Equity release mortgages in France
Do you know which lenders will provide equity release on your mortgage in France? Until quite recently I wasn't aware of and French banks that did.
Having owned our property and added value to it over the past few years it would be beneficial for us to release some cash to finish it so I took it upon myself to investigate. Initial enquires proved positive, however, from the limited research that I've done it would appear that these are only available to salaried individuals and not those of us who are self employed.
Have any of you managed to secure equity release on your French property, let's hear about it please!
Thanks
James
Add a Comment
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Comment by Suzanne Fitzgerald on March 20, 2013 at 16:21 -
he he I know :) It will happen one day and I can see that day coming soon Andrew :(
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Comment by Andrew Hearne on March 20, 2013 at 15:59 -
but Suzanne, many of us are working and still manage the odd comment on sfn so all is not lost if push comes to shove... ;-)
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Comment by Tracy Thurling on March 20, 2013 at 15:40 -
:-)
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Comment by Suzanne Fitzgerald on March 20, 2013 at 15:31
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I'd better tell Darren he's got to carry on working then ;)
Lets hope he doesn't decide to send me out to work - or else I wouldn't be able to share my troubles with you all on SFN :)
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Comment by Andrew Hearne on March 20, 2013 at 15:17
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yep, not a hope in hell's chance then ! :-(
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Comment by Suzanne Fitzgerald on March 20, 2013 at 15:00
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yes Andrew - and as we are not French salaried and have both French/UK income we are too complicated...
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Comment by Andrew Hearne on March 20, 2013 at 14:47
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Bridging loans do exist - prêt relais - but with everything financial in France, you need to be in a rock solid situation to get one ;-)
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Comment by Suzanne Fitzgerald on March 20, 2013 at 14:26
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I am now regretting paying off the mortgage when we sold our previous UK home - it was such a nice feeling to pay off our French one but now it is a pain in the backside as if we'd kept the money in the bank and just carried on paying the mortgage on our current home then we wouldn't have this problem now. Mind you, putting it in the bank is no longer very safe - is it! (see my bailing out blog!) Imagine if Mr EU came along and snatched 6.75% of our house proceeds - at least they pinch the roof off our house...I hope.
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Comment by Tracy Thurling on March 20, 2013 at 14:16
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Bridging loans do exist if you want to buy another house before yours is sold but I don't know the details.
When we bought our house on a buy to let, the bank were not interested in the value of the house, they wanted a statement from a local agency confirming the rental value of our project. They then loaned up to 90% of that projected income, including a huge amount for 'travaux'. We did have to provide quotes for said work, then as Kate said, they released that amount against receipts from wherever.
What may interest people is that we had the chance to defer the repayments for a year before we started paying back although apparently if we had used all the money before then we would have had to start the repayments immediately.
I do think it helps if you know the bank manager, not socially but we had been customers for a few years before we applied.
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Comment by Martin Heathcote on March 20, 2013 at 14:00 -
Suzanne - not that I know of, they all require monthly repayments with exception of the "prêt viager" mentioned below. Then again, I am much more up to speed with products available to the non-resident market so the fact I don't know of it does not mean it does not exist for french fiscal residents!! Bridging loans do exist, the terms of which depend on whether it's to bridge to the purchase of a different house in France, or just a "pret sec" ... meaning no second loan will follow with the bank once house 1 is sold. Still, repayments are necessary either way.
© 2013 Created by James Higginson.
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