I think you are absolutely right! We’d certainly need to know the numbers, seasonality, ease for international visitors to reach the place. Possibilities for expansion, planning restrictions. There are a myriad of things to consider. We have investigated the practicality of moving our business over there, in fact for one of our large suppliers we would actually benefit of reduced trade costs by 30% as they don’t have a distributor taking their share in France. Whilst shipping costs would be higher, we would still benefit from those savings. I agree though lots to consider.
No Rock band, but my son is graduating next year with a degree in Business and Marketing and my daughter graduates this year with a likely First in Psychology. Both did French up to High School, but arent conversational fluent, my daughters boyfriend is French Canadian and is currently doing Business and Finance, his mum said she will make it her mission to have my daughter fluent by the end of her stay with them this summer :). Again, I know we will have a lot of hoops to jump through, but we will still have a base in the UK, so that will help if we have to return whilst sorting everything out.
That is excellent, it will give them a good start in France. But it does not shed any light on which visa they each hope to be eligible for. I do not think a person can for instance obtain an entrepreneur visa on the basis of a business that is set up and or operated operated by a parent. It has to be genuinely their own independent business.
If you move to France and you continue operating the business then you have no choice but to register your business activity here in one form or another as per the UK-FR tax convention and the French fiscal code.
I am a risk averse person and perhaps you are not but I would want to have a clear understanding of the visa issues and the business issues and a clear strategy for both before I moved on from dreaming to planning and investing.
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Depending on what they want to do they can create a family SARL, which should be acceptable.
Again depends on her plans as most jobs in psychology depend on perfect grasp of language.
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Well thank you again for the information, clearly it is going to be a complex move, because of the scale of it - e.g entire family, retirees, business, I dont think it will be easy and I can forsee a lot of business/family planning. I think it will be quite difficult for us to find the perfect property in the perfect location, even with a healthy budget!
@JaneJones we’ve literally just been discussing this very thing…
And while she may be fluent in Canadian French, this is not French French - as an acquaintance discovered when she moved here and assumed she would always understand and be understood.
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That sounds like an understatement. Am I right in thinking that this is going to to be a move for eight adults over three generations? Four retired, two needing to work and two adult students? That’s complex enough without the added complications like opening a new business from scratch, transferring a going concern from its U.K. base to France and the basic requirement of fit for purpose language skills. Complex indeed. I’m also worried by your confidence that your graduate children will find the move straightforward. Their position might well be the most challenging. They will need to get jobs and build their professional skills. That can be challenging in their own country where their qualifications are going to be recognised and language is not an issue. On the bright side the retired members of your group should find the process straightforward.
My original concerns that you may find renovating the outbuildings of a MH a lot harder than you expected have paled into insignificance. I live across the river from a château that is hidden in the trees. My land is overlooked by historic lands and there is a paragraph in the house paperwork explaining that certain renovations and even materials will not be allowed.
Good luck. Your visa applications should keep you busy for a while.
Yes that would work as long as it generates enough income to support a visa for each associate. If that means upwards of 80k for 4 associates the gites would need to do a lot of work.
I have no practical advice to offer, but just wanted to pop in a mention that while it may seem that people here are being critical of your plans, it’s all meant in a constructive spirit and to help you avoid pitfalls of which you may not be aware!
SF folks have been around the block a few times on this kind of stuff!
Bonne chance et bon courage!!
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“my son is graduating next year with a degree in Business and Marketing and my daughter graduates this year with a likely First in Psychology”
Just to let you know that these qualifications, unless passed in France, may well be worthless. France tends to not accept qualifications gained outside the EU.
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Absolutely! The written word is sonetimes a bit blunt. But sounds as if you have the motivatiom to get to where you want to be.
I agree, getting qualifications recognised is very complicated, and even with recognised qualifications it isn’t easy to get a job where you need to talk if your French isn’t properly fluent, ie C1 but ideally C2(and better). And of course there’s the cultural knowledge you need to avoid faux pas, France is definitely not “the UK but French-speaking”.
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@anon309411 we’re only at the thinking stage 
but:-
People: 3 retirees, 2 adults (parents of the two adult kids), 2 adult kids
Business: 1 existing business online
Mortgage: no mortgage needed
Re: children, this is the reason we are looking for a property with Gites, but we have decided now it has to be an established business, with financials to verify income. We have discussed with the children that initially they will work with us, become comfortable with the language first. My parents are still keeping their UK house so if they want to they can come back here.
If the situation is that you can’t have 2 businesses, I wonder if you could set up a limited (management) company as an umbrella for the gite and equestrian website business, then pay wages out of the limited company for the 4 people who will work. Anyway, for sure we’d have to get some professional help with it all.
We decided not to go for the MH listed house, due to location.
Happy days and lots of headaches ahead!
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You need to take a joined up look at the business setup and the visa requirements.
Brits do not have the automatic right to take salaried work in France. The employer needs to obtain a work permit so that the employee can apply for a visa salarié. To get the work permit the employer must demonstrate that they have tried and failed to recruit an EU worker hence they need to employ a third country national. The fact that the person the company wants to employ is a relative of one of the associates does not bypass this process. All new employees must be declared and registered for social security, tax etc and in order to complete that process you need to provide proof of their right to work in France, or computer say Non.
I think it is time to get professional advice, identify your options and then decide which option suits best. Starting from the other end - deciding what you want to do and how you want to do it before you’ve established whether or not it is an options - risks causing a lot of frustration.
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As an agent, I would suggest you visit the property in question before doing ANYTHING else: there may be a motorway at the end of the garden (this happens: ask the poor neighbours to the new A69), or a city dump, or a stream with a tendency to overflow … and that’s even before you enter the property. I don’t know about Nevers but I love the Morvan (to the east of Nevers) where there are some great forests, mushrooms and very few people.
No one has yet mentioned the new fiscal changes that are coming in: much smaller allowances for costs when running gites … and more taxes to be paid. Down where I work (Occitanie) a lot of gite owners are selling up as they fear they will be taxed out of existence. The idea was to punish AirBnB gougers in the big cities … but the new laws will punish hundreds of poor gite owners in La France Profonde as well.
To summarize: find a solution to the VISA problem first. Then visit the property (and its region) and ask hundreds of questions. Then ask yourself if you’d really prefer to be in the Nivernais … or somewhere a bit warmer like Occitanie or Nouvelle Aquitaine.
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@Jane Jones did earlier in the thread.
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Thanks for the info, yes we will definitely visit, I’m talking to the agent tomorrow. I will definitely ask them about allowances. We have the same issues in the UK, lots of buy to let landlords are getting hammered out of existence.
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Thank you: I stand corrected
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It was worth repeating. 
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I do not know that an estate agent is the best person to ask. Fiscality is not their core expertise and I doubt they could be held responsible for any advice they give.
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