How To Make Your French Home Pay

Written by Jill Penton-Browne

A nice little earner ... that’s what your Côte d’Azur home could be. Jill Penton-Browne has been reading a new book that tells you how

Jo Taylor’s Earning Money From Your French Home (UK; Survival Books) is the latest title from an imprint that specialises in really useful books for expatriate residents in France. Their Living and Working in France by David Hampshire, now in its 7th edition, is still, as we described it on its first appearance, “the best handbook ever produced for visitors and foreign residents in this country”.

“Pitfalls and trade secrets”

Taylor has written a serious, realistic and very detailed account of how a resident can make money out of a home in France. For most readers of this magazine there are two likely ways of doing this: temporary lets during absence and offering bed and breakfast accommodation. Her treatment of these topics includes well-informed discussion of “legal and financial implications, advantages and disadvantages, pitfalls and trade secrets and comprehensive tax information”.

Quite a few expats here take off in the summer for somewhere cooler (this is a particular habit of Scandinavians) and that means they can, if they’re happy to hand over their home to strangers, look for tenants at the most favourable time of the year. Obviously the premises must be in decent shape and offer more than basic amenities. A pool can double the rent that can be asked (but potential letters should look at the piece in our last issue on the regulations concerning pool safety). Some tenants – notably Americans – can have high expectations and be easily dissatisfied (“Do you call this a fridge?”).

Taylor’s book is full of detailed tips: have pillows with synthetic filling to avoid complaints from allergic guests; prevent post-stay dramas over the telephone bill by having France Telecom put your number temporarily on service restreint which allows only local, emergency and incoming calls. If you’re having several families over a period – most renters of houses, especially, are couples with kids, sometimes dogs too – you should make sure you or someone you can trust is there to welcome them and see them off (and check on any damage!).

Offering bed and breakfast accommodation means you’ve got to share your home with people you don’t know. This can be a delightful experience or a nightmare. Most B&B clients are couples without children and dogs but even adults can be difficult if it’s raining and they don’t want to go out. Be ready to share the sofa in front of the television or to face a session of Scrabble or Monopoly. Providing meals other than breakfast can be a pain and is best avoided.

The book is excellent on the administrative aspects of letting and bed and breakfasting. If you go into either business, even on a very small scale, always inform the mairie if you’re in a small community. For one thing, you’re likely to have to pay a taxe de séjour (up to €1.50 per night per guest). Also don’t fail to notify your insurer if you’re either letting or taking guests while you’re in residence. Requirements can be complex: a prudent B&B landlady (to use that British term of grim resonance) will take out anti-theft insurance and cover against guests going down with food poisoning. Taylor deals with many other topics from fixing and collecting deposits to offering broadband access, from rules on disabled access to dealing with veggies.

“Do your sums carefully”

Earning money from your home may be an enticing idea but you have to have clients ... and be willing to accept the hard work and inconvenience letting and bed and breakfasting can entail. Taylor is commendably thorough on this issue. Signing up with a well-branded organisation which will promote your offering through the Internet and/or a print brochure can be effective (and expensive) but there can be drawbacks. If you’ve got vacant accommodation outside of the high season, for example, you could be required to “take in people who have been evicted from social housing”. Some B&B agencies impose extraordinarily detailed conditions (“a single bed must be at least 80cm wide, not less than 40cm high and have a divan base and mattress in perfect condition”). You may find it easier to do your own marketing, especially if you’re operating on a small scale, with ads in selected papers in your own country. A website can be a useful tool but it’s got to be designed with reasonable competence. These days an amateurish site is as much of a turn-off as a semi-literate fact sheet. Finally, Taylor emphasises the need to do your sums carefully. Make a realistic calculation of your likely turnover (number of clients) and the overall cost of handling them. It’s pointless to accept the expense and hassle if you end up making little or nothing.

From Reporter 114 - Apr/May 2006

Set as favourite

Bookmark

Trackback(0)

TrackBack URI for this entry