Hi all - seeking some advice. My OH wants to find some employment working under CESU for English-speaking clients (his French is poor). Does anyone have any suggestions about how to go about finding clients without stepping on the toes of any local artisans? Should he for example put notices in English in local shops or make up flyers etc. Any advice gratefully received.
I would put notices in both french and english because there are a lot of local people who may be interested. My last employer under CESU was french and we got along famously and cried a few tears when I told her I was moving away. Your OH should also check thepapers, LBC and other media for ads asking for employees under CESU which is usually very casual work and will involve him being registered with URSSAF and being issued bulletin de paie by them to keep for any future french pension demands. The language may well be a problem though as english speakers maybe a bit thin on the ground. Good luck but as I say, his flyers must be in both languages to get any sort of response.
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Thanks for that advice Shiba 
Which services? As best to identify which of the CESU activities he wishes to focus on. As yes to flyers and notices in bakeries (with pull off strips with phone number). Also maybe see if a commune notice board as will only want to work locally as otherwise travel costs will eat up profit.
Here any notice for a cleaner is snapped up!
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Thanks Jane. Mainly small garden tidy-ups. Should it mention on any flyers/notices that he wants to be paid via CESU?
We have a go-to handyman who we originally found from a small ad that he put in the local paper. Mind you that must have been 20 years ago, when small ads were the main way for artisans and customers to find each other.
A lot of supermarkets have notice boards where artisans can advertise.
You have probably thought of this but it strikes me that if he only wants to work via CESU he is unlikely to get work from non resident second home owners because the scheme is not attractive to them. Whereas non resident home owners might be a good source of clients for garden maintenance type work. Depending where you are, resident Anglophones might be quite a small market.
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Yes because potential clients have to register with URSSAF regarding CESU as they can claim tax rebates etc so all has to be above board with the employer paying so much towards pension, health etc as well as the employee plus if there is an accident, both parties will be covered when it comes to treatment costs etc.
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Except that non-resident are not necessarily bothered by costs as much. By definition to me second home owners are relatively well off and their priority is not spending their holidays mowing the lawn.
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Agreed but I was thinking they might be put off by the whole process of signing up to CESU. French admin that has no benefit to them and in many cases will make no sense to them. Most would probably prefer to pay cash to an auto entrepreneur.
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Then they just pay and the person declares outside eCESU.
Thank you. Something important to consider. If they were non-resident, maybe they could use the TPEE arm of Cesu?
Indeed but the whole point of the thread is yhat he specifically wants to work under cesu I thought
Do you think holiday home owners really want to get involved in signing French contracts that potentially give them obligations, making URSSAF declarations, paying from a French bank account and all that? I suspect most do not. The whole concept will be unfamiliar to them, there is no such system in the UK.
This is very true. When we were holiday home owners, for lawn mowing services, we had no choice but to use CESU, as no micro-entrepreneurs would respond, and the only artisan who did insisted on using CESU.
It took some time to get our minds round the fact that we were technically co-employers of the artisan, along with his 7 other clients, simply for mowing our lawn a couple of times a month during the spring and summer.
However we thought, and still think that CESU was a very clever system, offering carrots as well as sticks to ensure compliance particularly amongst French residents. But as non residents it was more the cost (roughly nearly double) of using CESU without any offsetting tax relief for the (grossed up) secu that was the main issue. However we had to shrug and accept that this was the cost of using artisans in France, and as guests in the country, fortunate enough to afford a holiday home, we wanted to fully comply.
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