Great news, Brian.
Have you got the necessary permissions for the work you will be doing on your house ???
(Some folk get carried away with the excitement and forget some of the first basic steps…) 
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Hi Stella we have outline planning permission (CU) from when we first purchased, and le bureau du maire was brilliant in saying they considered the house and barn to be one residence. And we could pretty much do what we like inside. We know we have to apply for planning permission to put in the new windows and have to submit a form for putting in the velux windows in the roof. But this is where also having this new builder comes in so handy.
He has put us in contact with a man who will do all our plans and planning applications and will deal with the Marie etc. He has also put us in touch with another guy who will do all the Fosse work including the site meetings with SPANC etc. So it’s all working out brilliantly so far. Don’t worry though I have no intention of starting any works before we have the necessary plans and permissions in place. But we needed the quote for the work so we can apply for the renovation mortgage.
Enthusiasm is one thing we have, stupidity we hope we can avoid!
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Wishing you all the best, with your huge project. No wonder you both are so excited, a super bargain and a excellent quotes on the work, I think I’d be a bit anxious to hand over the entire project to one guy, but I know nuthin! So will just hope, that it all goes according to your plans. So many interesting different bits of barn and house.!!! .must tell you…my first house …a bit bigger than my current “mill”, looked very 1900s not old at all, but needing lots of reno. Pals came over from Wales to help me, and it was soon quite comfy…but the inner, supporting wall, was a bit of a mystery…it was HUGELY thick over 3ft? Not 1900s.
Eventually, of course, the penny dropped, my house must have been first built about 2 or three hundred years before. And on investigation of that curious wall, I found a dear little archway, covered by old plaster…with a very ancient stone step that had been worn away by hundreds of years of clogs, I think!
It had a ghost, too!
Then I found its old door, too, an oak, heavyweight, abandoned, in the barn, that fitted the archway perfectly. Your property looks as if it has so many secrets to tell! I feel very happy with you, and wish you lived next door!
53k does sound pretty good if it’s a substantial roof and includes replacing carpentry where needed, and all the add-ons (scaffolding, removing junk off-site, crane, etc etc). I think ours (incl 6 velux) cost around 130/m2.
Yes Jane it’s a fully costed quote, and a fixed price to. Including all the scaffold etc, replacement of entire roof and he will also replace any visible timbers in oak. He’s leaving all the slate and oak on are farm as we want it so thats saved on removal cost of that. We are going to use the slates and break them up to use on the paths and to recover the bake house and bread oven. I think we are getting around 280 sq m of new roof in total. So I think it’s pretty damn good for that price. With all the pointing etc to think we are getting a good deal.
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Hi Jeanette so where abouts are you located? I have slowly been uncovering the history of the house. As we have a blocked in arch in the front to and our stone door arches didn’t make sense, then I realised that the door jams are on the inside and the doors are on the outside so then I worked out those stone doorways have been reused in the barn and I believe formed the doorways in another part of the house which I believe may have been destroyed in a fire. I think my house was originally a longere with our farmhouse being the original cottage and at what is now the stone barn that goes at a right angle I believe was added in after the fire. There are signs of burning on the walls and the roof has been heightened indicating the original may have been thatched. The area that burnt down was I think the animal barn. The stone arch was a passageway I think led to a stable or animal pens. With a hayloft above. Then they rebuilt it to add a right angled barn with a rear courtyard as was the later fashion. I have also discovered that what I was was a grasses rear garden is actually granite cobbled underneath it’s just been overgrown by the grass. So still lots to discover yet!
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Wow Brian that is bad news - time to go back to the Mairie with a clean slate and see what would be accepted?
Gosh, Brian… 
Firstly, the house was sold as “habitable” - so I cannot see how/why you should not be able to live in it.
Possibly, there is something misunderstood or lacking in the Application… and the “powers that be” have come down on it like a ton of bricks.
As @Mat_Davies says - straight back to the Mairie and ask for their help.
The Mayenne is a lovely part of France and I do hope this can be sorted out.
Our planning consultant is a professional and has dealt with many of these, he says the “within a 100m of active agricultural building’s” clause is the killer, as unless we can persuade the farmer to make a declaration the buildings won’t be used for such purposes it is nigh on impossible to get around unless we bought them off him and declared them so. As he uses them all the time I think this is highly unlikely. So now we just have to wait for the planning consultant to unravel what’s what as a lot of it makes no sense. He says
“I now find the situation very confusing! Why was an CU d’Information requested a month after a full CU Operationnel was requested? Also, I fail to understand the mention of a delay of two months having expired. I am also concerned that if the barn is within 100 metres of an agricultural building, then so is the existing house. Is the existing house habitable? If not, then this might also be included in the refusal.”
There was no indication from the agent that the house was not habitable under law, indeed it was sold to us as a remarkable renovation opportunity and marketed as such! And the agent also informed us on the day of completion that the CU had been granted and we were able to pretty much do as we please with the place. Including converting the barn. Sadly this information was on the way back from the Notaire following completion when we called in to the Marie and she picked it up. However even more confusingly the CU refusal was passed and signed on 02 February, we completed on 21 January. So either the agent blatantly lied to us, or there is some kind of real confusion here! And we don’t know yet if we have any form of redress here!
Possibly you have redress against the Agent - as I say, ask at the Mairie and then perhaps the Notaire can clarify if it was stated at the Sale that the permission had been granted.
Is your planning consultant French? if not, is he really fluent ??
What’s baffling me is - did the planning consultant view the property or the cadastre? Neither the property nor the neighbouring agricultural building has moved so why did he not immediately flag up the proximity issue instead of waiting for the authorities to point it out? It’s by no means an obscure rule, you don’t need to be an expert to be aware of it.
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Like Anna I’m baffled why he didn’t pick this up when you first contacted him? I would question whether you have redress against him for rubbish advice?
But don’t despair yet, there are often ways round things if you talk to people and keep communicating.
And the barn conversion?
Can go ahead they have classed the barn as a extension habitable accommodation so we can in their words she said do what we like. We will if course make clear our intentions in the planning so we have covered ourselves but I’m hopeful all is OK.
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@Brian_Wheeler please can you change your Registration.
You seem to be back to front…
Your full name is surely Brian Wheeler ? Your username is anything you choose. You seem to have a capital A as your “full name” at the moment…
I can change them around for you, if you like… ???
Glad to hear all is sorted 