A couple of years off, but good to be prewarned…
I currently live in a band A terraced in Bristol so council taxes are about £1000 a year and I get a single person discount.
My hope is to move to a house on the Presqu’ile de Crozon or near there in Finistere - near the coast, garden at least 1000 sq M - hopefully more…
Maybe 2 or 3 beds …
I know that by many standards I’m fortunate, but my retirement income won’t be THAT much over the SMIC …
Yes, you will be in for a shock…
You’ll probably pay far less 
I agree with @graham , @verdoux - I am certainly paying considerably less and I had a house like yours in the UK
Really ?
I suppose it’s boomer guilt - and seemingly moving to a style of living I couldn’t get anywhere near in the UK …
Not that I mind paying taxes - the French income tax system will already be treating me well…
Part of the reason for wanting a large garden is to grow my own food so it’s win-win in any case …
I’m going to be marooned in second home-land with my neighbours being rather wealthy … … based on Google Earth I will be the only serious gardener in the area …
I agree with you on every count there @verdoux There are aspects of French life that are more expensive than the UK but, certainly in my experience, tax of any sort isn’t one of them.
When we moved permanently into what had been my “maison secondaire” until then, an important part of it was growing our own vegetables and we’ve done very well on that front - fruit too! Our supposedly generous pensions were robbed by various bodies so our income is now small. However, we have a good life here, with a great local community and a lot of support one way and another.
Unless you are very unlucky, I doubt if you will regret your move!
echoed…
@verdoux you’ll probably have a healthier lifestyle. less stress and live to a ripe old age enjoying watching the antics of your clucking clutch with the benefit of fresh eggs with which to barter…
We knew of a little old lady not far from here (in the Charente) who lived well in to her 90’s and could be seen tending her potager daily - fit as a fiddle!
Assuming I get shot of my manky house here, things indeed look very promising - especially now that the S1 healthcare reciprocity is back - that in itself for a while made me wonder if my project was over … and I will now not feel like a burden on the French whatever happens to my thankfully good health in the future …
I anticipate initially renting a small flat in Brest while I wait for my CDS and get my French up to speed …
And Brest itself looks like Bristol by the sea - but more like Paris - so I’m likely to enjoy living there while I find a house …
My fallback was Swansea …
Until last summer I lived by the sea in Finistère in a typical breton longère that had been changed in the 1950’s to add an upstairs floor and I also had another building the same size but not habitable upstairs comfortably that we used for storage etc and was not entirely finished downstairs. My annual foncières for all that on a parcel of 1000m² was under €300 but…I had a small lotissement built against my talus which cut the original foncières we paid before they built by 50%. Just before October last year I received a bill for foncières for the property I sold end of feb and it was for €1200. Well I had already paid for the two months prior to the sale in the previous year and was recompensed by the notaire but this was a shock. We could not contact the impôts at all, even ringing another office, they did not answer or fobbed us off with the reason I would have to go in but its 1200kms from here now so not possible. Anyway we sent a letter by LRAR with the exemption forms and have heard nothing since and the one time we did get through, it was met by the explaination that it was an error. I know the new owners were going to do works somaybe this is the reason but to still have me as the owner when it was sold 8months prior was a shock. Finistère coastal is expensive, the type and size of property you buy will determine the tax as will the type of commune you move to and their spending habits. If its a touristy commune with lots of shut up holiday homes, then expect to pay highly! Just seen you are in Brest, I was less than 40mins from there and did my shopping there regularly as my kids both had flats there whilst at UBO. My son’s inlaws lived in St.Martin and then Le Releque Kerhouan and the grandparents in Recouvrance.
From what I read recently, house prices in the UK are currently on the downward trend so offloading sooner rather than later might be an option to consider, perhaps - adjusting your budgeting accordingly - if that option is available to you.
We had consciously made the decision to move at least a year before we put our UK house on the market. We were fortunate, the market collapsed just about the time (or shortly after) we completed but if we had sold a year previously, we would not (possibly) have lost quite so much as we did in the perceived value at the time.
I’ve given up any plans to make the house habitable after 40 years doing very little, so I’ll be selling it for cash and I’m hoping I will be less affected than next door that sold STC for an insane price and has been stuck in a chain for 6 months …
It has a good roof at least - but needs an extension built and heating installed …
The biggest challenge has always been getting my accumulated stuff whittled down to the volume of a small storage unit …
I’ve recently been spurred along by my savings (I have far too much in the bank) being almost sufficient to buy a very nice house in the area …
Hi Verdoux
We have just sold our old family home in the Uk last year. Got what I thought was a very good price for it. Bought a newer smaller house to rent out. I would recommend you sell asap. All my contacts in the property market are anticipating a stalling or downturn in the market this year.
However you must do what is sensible for you.
Good luck
Andy
you just need to be brutal… we were and shed huge amounts of accumulated tat narrowing down “stuff” from a 6 bed house to what was really only necessary for a new lifestyle in France just for the two of us. We owned the field next door and had a huge bonfire over several days of stuff we couldn’t even give away to local charitable organisations.
Anything we needed after that, we got here.
In that case, may I please introduce my on-line course “how to deal with having too much in the bank”. The fees are very modest - just send me your bank details and I’ll do the rest.
Hi,
Like others, I’m sure you won’t regret moving here. It’s such a different way of life. So much less stress compared to the UK. I’m still a way off retiring (20 years to go!) but I already benefit from a hugely better work-life balance. None of that “keeping up with the Jones’s”. I genuinely can’t see myself moving back to the UK now.
I’m curious about you mentioning the CDS. I’d assumed you must already have an EU passport (Irish most likely). Is it actually a British passport that you’ve got? Can I ask how easy it was to get a visa?
You just need a garden big enough to bury your old Peugeot in 
No just a UK passport with visa still to apply for and I’m told that a key problem will be managing to actually arrange a rental property which will be a visa requirement along with minimum income and health insurance. I’m hoping it will be as early as 2024 two years from getting my state pension.
Somewhat nerve-wracking as if my visa was refused, I would basically be homeless with just a 6 month holiday on France.
Check out the VISA/CdS link in the top bar for further information on this. @fabien and his team are very experienced, reliable and well respected on SF - insurances services too as you will need to arrange health cover and public liability risks as a tenant.
Me too, had to give away tools, building materials, garden tools and over 150 steel UK scaffolding poles and clips to the village school for their “collecte de ferraille” for school funds. I sold stuff on LBC for very little, mainly to other artisans whom I knew would make good use of the tools but what was I going to do with it?? My neighbours did very well and their son took all the surplus planed wood to make a greenhouse and I gave the animal stuff away to other owners to make use of. I still ended up with five full removal boxes and had to throw stuff away after unpacking as I have no where to store it. Its amazing what you accumulate and keep"just in case" but I made the rule whereby if it had not been used within the last three years, it was to be binned apart from the kid’s belongings.
Visa applications usually work fine, especially coming from the UK, although this is France indeed and you should be prepared to go through quite a bit of paperwork. You need to have some kind of proof of address (could be living at a friend’s house even) and PHI. For PHI you can have a look at batle tested policies on www.fabfrenchinsurance.com in the medical insurance section
The average taxe foncière in Finistère is €749,69.
If you plan to apply for your visa once you reach state pension age then you can apply for your S1 and use this for your visa. Then if you meet the minimum income requirement, have an address (short term rental is fine, or even airbnb type thing) and promise not to work on French soil then there is no reason for your visa to be refused.
You will most likely request the VLS-TS, which is Visa Long Séjour - Titre Séjour which acts as a renewable residence permit. This must all be applied for before you arrive in France. You only get the permanent residence card after 5 years.