On 1/7/07 21:29, in article , "David
(Normandy)" wrote:

snip

The strangest law we've come across here so far is regarding selling your
property - if you sell it within 2 years you have to share any profit you
make with the previous owners of the house! If you spend your own money and
time renovating a property (DIY) your own capital outlay is not counted. So
if you buy a house for 100k and spend 50k on it but end up selling it for
140k (in effect a 10k loss) it is regarded as a 40k profit and you have to
give 20k to the previous owners of the property! If you had registered
tradesmen do the same work, then cost would be allowed against the profit -
again an example of the protectionism towards trades here.

snip

This would explain why an English friend of ours, living in France, told us
that it could take up to at least two years to sell a house! I wonder now
if she knew this at that time.

--
Sacha
http://www.hillhousenursery.co.uk
(remove weeds from address)