Buying a home in France and then renting it to pay the mortgage, or to give you some income for your retirement seems a great plan.
Property prices have been rising strong and steady for ten years now and in some places, Languedoc is certainly one of them, property prices are set to keep up a steady growth.
So investing in French property and renting it out looks like as simple as shooting fish in a barrel – but being a landlord is never simple, being a landlord when you are hundreds of miles away, possibly thousands of miles away has certain problems.
Not least of these problems are the laws relating to a tenants security. I am not writing about vacation rentals – this is a different subject and also has many hidden pitfalls and hurdles.
Renting to a long term tenant is strictly controlled in French law and, in simple terms, if you rent on a long term lease (over one year) then you must assume that perhaps you will never be able to consider the property your own ever again. For example, you cannot evict a tenant ever just because they do not pay rent, you cannot evict a tenant in the winter months, ummm – basically you cannot evict a tenant.
The only grounds for giving notice to quit are; if you are selling the property, you must then give the tenant first refusal – or if you wish to occupy the property yourself. In either case the tenant has a lot of rights and nothing is certain.
We are going through an interesting case ourselves at the moment and I have several clients who are wanting to sell their property but have a tenant in place who is causing problems. This is an important subject and I will continue to report on it carefully and in detail. I am finding many aspects which are not generally known and can help owners to protect their investments and to avoid long and expensive legal wrangles.
If you have any experience or questions about this, please comment on it or write to me personally.
God I hate it when you read a short description (such as the above) then realize this is you to a tee!! I’m 50 my wifes 46, from Vancouver Canada, we have an apartment in an ocean front development (New) outside of Juan Les Pine towards Golfe Juan. As you noted, this is precisely what my wife & I wish to do, rent it out for about 10 years, retire then take over the property full time (or part time) during our retirement. We’re somewhat conservative so we’ve opted to establish a long term rental vs seasonal, I’ve heard arguements for both. None the less I do value your comments as they are brutally honest, we’re still deciding, according to Nexity (the developer) they have a qualified tenant waiting mmmmm?
I am currently experiencing the downfalls of renting out property in france, I have had three tenants up til now on 3 year leases, the first two tenants ended their leases early but were good tenants, the current tenants are a total nightmare.
I was advised by my agent to take out insurance to cover the non-payment of rent as they reportedly had a seriously ill child and the husband may not be able to continue working when their child’s condition worsened. Reluctantly I was persuaded to agree to lease to these tenants, but oh I wish I knew about the french laws first.
First of all their cheque for the first month’s rent and deposit bounced 3 weeks after they had moved in, god knows why it takes the french banks so long to process a cheque.
Alarm bells rang at that point and again I was pursuaded that this is very unusual thing to happen in France, and that they had provided a replacement cheque which cleared fine a week or so later.
The next two months payments were received fine, a third of the rent was paid by the CAF
But then the payments dried up and I did not receive any rent for a further four months, at which point it was during winter and was informed that you cannot evict andy tenant during the winter months. So when april came about we started proceedings with the insurance company expecting to be covered and for them to evict the tenants.
Letters were sent politely asking the tenants to settle the outstanding amount or risk being evicted, which had little effect with the tenant lying about supposed payments expected from the state etc.
Then I find out the wife has moved out and taken on another lease elsewhere leaving the husband behind which is obviously a breach of contract, but I have been told that I am in no better position to evict the remaining tenant and that he can pretty much stay there rent free until he decides to leave or pass away.
Well low and behold the insurance company decide that after issuing a policy and certificate and receiving all the required information, that I’m not covered because the declarations don’t match their requirements, I’m sure this is going to be an ongoing struggle too.
Now I am trying to find out what else I can do to just evict this tenant, cut my losses on this renting fiasco.