Hi, We now have an offer on UK house and will be house hunting in France next week. Question is when to apply for VLS-TS visa. Will the fact that the purchase of French property is progressing i.e. at promis de vente stage be sufficient for the accomodation requirement in the visa application or would it need to be after acte de vente is signed?
Thanks Jane and everyone else who replied. I have a friend who owns a place near Bordeaux. He set up a company with other family members. He is happy to give me any paperwork needed for the visa application. So my next question is what do I ask him for? If a rental agreement, how long for, headed notepaper? Other details? Cost? Obviously I don’t want visa denied because they don’t like the paperwork. Reason I’m asking is that my friend Eric wont charge me as he wants his place looking after as his sister who is living there now is moving out. And he wants some tiling done LOL.
Others with direct experience will comment no doubt, but my understanding is that you have to have an actual French address in order to apply for the visa.
You could wait until you have bought your house, but then of course there is a risk (however small) that the visa could be denied, leaving you with a house you can only visit for 90 days at a time!
What I am planning to do, and I think this is the most common solution, is rent somewhere for 3 months (with an option to extend, ideally) and then apply for the visa - I can then house-hunt while my application is in progress, and worst case scenario if I don’t get a visa I can return to the UK and rethink, without being out too much money,
We found our house in March, signed the compromis in April, the acte definitive in September and moved in November. I applied for the visas before September and our interviews were very shortly after the acte definitive.
As @ChrisMann says, you need to prove a French address for the visa. We had something from the notaire, plus of course the acte definitive.
My impression was that the company dealing with the visa application was pretty speedy, but that may be because it was a quieter time.The key thing is to get every document listed, ideally a copy for each of you (though the very kind lady in Edinburgh photocopied reams for us because `I hadn’t realised we needed a copy of the bank statements, etc, per person). We seemed to impress them - which led to a much smoother process - by having everything in the right order. All about us, it seemed, were people arguing the toss about why they didn’t have and didn’t need what was requested.
Agree with others that you need a real address, not a compromis de vente. It can be a 3 months seasonal rental or even an attestation from friends who are putting you up (with their ID), so nothing too demanding.
Visa processes seem to be quicker these days, and I recall you can’t apply too early anyway. So concentrate on finding the perfect place for now.
As a cautionary tale (but not to terrify you, 'cos they were idiots!) up until a few months ago I was watching a YouTube channel started by an Anglo-American couple who bought a very run-down farmhouse in Normandy and started doing it up, all while their entrepreneur visa applications were pending (it wasn’t made clear at what point they actually started that process).
Anyway, the renovations (and the YouTube channel) ended abruptly when their visa applications were denied and they had to give up and buzz off back to the USA.
Clearly they did things arse-about-face, which was daft.
Anyhow, good luck with your move, I’m sure you’ll be fine!
My husband and I did things arse-about-face, which was indeed daft, but in our case we lucked out. We had planned on doing things quite differently, but life happened. We sold our house in the northwest of the US, drove south to San Francisco, attended our visa appointments, had our dogs checked by a USDA vet, and drove across the US to Newark, New Jersey (where we planned to leave the country with the dogs). We had, of course, left our passports in San Francisco with the visa folks. We didn’t know if our visas had been approved until we got to Newark. Luckily, we were approved, and a couple of days later, our dogs’ paperwork arrived as well. So we happily got on the plane and came to France. Had we not gotten our visas, our plan was to get on the plane anyway (we knew that our passports would at least have arrived in NJ) and spend our 90 days here figuring out Plan B. Stupid, yes, but it worked. We don’t call ourselves “partners in misadventure” for nothing.
Thanks Jane and everyone else who replied. I have a friend who owns a place near Bordeaux. He set up a company with other family members. He is happy to give me any paperwork needed for the visa application. So my next question is what do I ask him for? If a rental agreement, how long for, headed notepaper? Other details? Cost? Obviously I don’t want visa denied because they don’t like the paperwork. Reason I’m asking is that my friend Eric wont charge me as he wants his place looking after as his sister who is living there now is moving out. And he wants some tiling done LOL.
Totally off-topic, but whereabouts in Orkney are you?
Back in my student days (Archaeology & Ancient History, Univ. of Birmingham) we used to come up to Orkney every summer for three weeks to excavate Pictish and Viking sites in Deerness on Mainland - the Foubister family farm at Skaill - hopefully the family are still there!
We even had a visit from Magnus Magnusson and his TV crew one year as we were digging a Viking longhouse where one of the Viking Earls of Orkney was murdered - it’s in the Icelandic Sagas.
I loved Orkney (though I suspect I wouldn’t love it so much in the winter!) Haven’t been back since though - gosh it’s 45 years…
I seem to recall we did a day trip to Rousay one year - we always used to take some time out from digging to go and visit places like the Stones of Stenness, Maes Howe, Brough of Birsay, etc.
The amount of history in the Islands is incredible.
On a different subject.
Been going through everything we need for Carte de sejour later after 1st year. I am worried about the medical exam as I have an arrhythmia. Don’t want to be refused a Carte.
Again, others will know more about this, but from what I have read it’s just a basic check to make sure you don’t have some horrible plague that will decimate the population of your region.
And from this article it seems that often they don’t even do much in the way of an exam:
Read the Local article, the last paragraph is reassuring
" Can you fail the medical?
Within the law there is no provision for people to be denied a visa or residency card on the basis of their medical - if you are found to have a communicable disease such as TB you will be offered treatment, and may be required to quarantine, depending on the nature of the illness.
The only time this could affect residency is if a disease is found that is clearly incompatible with the purpose of your visa - although in this case it would start with a call to your employer. This is extremely rare.
Not sure if I could handle that much stress, I like to plan things…