Tag Archives: everyday life in France

Finding Housing Means Beating My Head Against A Wall

No — haven’t dropped off the face of the planet, but I have been firmly beating my head against a wall whilst trying to find us a place to live for a minimum of a year or so when we will qualify for a French mortgage or we find some cheap-as-chips property to buy for cash and subsequently renovate (while living in construction rubble — again!.

It’s a VERY good thing that I am feeling all bright and perky and healthy right now because I think I would have gone back to bed this morning and pulled the covers over my head otherwise. And I’m trying to deal with this 90% on my own since the darling Mark is off at work every day and it wouldn’t help him one little bit to cope with that PLUS this.

We didn’t get the house we interviewed for on Saturday. The owner rented to another French woman and in case you mistakenly think that I am feeling persecuted or discriminated against — no, I am not. It’s just one of those things and I’m not feeling dramatic about it.

This picture below is the view through each of the three French doors onto the balcony, the scene that would have been presented to us each day. It was a perfectly splendid large house and it even had the lock-up garage Mark needed and a separate office-library for me in addition to the 2 bedrooms, large kitchen, and large living and dining room. We had already begun to mentally envision where we would place the furniture and hang the artwork that is on the way from Australia. Now THAT was certainly a mistake we won’t make again!

View from the balcony of the house we did NOT get in St. Girons, Midi-Pyrenees, France

We are having a nightmare trying to find someone who will rent to us here. We don’t have French tax returns for the past year and even with sparkling references, they want a guarantor who will declare that they will be responsible for our rent for three flipping years!

Our friend Becky (whose husband Matt my husband subcontracts for) went with me to make the rounds of all the agencies in St. Girons on Friday and I saw her face when the agent told her that and then she turned and translated it to me. I immediately told her that there was no way I would ever place them in that situation and she said, “We just couldn’t!”

Even the private owners here are asking for the same things —
1. Proof of income (we have that)
2. Proof of local bank (we have that)
3. Bank statements to show solvency (we have that)
4. References from past landlords (we have that)
5. Copies of passports and French residency (we have that)
6. Tax returns from France for a minimum of one year (we do NOT have that!)
OR
7. A guarantor who will promise to pay our rent for up to THREE years (we certainly do NOT have that!)

Understandably, people who are landlords need to protect their interests and the housing market here is quite protective of the rights of tenants. So it is nigh onto impossible to get a renter OUT once you have them in. For those reasons, property owners are very, very conservative. Having owned a small portfolio of property when we lived in the USA, I can see it from both sides of the fence and am completely sympathetic to the position of the landlord as well as our own. But this is, at the moment, very difficult.

I was all chipper this morning and I thought that perhaps the Universe was trying to tell me that it wasn’t that particular house that would be right for us. But the rental apartments or houses are disappearing as fast as they are online and they have that full list of requirements that we can’t meet. I have been on the phone since 9:30 this morning calling property owners who had listed their mobile numbers on the listings. I’ve even had Becks and our other friend Caty calling around for me since they’ve lived here for years and their French is better than mine. The results thus far are a firm brick wall!

I’ll figure it out even if we have to go and rent some caravan for a year. Ah well — back to the online listings since the agencies are now a solid no-go zone. It certainly is NOT as straightforward as England, Australia, or the USA by any stretch of the imagination! Who knew??? (sigh!)

The Peugeot Paperwork Pause

Waiting, waiting, waiting. (sigh!)

So I bought a new-old little Peugeot 306 today from a friend of a friend here in the Midi-Pyrenees. Yes, it has a few dings in the doors from encounters in the local parking lots, but it’s an appropriately inexpensive option for our frugal lifestyle — a very basic little getting-around vehicle that I hope will serve me well over the next few months as we get sorted out here and I begin to look for a more permanent place to live.

The front of the new-old Peugeot 306

The back of the new-old Peugeot 306

That should all be quite straightforward — right? Trust me, there is never, ever, ever anything straightforward in France if it involves paperwork. I have been on the phone and online for over 5 hours at this point just trying to get insurance for it that doesn’t cost half of the total value of the car per year in premiums!!!

Our insurance agency that has our previous policy is headquartered in the outskirts of Paris and they take a lunchtime break on Friday that lasts from noon until — wait for it — four in the afternoon. And THEN they re-open for business. It took me ever so long to get anyone to even answer the phone, then I hung online for almost half an hour, and then they gave me a list of documents to scan and attch to emails. I had to send 6 different emails with one piddly attachment (at a greatly reduced pixel size, I might add) on each one.

So here I am now now — waiting, waiting, waiting to hear back.

If it goes smoothly, I will be driving the new wee beastie this weekend. If not (mustn’t even think that!), it will be Monday before I can get on the road. Let’s see, how many really rude French expletives can I think of to mutter as I walk around the house? (sigh!)

P.S. It’s 7 hours later and after 6 PM now — so I guess I won’t be out and about this weekend. And did I fail to mention the mini-heatwave? That certainly wasn’t helpful today either!

Bye-bye Pyrenees — But Only For Awhile!

Two little balls of energy sat at the kitchen table, dressed in matching red and white striped shirts, gulping mouthfuls of food so that they could go back into the lounge and watch a cartoon on television. Everyday life in France was just like family life in Australia, England, the USA or any other place that we have lived.

We ended our two week stay in the village of Argein on Wednesday and began driving north to Normandy. But we were going to miss this lovely family and I thought I’d share some photos from our time with them.

Matt and Becky are transplanted Brits raising the previously mentioned boys, Ed and Henri. Matt is a builder and Becky is a real estate agent who also manages the business side of the building company, Ariege Artisan. My husband Mark did stone work around their house and then did construction work with Matt for two days as well. So now Mark has dipped his toes into French construction methods.

This charming couple are currently expanding their company a bit, so I have spent the last few weeks doing public relations work for them — taking photos and editing/improving old ones, helping to fine tune the gallery on the new website, setting up a Facebook business page for them, and creating business cards and new brochures for them.

Business card for Ariege Artisan ©Deborah Harmes

And did you know that if you do business in France and you advertise, all of the advertising that might be in the English language is required to be translated into French as well! That made for some interesting layout challenges.

Ariege Artisan brochure -- outside cover ©Deborah Harmes

Their village setting in the Ariege region of the Pyrenees is absolutely stunning and their lovingly restored house is wonderful. Below are shots of the house, the deck, what you see if you are lying in the pool, and the view from the deck.