A story I have seen elsewhere about a young couple who came here to renovate and run gîtes, and didn’t get enough turnover to be able to renew their visas. And have now been given an OQTF - obligation de quitter le territoire françois.
As usual some curious aspects. “ They didn’t attend the hearing as were not allowed to leave the Dordogne”? Must have a very poor lawyer then!
And are planning on using the 90/180 allowance to return one at a time. I’m not sure that will be possible as if you are under an order to quit then not sure you are allowed back on French ground at all for 3 years.
I thought it curious too as from all accounts of others who have struggled with first year turnover it is unusual not to be given another year to sort yourself out. They seem to have done something that has royally annoyed the administration.
Unless this is also indicative of a general hardening of attitude to all immigrants.
I read this on The Connexion Website and came straight over here to see what the feedback was and if anyone here had found similar issue.
We’ve been considering a move to France, which would entail moving 8 family members (3 retirees) and 5 working age. Bringing our existing business over and adding a gite rental business to this, but the figures are tight and whilst we’d have approx 400-500k investment income from the UK and the businesses would make the rest, in my opinion we’ll certainly be needing the interest from the investment income for maybe 1-2 years - at least in part.
I’ve been keeping an eye on gite businesses and also the sheer number of gite or chambres d’hotes up for sale and its really giving me pause for thought. I’m wondering how many expats see this as a bit of a lifestyle dream that turns quickly into a nightmare. This article certainly puts a spanner in the works, so I’d be interested to hear from other gite owners as to their experiences.
We have just sold our house and gîte after 18 years having decided to retire. We enjoyed the whole process of renovating, setting up and running the gîte but to carry on would need a big refresh and change of direction which we don’t have the motivation for. But we don’t regret having done it.
It is more complex now as the financial breaks for rural gîtes have largely gone, and the french administration wants them to operate on the same basis as other rental properties so the reality is that single gîtes that people have mainly as a side hustle won’t be as easily viable to set up in the future.
But with careful research, proper business planning and a very tight control of budgets it’s doable. Tourism is a huge part of France’s economy so there’s the market out there, it’s just tougher than it used to be. And you need to offer something more than a rental unit full of Ikea furniture and a patio.
(edit - and there are a phenomenal number of holiday rentals of all types in France, so there will always be a big number for sale)
Oh, so they just missed applying before end of 2020 for WARP, came here and worked in the business approaching 3 years,; then applied for a 1 year visa which allowed them to work for a year ?? sadly that year being a lower turnover than needed?
As Jane says something does not add up here.
I guess they wouldn’t have been able to do a French tax return in any year in which they were not officially resident. Wonder if that or whichever organisation they’d have been paying their business’s cotisations to, if they had had a working visa and could have registered, couĺd have provoked prompt action? Is that URSAFF ?
Visitors who are resident declare and pay tax, so my guess is that they used the time to establish their business and then went for an entrepreneur visa at renewal. It seems it’s the renewal of that entrepreneur visa that sparked the problems.
The visa will have been based on a business which has to stand on its own feet. And if it doesn’t then no renewal. Peripheral income from pigs are not counted as the aim is for core businesses to be viable and sustainable in its own right. France doesn’t want bankrupt businesses. They only seem to have one small 2 person gîte (?) so how that could make enough to cover 2 people would be quite remarkable.
So I imagine their income is a lot further from the threshold than they are making out. If it had been close I really don’t think the authorities would have taken this step.
Nice idealistic people who want the rural dream, but sadly forgot to read the rules.
Yes. We used to get occasional posts on SF from people whose research was limited to watching, pre-Brexit, A Home in the Sunshine-type television programmes.
As for the couple in question, I wonder what sort of visa they had initially. Presumably it wasn’t an entrepreneurial one, in which case I think they must have been working illegally, trying to build up the business. Maybe that’s what got up the authorities’ noses.
I understand that, but they were actually running their business already.
But I’m still wrong! Their problem was that “their self-employment income had not been regular in their first year when they were on VLS-TS self-employment visas.”
They have obviously slipped up somewhere with their paperwork or just ignored it. Even back in the early 90’s when we started a business which was so much easier then, you still had to follow the set rules especially for tax,health,carte de séjour and official registrations and insurances for just about everything going. Maybe they ignored all that. Brexit, the gift that dosn’t stop giving!! With the animals side of things, they would have to register with the MSA, did they do that?
I’m sure i mentioned a while ago about the English woman in our local café complaining loudly on the phone that she’d (already) bought a fishing lake and her notaire had just told her that she needed a visa to stay in France and run a business. Then boldly stating that she didn’t think it was right that she had to do that just because of Boris Johnson and she wasn’t going to.
on grounds that their self-employment income had not been regular in their first year
Is there maybe a ‘lost in translation’ issue here, as irregular income may have two meanings, either ‘variable and possibly not sufficient’ or ‘obtained by irregular means’ ?
sold our house and gîte after 18 years having decided to retire. We enjoyed the whole process of renovating, setting up and running the gîte but to carry on would need a big refresh and change of direction which we don’t have the motivation for. But we don’t regret having done it.