have to be able to justify our differences. 

You are right about our flexibility being to our advantage. The French family that stayed with us for réveillon were quite amazed at how flexible we were and stated quite bluntly that no French restaurant would have considered changing even one full stop on their menu for them.

I think much depends on who they are and who the restaurant is. I know that in most places around here, I've probably been there enough times for them to be happy to do a swap here or there. Some of the places to which I send clients most often will not turn a hair at subbing me in one of my favourite dishes from their top menu, even if I'm having a cheaper one. But that's a bit different, I accept.

Indeed, we have always considered this place as a hotel. Once you walk in the door, it's quite obvious that you're not talking CdH in terms of the layout etc. although we do retain a CdH feeling about it in many ways.

Ah!!! I misunderstood badly, My apologies. I am convinced that within the spread of small family run hotels, there's room for a very wide variety of styles and services and I would very probably prefer to stay with you than with some of the more distant minded of my colleagues - even if in principle I tend to stay in CdHs, when I'm travelling in France.

We're in the process of reregistering as a hotel/restaurant

The very best of luck with it. And I'm sure you're right to do so.

which a duff accountant assured us was all that we could possibly be registered with.

Don't you love 'em.

Keep us informed of how you get on.

[mascamps.com]

One thing that sort-of bothered us at the start was that whilst you see brit-owned gites everywhere (well, seems like on the net) and quite a substantial number of brit-owned B&Bs, when we started we hadn't seen any small brit-owned hotels anywhere in France. Even now, we've only managed to track down three others. That seems like an incredibly small number given that they are around the same size (and often smaller) as large B&B/gite complexes which are themselves relatively common (ie it's not a financial thing).

I can't believe that there are only us four nutters running little hotels but it gets worse because the three that I came across were all taken over in the last two years or so.

Have any of you seen others in the auberge/hotel category?

 

Arnold

 

[Miki]

[quote]One thing that sort-of bothered us at the start was that whilst you see brit-owned gites everywhere (well, seems like on the net) and quite a substantial number of brit-owned B&Bs, when we started...[/quote]

Arnold,

I was under the impression taht you bought your place as an hotel, as it in no way resembles a CDH to a few of us on here. I would say you were terribly guided by someone.

To change to a hotel status now, will mean new regulations and inspections and believe me, we have had friends go through all that and I would envy no one all that. We had one friend where all went quite well but two others had to change their kitchens completely (3 seperate inspections) carpets were inspected for fire retardency and NF, fire alarms, smoke alarms and even fire escapes were insisted on as the hotel went over one floor.

It was a very difficult time for one of them, the other simply carried out their requirements and another, buying in a small commune had hardly any problems but in my opinion, it might well pay you to see if you can get someone to inspect you first and, let you know what you will be expected to do to your place before you take the first steps to changing status and in to the possible abyss !!!

Bon courage Arnold.....

[mascamps.com]

It's more complicated than that.... it was sold as a CdH, albeit one with 12 rooms which, as you know, is well outside the CdH room limit for a start not to mention assorted non-CdH aspects like having a restaurant and indeed the license 3. As I think I've mentioned before, this is one of a number of places that I've seen being sold as a CdH with lots more than 6 rooms. The extreme that I noticed a year or two ago was one place that had 28 rooms. Much as I feel that our place retains a CdH feel about it going by guest comments, I can't think of a place with 28 rooms as anything other than a hotel.

It was sold as a CdH and run as a CdH under the previous owner and is accepted as such by the tourist office. I suspect that they've ignored the room count and just accepted that when the previous owner just did breakfasts then it was a CdH.

However, prior to his ownership, it was run for several generations as a 2 star hotel/restaurant. In fact, it was only run as a "CdH" for about three or possibly four years. From what we can tell, the guy I bought it off didn't actually do anything to change it to a CdH and it appears to be still officially listed as a hotel.

We're also in a small commune and are in fact the principal accommodation there which is why I don't think that they wanted to tell Francois that he couldn't run a 12 room CdH and I suspect (well, hope) that the same will apply to ourselves when we reregister. Incidently, the "stars inspection" appears to be totally different from reregistering as a hotel and another auberge near Carcassonne didn't have any inspections when it was taken over by an English family; they don't have fire escapes or even exit signs.

In practical terms, we don't really have an option if we want to stay legal. We have the option, if things get too awkward, of reconfiguring the building as a 6 room CdH plus two gites but we've not had much luck in renting out the existing gite so we'd prefer not to go down that route.

Incidently, do any of you know what the tax advantages are for a CdH vs a hotel? I know there's the inspection hassle (but possibly only for the stars) but there doesn't seem to be any tax difference from what I've seen.

 

 

Arnold

 

[Miki]

I am fascinated by this.

You say it was sold to you as a CDH, so that just proves that the notaires couldn't give a monkeys. Once again, it is probably not in their realm to tell anyone that more than 6 bedrooms means one simply cannot be a CDH. There it was, a class 3 licence, a resto and 12 rooms and the Notaire turns a blind eye (legally as well perhaps but having known one or two "iffy" ones, well who knows !)and sells it as a CDH !! Now you say you have seen a 28 bedroom CDH.

In theory, I guess you can call your place whatever you want. What the authorities are more concerned about, is how you are inscrired at the C de Com. For many years, a CDH was simply seen as a part time occupation which was lumped on to the main income. In that way, a CDH was not obliged to sign on at the C de Com. So naturally, in the order of things, you would be called a CDH.

Now, as someone with more than 6 rooms and when you sign on at the C de Com, thereby paying all the obligatory cotisations, then I don't suppose it matters what you call yourself BUT the legality of your place depends on your inspections. e.g It is no good calling yourself a CDH to avoid inspections. you are legally obliged to be inspected by the authorities, if you are anything more than a CDH.

Sorry but in now way could it have run under the CDH banner before you bought it. Either it was illegally run and he pretended he only used 6 rooms or he was telling more than a few porkies !

This is not a commune thing, it is a nationwide regulation. It was made to safe guard the hotel industry. I think a few enquiries in to all this would throw some better light on it all. It certainly does not smell right.

Are you saying you are running it as a CDH ? In which case, are you with at the C de Com or not ? Gaining stars has nothing to do with governemnet inspections, the inspectors to sort out your rating will have marks out of 10 or so for every article that relates to a star and at the end, it is all added up and you will end up with a rating.

What did you mean by "staying legal" ?

There are not tax advantages as such but with CDH you have an abattement of 72% or so against all expenses (in other words you cannot claim for works done or any expenses in your business other than through the alowance) Whereas, if one is registered for TVA etc, you can claim back all the TVA paid out and also all works carried out to your business. This is just a brief resume on the differences and the tax isue is only one part of it all.

You may still be able to claim micro bic regime status at the hotel des impots, providing your figures stay within a certain limit (sorry, you will have to look it up as I have forgotten the figure at the moment) but you will have to forego the TVA remboursements etc to be able to have the tax allownance (micro bic)previously mentioned.

There are two different types of abattements, one for Prestations and one for Sales, you will need to get guidance on those if you chose the micro bic regime. The tax office will advise you as to what you must use for your business.

[mascamps.com]

It was certainly listed and sold as a CdH. I have seen in FPN and elsewhere places listed as a CdH with up to 28 rooms although about a dozen is the more common maximum of those that I’ve seen.

 

The license 3 is from its time as a hotel/restaurant up to two owners ago. As you know from your own place, having such a thing isn’t in conflict with having a “proper” CdH although as in your case and mine such a license isn’t something that you’d be applying for with a brand new CdH but rather something that you’d have a result of the history of a property.

 

The CdC don’t know how many rooms you have, so take a CdH registration on face value. Whilst you and others (including me!) have referred to a maximum number of 5 or perhaps 6 rooms we’ve all been referring to GdF or CleV rules and I’ve yet to come across a specific law which says you can’t run a 28 room CdH although my own feeling is that at that size it wouldn’t feel like a CdH to the guests.

 

Registering as a hotel doesn’t bring on the inspectors. What does that appears to be the application for the stars/epis. We have friends who bought a similar place as a hotel and who also haven’t had any inspections but then their place doesn’t have any stars. To be honest we were expecting inspections regardless of how we’re registered but, so far, the only one that we’ve had is for our water supply. The report on that refers to us as “Hotel Auberge Mas Camps”.

 

My feeling is that the previous owner very rarely, if ever, ran with more than six rooms occupied simultaneously. In practice, we have only once had more than six rooms in use once although we would expect that to happen more frequently as we approach the summer this year. So, he may have been legit in running with only 6 rooms plus the gite. That, of course, leaves the question of the 28 room CdH: I can’t imagine that they’d only be using 6 rooms on a regular basis.

 

We are presently registered as a CdH. However, we are in the process of reregistering as a hotel. At the same time we are researching what needs to be done to reacquire the 2 stars that the place originally had (if indeed it has lost them: the previous owner doesn’t appear to have actively done anything to convert the place to a CdH other than saying that the restaurant was only doing breakfast). At present, from my reading of the documentation which I have (which isn’t complete), we seem to have all the one and two star things covered, many of the three star things and some four and five star things.

>What did you mean by "staying legal" ? (I must find out how to do the quote here!)

We just want to be registered as we’re supposed to be which, I think, means as a hotel/restaurant.

 

Tax-wise, it doesn’t appear to make any difference to us then. We will be doing proper profit & loss type accounting because the micro bic doesn’t seem appropriate for a place of our size. We presently aren’t registered for TVA but may need to do so in due course; at the moment it just looks like a complication that we don’t need. Micro bic is up to about 26.000€; TVA is 75.000€ or so although, as in the UK, you can register below that level if you want to.

 

Even the sale of a private home allowance that a CdH would get is still available to us because the relative size of our house vs the hotel accommodation is similar to that of a CdH private rooms vs guest rooms.

 

 

 

 

Arnold

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi Arnold,

I've just seen you comments to Miki.

In them you said:-

have referred to a maximum number of 5 or perhaps 6 rooms we’ve all been referring to GdF or CleV rules and I’ve yet to come across a specific law which says you can’t run a 28 room CdH although my own feeling is that at that size it wouldn’t feel like a CdH to the guests.

Well my quote was from a document from the Ministry of Tourism. I'm afraid that I don't know the actual number and reference of the article of law that covers the matter, but I think you'll find that it exists and that it has also had its decret d'application.

 

It's entirely possible that in your area, the authorities either have chosen not to apply the legislation, or haven't bothered to find out what it is. But believe me, GdF woud be happy to register bigger CdH if it were legal, you know.

 

Like Miki, I do wish you all the best with your changeover. If you can persuade the Maire to become your fervant ally - he should be more than happy to do so in view of the taxes professionnelles that he stands to get - then that may well help with administrative hassles.

 

 

[mascamps.com]

Fair enough Ian, I hadn't realised that we'd had a proper law quoted along the way. I wonder then how it's possible to sell a 28 room CdH? As I say, we are just outside the limit (we count the gite in our room count), could move inside the limit by converting a couple of rooms into a second gite (that's how our existing gite was created) and largely have run inside the limit anyway. However, for a 28 room place you clearly would be well outside what any of us would recognise as a CdH regardless of things like the absolute room limit and so on.

They may well have applied the legislation here. As I say, I don't think that the previous owner would have used more than 6 rooms plus the gite simultaneously or if he did, it was far from a frequent use and most likely in his first year of operation (when he may, of course, have been running as a registered hotel/restaurant). Our problem is that we fully expect to be running more than 6 rooms (7 if you count the gite) on a regular basis so I don't think that the CdH registration is really appropriate. However, we want to get a good summer behind us before we go irreversibly down the hotel road as we could currently move to a 6 room/2 gite configuration with little difficulty if that looked like it would be more appropriate.

He already gets the taxe professionnel from us. To date, I've yet to see any difference that would apply to us running the place under the hotel/restaurant banner rather than under the CdH banner. There doesn't appear to be any difference in respect of the income taxes, the business taxes or the inspections.

 

Arnold

 

[BJSLIV]

I think it is unlikely that the inspections for a CdH would be as demanding as those imposed on a hotel, though I have no evidence to offer.

On a practical note given that CdH are supposed to serve the food at one table, it would need to be one hell of a big table to seat up  to 56 people at one go!

Which all goes to prove that advertsplaced  in UK publications, however reputable,  should not be assumed to be fully compliant with French law.

 

[mascamps.com]

I suspect that it's more of a difference in level than anything else. Obviously if you're looking at a 100 room hotel, there are clearly going to be significant differences in the kind of things that you're looking for vs a 1 room CdH but when you compare a 10 room hotel vs a 6 room CdH I don't think there'd be nearly so much of a difference.

I have problems in my own mind with a large CdH and one table too. In principle, you'd be looking at a single table with 15 guests and maybe 5 of the owners family. That's one really big table and in fact is not far short of the maximum that we have ever had (22 adults; I assume that you don't count children in the 15 maximum). Even though we have a hotel sized dining room,we wouldn't be able to seat that number at a single table simply because the room isn't long enough.

I think that the "one table" thing is a fair enough requirement from GdF for their original market of what we'd now think of as a small CdH (ie 2 or perhaps 3 rooms) but when you get to the larger end of the range it's not a realistic requirement in my view. Certainly at the smaller end, everyone at the one table would create more of the "eating with friends" atmosphere that I think they're aiming for.

I just mentioned FPN; I've seen similar adverts on numerous websites over the last couple of years. The 28 room place was the largest but there were a fair number around a dozen rooms. I'm sure if you looked now you'd find adverts for "CdH's" with more than 6 rooms. My impression is that there were a mix of French and Brit owners selling the places.

 

Arnold

 

[Miki]

Un véritable phénomène de société:

En quinze ans, le nombre de chambres d'hôte est passé, en France, de 4 500 à près de 30 000. Il s'en crée 1 500 chaque année, rien que pour la Fédération nationale des Gîtes de France. «Les demandes pour figurer dans le guide augmentent de façon constante depuis cinq ans, explique Jean de Beaumont, qui publie régulièrement une sélection des Hôtels et auberges de charme en France (Rivages).

Mind you the article from (L’Express 28.06.2004) does go on to say just how many find the one time dream, simply too tough, after thinking that it all looked very simple to do and you just waited for the money to roll in…......wrong !

Le nombre de chambres d'hôte par maison n'est pas fixé mais, lorsqu'il atteint six, le propriétaire est obligatoirement soumis au régime des établissements recevant du public (ERP), notamment en matière de prévention des risques d'incendie et d'accessibilité des personnes handicapées. Les maisons d'hôte affilées à Gîtes de France ne peuvent d'ailleurs pas dépasser cette limite

In other words, with 6 bedrooms or more, you enter in to the world of strict hotel regulations. Fire alarms and security plus handicapped acces etc, no matter what one might want to call ones self ! And with GDF membership, one is is not legally allowed to surpass this number.

I therefore finally remember the answer to why one does not want to have 6 chambres d’hotes :

Capacité : généralement les fédérations concernées fixent à 6 le nombre de chambres complémentaires du logement, mais il n'y a aucune obligation réglementaire stricte ; par contre dès que la capacité excède 5 chambres les obligations des " Établissements Recevant du Public " s'imposent dans le domaine de la sécurité - comme pour un hôtel.

Again, you may well wish to be a chambre d’hôte with more than 6 rooms or more but now the rules will be exactly the same as a hotel would be. So that is why you will see many CDH with 5 max rooms and 15 persons but rarely 6 rooms, knew I would remember why one day !!

Not sure if the following URL will work but I have got some lost "stuff" back not after a shut down and ensuing problems, lost me the computer for a week or so, anyway this site this can be a mine of info on occasion.

www.kifaikoi.com/forum/Hote-ou-chambres-hote.htm

Prepare for a long read if you visit this site but it will show you just how many British (and no doubt many French as well, as I have read on French B&B forums that many are worried by the way the Fremnch are opening B&B's all over the place without telling the authorities and just open to grab the high & peak trade and then disappear for the 40 weeks !!)are running roughshod over the CDH and indeed the TDH regulations.

[mascamps.com]

Indeed. The 28 room "CdH" that I saw was in the form of a small tower block so I'd say they'd fall at the hurdle of disabled access.

We presently have rooms suitable for the disabled. Ironically, if we decide to convert to 6+2 gites those rooms will disappear into the new gite.

OK on the fire extinguishers etc. (I think), courtesy of our history.

That would square with my recollection of it being 5 plus one disabled access room.

We were having a think about the 6+2 option and we're actually not that far from it at the moment. Although we have 10 rooms, we don't presently rent out three of those (well, rarely anyway) and two of the others are destined for a makeover as a suite. Bit more of a squeeze to get that disabled access 6th room as it would be incorporated into the gite.

 

Arnold

 

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi Arnold,

I owe you (and others) an apology. you said:-

referred to a maximum number of 5 or perhaps 6 rooms we’ve all been referring to GdF or CleV rules and I’ve yet to come across a specific law which says you can’t run a 28 room CdH although my own feeling is that at that size it wouldn’t feel like a CdH to the guests.

And I replied.

 

Well my quote was from a document from the Ministry of Tourism. I'm afraid that I don't know the actual number and reference of the article of law that covers the matter, but I think you'll find that it exists and that it has also had its decret d'application.

I was wrong. I spent a couple of hours searching through the Internet, looking for legal definitions, and nearly every reference I found, that had to do with legislation kept repeating that there _wasn't_ a clear legal definition. However there was due to be a working party report at the end of 1994 which I've not found, and it was intended that it should lead to legislation.  

That said, many references sought to find cutting edge definitions that could differentiate between small hotels and CdH, and I got the distinct feeling that 6 was round about where the limit lay.

Now then I must correct one false impression. From the point of view of the definition of your capacity, your number of rooms that count is the total number that are capable of being let. The fact that you, or your predecessor didn't ever manage to fill them all, doesn't make any difference. I seem to remember that you said he never managed to let more than 6 or so at a time.

Hope that clarifies things a bit, and please accept my apologies for misleading you.

 

[Miki]

[quote]Hi Arnold, I owe you (and others) an apology. you said:- referred to a maximum number of 5 or perhaps 6 rooms we’ve all been referring to GdF or CleV rules and I’ve yet to come across a specific ...[/quote]

Ian,

Have you had time to look through that site I put on my last post ? It is heavy going but it reminds you of plenty of things one may have forgotten about, well it did me anyway !

It repeated about the maximum number being 6 for CDH, leaving legislation on the burner, I supect for the moment, to knowing that the 6 or more room rule will apply anyway, pushing any CDH in to another status and the stricter regulations that would apply.

Because for the greater part, any CDH that would like to be in a maison de tourisme etc will need a grading, from GDF Clé Vac etc, then they are pretty safe in the knowledge that any larger place will not be allowed in to CDH status in one of those tourist places. Yes, we hear of the odd person (pretty rare)who says but we are in the Maison de T without a grading but none around here are allowed and nor, in many other regions.

[mascamps.com]

No probs Ian.

Re the guy we bought it off, there are two or perhaps three separate aspects of his period of ownership.

1. I don't think that he ever had more than six rooms (plus the gite) filled simultaneously. As you say, that isn't the issue re the GdF etc. rules, however, of the 10 rooms notionally at his disposal, 2 are not ensuite and we have found it impossible to rent those out until quite recently and one other caused a problem when we did rent it out once so presumably he wouldn't have used that one either ie his room count was really 7.

2. He only appears to have employed one person part-time to look after the place. As I'm sure the folk running larger places know, it would almost certainly not have been possible for his one employee to actually support more than something like 3 or perhaps 4 rooms. ie in reality, although he had 10 rooms, he wasn't capable of running more than a small fraction of them at any one time. This is borne out by the difficulties that a local hotel has encountered as a consequence of us taking over: whereas in the past, Mas Camps would have passed people on to them after 3 or 4 rooms were filled, we don't pass anyone on to them 'til we have 6 or 7 filled and it's definitely hurting them as I think they relied on that passed on trade.

OK, GdF/CleV weren't going to accept either point 1 or 2 from the previous owner, or at least I wouldn't if I were them as, of course, he could have employed someone else and ran more rooms.

3. It's possible that he may have run as a hotel/restaurant at the start. Remember, he bought the place as that originally.

It is very interesting that you couldn't find any proper legal definitions of a CdH. I wonder if that's why there has never been a clampdown on adverts for 28 room places as CdHs? OK, outside France people may not be that bothered about a 28 room CdH being advertised but you'd think that at some point someone would have objected that they couldn't run the places as a CdH after the purchase.

Also, from what I've seen there appears to be a blurry area between CdH's as defined by GdF/CleV and what's perhaps loosely referred to as a guest house or inn. We seem to be able to just reregister and plough on as a hotel (albeit with no stars) with no tax, inspection or other differences to our operation. Yes, there is a difference if/when you apply for the stars but, seemingly, not until you do that.

I certainly think that there should be some kind of limit on what you could refer to as a CdH but my feeling is that it would need to be a definition more related to non-family members running the place ie once you add employees, you're moving into hotel territory. To my mind, that's more significant than moving from a 6 room CdH to a 7 room "something".

Way back in the mists of history perhaps GdF equated that with 6 rooms as a nice simple, rough & ready guideline and I'm not sure that it's far off the mark. We certainly expect to have to do something re the workload if/when we are consistently running at near capacity - no way could we run with the numbers we had at réveillon for much longer than the three days we had them.

Totally unrelated side-question: is there a scam around whereby some group contacts you with a big, long-term booking? I'm asking because we've received a query which seems a bit odd for a 20 day booking for 5 rooms in a few months time. I've a bit of a feeling about it, just can't put my finger on it.

 

Arnold

 

[Miki]

Arnold said "............I certainly think that there should be some kind of limit on what you could refer to as a CdH but my feeling is that it would need to be a definition more related to non-family members running the place ie once you add employees, you're moving into hotel territory. To my mind, that's more significant than moving from a 6 room CdH to a 7 room something......."

Oh please ! I have tried my best and am now starting to feel a failure in explaining things.

Once again, if you have 5 rooms, you are a CDH by the fact you have no fire inspections, in fact, no sod all inspections other than if you want to become a member with GDF or Clé Vacances or with a couple of others. If you take it to 6 you will be inspected by the people I mentioned earlier. This will then take you out of the original CDH non cotisations etc. You will now be expected to join the C de Com and I asked you before if you had and you never replied, if you haven't, then you are running illegally, no matter what the man in the pub or the Maire says but I think you are inscired at the C de Com ?

My point before was quite simple then, have 5 and you are under the number that will require inspection take it to 7 you are out of the realms of CDH and well in to a professional set up as regards the "amateur" status that so many agricole and others come under with CDH. 6 and you are border line and will need an inspection.

Arnold said "...Way back in the mists of history perhaps GdF equated that with 6 rooms as a nice simple, rough & ready guideline and I'm not sure that it's far off the mark.>>>"

No, no, no, this was a government decision, the number was not picked out of the air but it was hammered out during negotiations with the hotel association and other tourist bodies and finally a figure was arrived at, to what number of rooms would be allowed for CDH without it harming the pro trade.

5 or 6 was always the number, it was negotiated and has been under much threat ever since. Every time the hotel trade has a slump, you can bet your life they point the finger at CDH and their well known low cotisations, as of course the original idea to help the agricole industry meant that no such payments out were required, as it was seen as a secondary well needed salary and the government decreed it would have large allowances set against the CDH chiffre d'affaire and no further cotisations to pay.

I hope this might just be understandable if not, I might well fancy a long holiday in Southern Portugal to recharge my batteries, it hasn't been this hard on the B&B forum since I don't know when !!

Arnold, you are not a CDH and I don't give two monkeys what anybody else says. You sit with a licence 3 which is strictly professional (I have a grande licence which is completely diffent) No CDH in this country will have a licence 3, with GDF or not ! Same thing again, no CDH, unless registered at the C de Com will have a credit card machine, as a siret number must be offered to get the appareil under the new (ish) laws on who can have credit card machines.

If I took you down the tax office or the CDH, a couple of sentences would show them that you are most certainly not a CDH but an auberge or an hotel, now none of this is being stroppy or nasty just the facts as known from donkeys years of guidance and advice given to me and offered on to those in this or the hotel business !

[mascamps.com]

Miki, I've no problem with the law saying that a CdH can't have more than 5 or 6 rooms. What I'm saying is that, to my mind, the real difference between a CdH and a hotel is more a function of the hotel having staff than the number of rooms. If there are CdH's out there who have staff to do things like the cooking and dealing directly with their guests, I think you'd find that they felt more like a hotel than a CdH, regardless of them being legally a CdH.

We are registered with the CdC as a CdH and have been from the start. You need to be registered with the CdC if the activity makes up a significant portion of your income which I imagine would be from about 3 or 4 rooms upwards in practice for most people. In practice most people would find it convenient to be registered to get a credit card machine, cash & carry card, etc.

You aren't inspected if you've got more than 5 rooms, even if you are registered as a hotel. We have friends who have always run as a hotel, have always been registered as such and bought the place as a hotel but have never been inspected. It seems to be the application for the stars or epis which starts the inspection process. Personally, I am very surprised by this as we fully expected to be inspected (as did our friends) long before now.

"CDH and their well known low cotisations"

There doesn't appear to be any difference in the taxes that we pay/will pay as a hotel and the taxes that were due as a CdH. I think the hotels are more bothered about mini-hotels running on a part-time basis with no paid staff which clearly will have lower costs and could potentially undercut their prices. The inspections seems to be a red-herring in that, thus far, there don't appear to be any unless you apply for stars.

I still think that the original thinking behind the limit of 5 or 6 was related to the issue of staff. It's certainly around that number of rooms that you would need to employ staff which, of course, would run contrary to the original idea of the CdH being a help for the farmers.

"you are not a CDH"

I don't disagree. However, if we decide later this year to change to 6 rooms and 2 gites we will be a CdH which does have a license 3. I'm sure that there must be others who have them as a consequence of the history of their place. You could have been one of those if the original owner of your place had been able to get a license 3.

To throw a minor complication into the fray, my understanding is that it would now be possible to get a credit card machine without a CdC registration. Albeit, you'd need to apply for the machine from a bank outside France but it would work alright. I suspect that some people may already have such machines from some things I read some time ago; we were originally considering acquiring one of these when we thought that we'd get a significant number of people wanting to pay in sterling but that didn't come to pass so we didn't persue it.

"If I took you down the tax office or the CDH, a couple of sentences would show them that you are most certainly not a CDH but an auberge or an hotel, now none of this is being stroppy or nasty just the facts as known from donkeys years of guidance and advice given to me and offered on to those in this or the hotel business !"

Yes, but, as I say with a fairly minor change for us we could come under the CdH regulations and may well do so later this year. I do agree that at present we don't come under those rules.

 

 

Arnold

 

[Ian Hoare<br>All the best<br>Ian<br>La Souvigne Corrèze<br>http:www.souvigne.com]

Hi Arnold,

Sorry to have been a time in coming back to you.

I'm at a loss to how to put this more clearly. The only way you don't have 10 rooms, is if you took everything out of 4 of them and nailed the bloody doors shut. It's REALLY nothing to do with how many he had let at the same time, whether you can or can't let them without en suite facilities. Or whether you believe in Father Christmas. I'll ask you two questions.

1 If you had a family party of 20 who wanted to come to stay, could you put them up?

2. Can you feed more than 15?

If you answered yes to either of these questions, then you ain't running a Chambres d'Hôtes. If you've not had the inspectors down, then thank your lucky stars!

As to whether 7 is nearly the same as 6 which is nearly the same as 5, that's a nonsense argument. I agree with Miki, whether the legal status of CdH has been defined or not is entirely irrelevant, really. When it is, 5/6 will be the outside limit. That's absolutely certain.

You can't take a hotel, chop off two or 4 or 5 rooms and say "Oh well, this is a Gite, and so now I'm under 6 rooms in the rest of the house, so I'm really running a CdH". It won't work like that.

You said

I'm saying is that, to my mind, the real difference between a CdH and a hotel is more a function of the hotel having staff than the number of rooms. If there are CdH's out there who have staff to do things like the cooking and dealing directly with their guests, I think you'd find that they felt more like a hotel than a CdH, regardless of them being legally a CdH.

That's a perfectly legitimate opinion to have, of course. I don't agree with it, nor do the French authorities. But you're perfectly entitled to say to any of your guests "We're a hotel, but I feel we have the ambiance of a CdH." I agree with you that one of the criteria that can be used to define the cutting edge between CdH and Hotel or Auberges, is staff. That said, Bernard and Joelle in the village here run our local Auberge on their own, you come into their living room when you enter the residential part of the estalishment, and their welcome is thoroughly friendly and convivial. But that doesn't make them into a CdH.

I don't know how long you've been living here in France, Arnold, but I guess where Miki and I are united is that we are both concerned on your behalf that if you (as a foreigner) blantantly run a hotel calling it a CdH, therefore NOT paying the council taxes that a Hotelier would pay, not getting the inspections that a hotel would get, not keeping books as a hotelier has to do, and not paying VAT, sooner or later you're going to get the book thrown at you.

There's a dictum in American law "Ignorance of the law is no defence". In France that's true in Spades. When I was with the Douanes & Droits Indirectes talking about the various licences that are available (vd other thread) I said that I suspected that GdF Correze and indeed the GdF movement as a whole might be ignorant of the true situation regarding breakfast's status as a meal or not. So I said to the lady concerned, don't you think it would be a good idea for you to contact the local "antenne" telling them what you've said to me, and suggesting that they get head office to take it up with the Ministry in Paris? She said to me in a tone of utter astonishment. "Mais, monsieur, it's not up to us to take steps to tell people what the situation is, it's up to THEM to ASK US (my emphases)"

So it goes with you, you can't wait for the authorities to come to you as they would have done in the UK saying "Eh oh!! You can't do that there 'ere, mate". You have an absolute legal obligation a) to find out what your position is and b) to ensure that you take all possible steps to conform. That's the way it is here in France.

You may get away with it for a while, it could perfectly well be that the various authorities are in a real quandary, trying to give you the time to get your act together, so they don't have to come down on you. What are the REAL reasons the guy who was running the place as a CdH and left, did so? Could it be that he ran foul of the powers that be and got out? I would NOT sleep at nights in your shoes, until I'd clarified exactly what my status was at the Prefecture, and got all the various inspections and so on out of the way.

Still at the end of the day, it's your decision, your place, and possibly your funeral.  

 

[Miki]

[quote]Hi Arnold, Sorry to have been a time in coming back to you. I'm at a loss to how to put this more clearly. The only way you don't have 10 rooms, is if you took everything out of 4 of them and nailed...[/quote]

Ian,

Bluddy hell, I think that's it, fully understood and seconded.

No room for errors in comprehension there Arnold, is there, yep I thought so !!

I would love to be able to come down to see you, take a look around, sit down and offer you all the advice I could muster over one of your best bottles of Limoux but I am not sure if my head could take it Arnie !!

More seriously, both Ian and I and all the others I am sure, have been "there" and it is not a simple matter to grasp what you are and what you must do, especially in your situation but it will click one day and when it does, I am sure that like most of us, you will look back and laugh at your errors (or perhaps not, in which case, aplogies now !).

Listening to fonctionnaires in their many guises can often have one believing they are telling you the facts and they are 100% correct, that is basically the first error. I and French friends put it like this, it is often in the way you ask the person the question.

Some will not want to admit that they don't actually know the answer, so many will offer you a total load of tosh but, and this is the problem, it is easy for one to think that you now know the answers to all your problems..............wrong ask 10 more fonctionnaires, so now you have 10 differing responses !! Then ask someone who has been in the same game for a while and if that person is confident and really seems to know his business, then my advice is for you to go with that person, strange advice you might think, well yes but it took me an awful long time to find it out !!

[mascamps.com]

Ian,

At present, we could, in theory, put up 28 and feed 25. In practice our real maximum is 20 as we use some of the surplus rooms an office, store and for Wendy's Mum (ie those rooms really aren't available). Over the 15 though although 4 of the 20 are counted in the gite so as CdH accomodation our maximum is presently 16 which is pretty close to the GdF limit.

However, if we changed to a 6 room CdH plus 2 gite configuration, it would be a genuine change in that our actual room count would be 6, the additional rooms being used to create the new gite and our maximum number of guests would be 14 (plus 8 or perhaps 10 in the two gites). Short of throwing it out, we'd obviously still have the furniture in the restaurant to sit down 25.

>If you answered yes to either of these questions, then you ain't running a Chambres d'Hôtes. If you've not had the inspectors down, then thank your lucky stars!

As I say, the inspection process only appears to be kicked off when you apply for stars or epis. We're happy enough to be inspected (though we want to do our own check against the checklist first) and have always assumed that we'd be inspected whether as a CdH or as a hotel.

>You can't take a hotel, chop off two or 4 or 5 rooms and say "Oh well, this is a Gite, and so now I'm under 6 rooms in the rest of the house, so I'm really running a CdH". It won't work like that.

We can as a consequence of how this place was originally built. The existing gite is a genuine gite and was built after the place ceased being used as a hotel (I know that it was never legally a CdH, I mean during the time it was operated as a CdH). We have two options re forming a second gite which would involve joining together three, possibly four rooms (we may extend the existing gite at the same time), adding a kitchen, "gite" furniture, etc.

>I don't know how long you've been living here in France, Arnold, but I guess where Miki and I are united is that we are both concerned on your behalf that if you (as a foreigner) blantantly run a hotel calling it a CdH, therefore NOT paying the council taxes that a Hotelier would pay, not getting the inspections that a hotel would get, not keeping books as a hotelier has to do, and not paying VAT, sooner or later you're going to get the book thrown at you.

It was never our intention to run roughshod over the rules; as I keep telling you guys, we just want to be legal. We have always made it clear to everyone that we were going to be running with the full complement of rooms but we were initially told (by a duff accountant) that it was impossible for us to register as a hotel and we have spent most of the last year trying to work out how to do it, only to find that all we needed to do was to change the registration. We always had problems thinking of the place as a CdH in our own minds.

As far as we can tell, we will pay the same taxes as a hotel as we do as a CdH. I do appreciate that you & Miki come from the point of view that there must be a difference in how a 6 room hotel is run vs a 6 room CdH but, so far, there doesn't appear to be any difference. I suspect that where there is a difference is for places in towns where the hotel would charge residence tax to the guests but the CdH wouldn't but other than that, there doesn't appear to be any difference. Likewise for the inspections; well, once one applies for the stars or epis, the process seems to be different but not before that.

>So it goes with you, you can't wait for the authorities to come to you as they would have done in the UK saying "Eh oh!! You can't do that there 'ere, mate". You have an absolute legal obligation a) to find out what your position is and b) to ensure that you take all possible steps to conform. That's the way it is here in France.

We are taking those steps. It's far from simple to find out what the way forward is and we have spent most of the last year trying to find out how we can run as a hotel. After being told that it was "totally impossible" about 18 months ago, it now seems incredibly simple to change to being listed as a hotel. From discussions with the accountant, it appears that there is absolutely no difference at all in the tax position of a small hotel vs a CdH so, if nothing else, the tax people will be content with the change. I know that you guys find it hard to believe, but it also appears to be the case that there are no inspections required until you apply for stars (or epis in your own case). We think that reacquiring the original two stars may be little more than a (important) formality as the place has been improved since it was last registered and run as a hotel/restaurant.

As it happens, further to some recent information that we've come across, we suspect that the previous owner didn't actually do anything when he took over to change the status of the place other than ceasing the lunch & dinner meals ie from the perspective of the Conseil General, it may still be a hotel and we might get some confusing looks when we ask them to change "to" a hotel. In fact the only change that may have happened is that when we took over it was a standalone property for the first time ever in its history as up until then it had always been part of an agricultural concern.

 

 

Arnold

 

[mascamps.com]

Miki,

Looks like we were busy typing at the same time!

>More seriously, both Ian and I and all the others I am sure, have been "there" and it is not a simple matter to grasp what you are and what you must do, especially in your situation but it will click one day and when it does, I am sure that like most of us, you will look back and laugh at your errors (or perhaps not, in which case, aplogies now !).

To our mind it was never a B&B that we were buying. It's very obvious when you walk in the door that you're not talking B&B (and I use that term here quite delibrately rather than CdH). It's also obvious that you're not talking full-blown hotel and that was part of our problem over the last year. On a technical point "full-blown hotel" apparently starts from 30 rooms so perhaps there's another discussion to be had at the 30 room boundary

Our basic problem all along was that, although we were always talking about "our hotel", the previous accountant was always talking about "your CdH" and never the twain did meet, hence he is now running under the title of "our former accountant". Net effect was that we spent the best part of a year off and on trying to find out how to get listed as a hotel. At the time, we weren't aware of the 6 room limit or rather weren't aware that it was other than a GdF/CleV limit but nevertheless felt that we would be better off sitting in the hotel camp: if nothing else, it makes advertising this place a whole lot easier.

On the plus side, I gather that it's next to impossible to get a mortgage to buy a hotel so perhaps his listing us as a CdH helped us that way.

We have a visit to the Conseil General pencilled in but the cars off getting fixed at the moment so that'll be next week.

Almost forgot to say that we've actually come across one place that supposedly lists all officially recognised hotels in France and we're on it. So perhaps Francois really didn't do anything when he bought the place and was running a hotel all along!

 

Arnold

 

[Aly]

I have been following this thread with interest. We purchased a former Auberge but will be running a Chambre d'hote with two gites.( agreed and blessed by Gites de france). We decided to do this because we are not confident as restauranteurs.  After a great deal of consideration we have opted to establish a SARL rather than the mico.Again there seems to be lots of emphasis about the tax benefits of a micro. A Sarl is far more tax efficient, beneficial and the accounting costs are slightly greater.

I am also aware that there are Chambre d'hotes that operate side by side with other related businesses. One in particular  a french owned  chambre runs a delicatessen selling wine. Most of this enterprise is aimed at his guests.

I would be very interested to know how Arnold gets on and difficult the process is in changing from his chambre to a Hotel

[mascamps.com]

Hi Altan: welcome to the wonderful world of French bureaucracy!

Sounds like you have proceeded down the other fork in the road which is also, at the moment, open to us as we can as you have run the place as a CdH plus two gites.

Establishing a SARL is a separate issue to the micro bic. At present we are running under the regime real (if that's the correct term) ie we will produce proper profit and loss accounts rather than just assuming that 28% of the income is taxable as is done under micro bic. You can run either regime as a direct owner (as we presently do) or as a SARL (which we will probably do from next year or the year after).

I'm not sure if it was on this thread or elsewhere that I read it but a number of occupations are prohibited under CdH rules, among them restaurant owner. I would have thought that depending on the deli it might be pushing the rules a bit too.

On our change in status, we are still at the research stage. I now have the current document which lists all the requirements of the various star categories and it would appear that we can go for three star (the place was previous two star) but we need to measure up some rooms to be sure.

One side effect of our semi-ambiguous status is that we're listed on nearly twice as many places as we would have been ordinarily as either a hotel or as a CdH/gite. All being well, that will translate into a similar uplift in the number of bookings. Might be worth playing that card too, Altan.

 

Arnold