"Sacha" wrote in message
. uk...
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)



The French property market doesn't have the high inflation of the UK housing
market, which is perhaps a good thing. There are several reasons, but
basically the taxes and estate agent fees are very high. They are on a
sliding time scale which makes it punitive to sell within two years after
the initial purchase (especially with having to share any 'profit' with the
previous owners). But the seller is still heavily taxed if selling within
five years of purchase.
We looked at selling on our old stone barn with a bit of land for someone to
renovate, but the amount of tax and fees we would have to pay made selling a
none starter, so it looks like it will just continue to crumble into
dereliction, like most old stone barns in France.
People just don't generally climb a housing ladder here, they are too
heavily punished financially with each move, and it is not uncommon for
properties to simply pass down the generations.

David.