When you decide to buy a property in France you may have many reasons for doing such a purchase. It could be a dream home to move the whole family to or maybe a holiday home for personal use or even for renting out for holidays there are lots of things to take into consideration.
How to find the property you really dream of! They often say there's no harm in dreaming especially when your dreams have the possibility of coming true. You can find many good English speaking estate agents on the internet who have many properties for sale. But I would like to tell you that there is an interesting way out, which will allow you not to pay any agents fees. You can for example go straight into the local Notaire`s office and you will normally find that there is a property sale board which offers properties for sale directly from the owners. Moreover you may find as we did that the same property is on sale in an estate agents window for a much higher price than that in the Notaries` office, hence well worth a look.
Agencies do charge much for their work but frankly speaking we don`t think they do a lot of the paperwork etc. on your behalf. It is up to you to decide what kind of service to use. You can use an agent if you are a first time buyer, the choice is yours, we did just that for our first property purchase in Brittany.

Important advice and tips on choosing the right property in the right area

If you have made the decision to either move to France or at least buy a holiday home, it is wise to think about the right area for your future "castle" Should you look for an area which will gives you easy access to the UK, this might be very convenient if you have to return on a regular basis. So for people in this category it is advisable to look at the Airport and Ferry port distances from the place you want to buy.
You can still find many bargains in France and it is possible that you look for and find a great renovation project with a few acres of land and this could be ideal for you. But keep in mind that sometimes the first impressions unfortunately, are often hiding something, so research is a must.
A few acres of land, that sounds great, and brings to mind ideas of getting a few animals, horses, sheep, and chickens. Who knows you could even dig your own lake and fill it with fish and offer fishing holidays or if you have barns to convert to gites or holiday homes, maybe even a part of your home could be used as bed and breakfast.

So what`s it really like to take on a building or refurbishment project in France

We have been there and done it all and although it sounds fantastic it is not all plain sailing by any means.? A property can be advertised as "livable with fishing lake"but frankly speaking it can be far from this, but you learn from your mistakes. When we were searching for a property to buy in Brittany we viewed properties all day with a property agent (not an estate agent). That day we didn` choose anything so we looked and kept looking and on the second day of house hunting in Brittany. At last fortune smiled upon us and we saw the last property of the day. That was it we saw it and said we wanted it, a bit rash you may think but we had made up our minds. A Bretagne Longere with out-buildings and a large unused part of the house and to top it off seven hectares of land all around the property.

Many different ideas occur and all sorts of thoughts start racing through your heads. You want to remake almost everything, this you will put here, and that thing should be moved there and on that place your wish is to create your own fishing lake and with over 10 acres what could be easier.
You buy the property and move there to do some work to create your dream. Now you have to find a well known registered builder or tradesman who can provide good references. When we bought the desired property found a great French registered English builder and a French electrician who speaks perfect English after getting several quotes for the work to be done we eventually chose and the works started.

Remember that employing anyone in France who is not registered is actually illegal and you do it would be liable to fines or worse if you get caught employing people on "the black". In addition it is always best advice to check the persons or companies insurance certificate; we did and never looked back as the work was finished to a high quality and on time.

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