It's not my place but I have an English friend who let his 1 bed house to a frenchman with a proper legal agreement. After about nine months he has stopped paying and we have now sent warning letters and will start proceedings soon. I recently found out that he inherited a sum (after becoming a tenant) and became addicted to gambling. He's now trying to go on benefit but meanwhile avoiding people (its a small village) and meetings to discuss the situation. We are anticipating a long battle over what are in fact very small sums (in Brittany the rents are low). It's not just about France though. One finds that one has daily battles with officialdom and difficulties wherever you are these days. Keep your Kiwi chin up!
Glad you were able to find a better place to live, Frances, and have the help of a French boyfriend. However, I have read your post twice now and can't reconcile how living in France was your lifelong dream and yet you are shocked by things - apartment blocks without a park nearby, an unfurnished kitchen - that you could have easily discovered before moving to France. In fact, the naked kitchen situation is the same all over Europe and many places I've lived in Budapest and Geneva were also without green spaces.
I don't think my experience has been unique, either, in the rental market. The first time, ten years ago, I had an assistant make the initial calls and they were delighted that an American was interested in their property. The second, I was fluent enough to conduct the search on my own and met not the slightest resistance. Could something else be causing your problems? Saaayyyy, your expectation that things in France should be just like those in NZ?
I am joining this thread rather late but I am happy to learn that Frances has a new home.
To share my experience, it is not all bad especially considering I am a Mexican, I know very little French, I am self-employed and most of my income comes primarily from the USA. It has been very different from what I am used to but not terrible.
In 2009, with me working in the USA, my girlfriend in Orleans expecting our baby, I had to rely on her to find us a furnished one bedroom flat while I remained in the States. I was not too crazy about going through agencies since that meant paying a fee. I had never paid an agency fee but now I was looking to pay a fee sometimes equal to a month's rent. Considering our options, we ended up going with an agency despite the fees. We found an apartment in the 8th fairly quickly. The agency we worked with was very accommodating. I should mention that the partners in the agency were young (real go-getters) and both foreigners: one Italian and the other British so maybe that is why things went smoother. To secure the apartment I did have to show proof of income. Since I am self-employed, I provided copies of my tax returns for the past three years. We had no problems with the apartment and any maintenance issues were taken care of quickly. A year later when we moved out, the agents came out to inspect the apartment (the owner lived in Greece so we never met him) and our deposit was refunded in full. (In our case, to move in we paid a month's deposit, first month's rent and the agency's fee which was less than a month's rent.) I should also mention that the flats presented by agencies were of better quality (location, furnishings, etc) than when we contacted landlords directly. Interestingly, we had to be out of our flat by noon because someone else was moving at 2pm.
Finding an apartment in the South of France was a little more challenging than it was in Paris mainly because few of the better flats are available year round-round (during the summer they are rented out on a weekly basis since they can often get as much in a week as they would in a month). In Nice we did come across agents asking for a year's rent upfront but those were few. In the end, we found our furnished two bedroom flat (centrally located with a terrace, air conditioning and a block from the beach for the same price as we were paying in Paris) via an international community I belong to. In this case we were dealing directly with the owners and once again we were working with foreigners: she is American and he is Italian. The requirements were more like what I am used to (first and last months' rent and no agency fees). I still had to provide proof of my income since I continue to be self-employed but we had no other challenges. We are starting our third year in our flat and, other than having to deal with a crazy neighbor, we've had no issues.
Working with other foreigners has served me best. Not that I did not try to work with the locals. It just seemed that the foreigners were more eager to take my money.
Keep going Frances.
We had excactly the same problem as you, one year ago. We relocated from the country side to the Atlantic coast (Capbreton) and seeing how many empty appartments there were, we thought it would be a piece of cake to rent one. Ha. We were SO wrong. It was beyond nerve-vrecking when, after 4 months of active everyday searching, compiling the files etc., we had two weeks left before we had to leave our appartment and live in our van with our baby. But then - out of the blue - we came upon (on leboncoin of all places) a landlord that believes and values good old fashioned trust between people. He didn't want to see a 200-page dossier, he didn't want a deposit before time, he said "welcome - we do it all when you are here". And here we are now, in a tiny but fine little house, with a normal contract and no hazzles.
By sharing our story I just want to say, that no matter how nasty it can seem in the moment: don't give up! There are still good people out there!
I agree with everyone about not comparing Paris with the rest of France. It is the same in the United States. Everyone says that the people of New York City are rude and abraisive too. It is just that they all live in high rise buildings with no sense of community. It is very different from the rest of the country. Paris is just like New York. When I have stopped a Parisian to ask a question, they are usually very helpful though as long as I am polite. We Americans have to work hard to overcome the "Ugly American" image. In the town I live in the Loire Valley, the residents of our town actually seem to embrace and enjoy having us in their community. I practise my French on them and they practise their English. The last time I was over there, the lady that owns the backery next to my home even kissed me when I brought her a tee-shirt from Washington DC where I live. When I asked the baker for a tour of his baking facilities, he was so delighted in my interest that he always warmly greets me when he sees me. I always show my interest and pleasure of being in such a beautiful community and the people glow with their approval. For myself and my partner, we look forward to visiting Reuilly and look forward to the day when we can spend more of the year there. It is a real paradise from living in the rat race of living in one of the most powerful cities in the world.
Dream, Frances, dream! Last year I "trust-hosted" a SV friend's student daughter in my 3 bedroom shared rental house in the close, SE Paris outskirts. Do you still have in mind to change, or have you already done so? In what part of Paris do you work, 'cause Rambouillet is far to the west of Paris, so I don't know if you'll be happier in the area where our house is if your work is mucho far away, though there is space, a yard and relative comfort. Might this be of help...?
Why must you live in Paris?
And, I must say that I have heard of some problems that Aussies have had.
From my understanding, no. The law works very slowly and Ive heard of people still trying to get someone out after a year of non payment. Personally I would take matters into my own hands, in the same way as if someone was to steal from me Annette....as you say, its the same thing.
I know you are right, but to me not paying rent equals stealing, in a way. You are taking something you haven't paid for. No wonder it is such a nightmare to find an apartment given that there are people like the ones you were unfortunate enough to rent to Keith. Guess they are the source of the rental market paranoia....
Just a quick Q: even if there is a clause in the rental contract, you cannot kick out a non-paying tenant, like say after a few months of non-paid rent?
The French police wont evict and the law is on the tenants side.
Hello Keith
I read somewhere that you can put into the contract that if the person does not pay rent he/she can be evicted within two months, or something... wouldn't this help on a situation such as yours? I don't remember where I read it, but I am pretty sure it's like that. Plus you can take out an insurance LOCO something, to ensure you get rent in case your tenant does not pay. I still have a hard time understanding how you can stay in an apartment when you don't pay rent, can't one call the police and have them evict the non-paying tenant or something...?
Well done Keith for getting rid of....man after my own heart and I would do the same. People talk about the UK always letting people get away with things...but France wins hands down in terms of skankers who have no intention of paying rent and whose only intent is to ruin the property of those they see as better off than themselves....not the same as falling on hard times and finding it difficult to meet the rent...these are hardened con merchants.
Thanks for this Michael, unfortunately he likes the flat he is in, and the position by the Marina and the woman that own the flat doesnt negotiate, its all or nothing! its his second year there...and I guess he will stay put for the time being.
Carol, tell him to look around, many landlords now accept the rent in 3 or 4 cheques, there are lots of empty apts around Dubai at the moment
Delighted to hear you are in a new flat Frances, hopefully life will be better for you in Paris now.
Annette I agree. I also find it bizarre that the French can make comments like they will not rent to a foreigner or give a job to a foreigner considering they are so wholly part of the EU and make many of the regulations that the rest of the EU are expected to follow including the fact that other Europeans have the right to live and work in other European countries. France is, as I have said before, is inward looking; the average French person is not particularly interested in the rest of the world, and they genuinely believe France is best in the world at everything. In part that is because they are less inclined to travel abroad,so see less of the world and the way it operates. The UK used to be the same years ago....Johnny Foreigner was not to be trusted, was different and was treated with suspicion, in large part that has changed because of how widely nearly everyone travels and there are so many foreigners in the UK, there is no longer fear of the unknown. My OH often asks what he thinks our neighbours (who manage our two local supermarkets, they are middle aged grandparents and have never been abroad) would think of our local hypermarkets, butchers, cloth shops etc....comparing Newbury with Bergerac...the superb selection shops we have locally in Newbury, the choice, the lower costs etc. If you are not given to travelling the world, you will never know how much better or worse things can be and you dont know what you are missing!
Actually, someone like me is a better 'risk' to a landlord than a French person. If I lose my job I'm out of the country so the landlord has no issues getting rid of me at all.
Agree with Michael and Catherine. I am happy to report I am settled in a brand new appartment in Epernon, Centre. If it hadn't been for the help of my French retired dentist boyfriend and his BMW (all show but that's how it works here, being a decent person with a job is not enough if you are on CDD and a foreigner)I'd probably never have been accepted as a tenant. My dossier has pics of my international trips for work, my boss with Mr Larcher- you name it, all to prove I'm a decent person. Insulting to my integrity and an invasion of privacy. This does NOT happen in NZ. I have rented out my house (well the bank owns a lot of it) in Auckland. My tenants are not paying the rent regualrly and I don't have the means to pay it for them. They are on final notice so if they don't meet payments in future they are out. OUT immediately, no mucking around. To stay in a house you don't pay for is theft. I'm sensitive to other people's misfortune but I'm in a highly vulnerable financial position myself. Therefore I will never understand the twisted morality of the French system.
Same as Dubai Catharine...my son has to find 18k every January for his yearly rent....gulp!
Let's not forget too that it is almost nigh on impossible to rent in France unless you have a CDI. As freelances when we rented in 2006 the only way we could get the landlord to consider us was to pay a full year's rent up front.