We've made THE decision - we're moving to France

Hello all
We’ve made our decision to move to France. To do this we will need to sell our UK home and our thoughts will be to rent a property in France to allow us time to find the ‘right one’.

It’ll be my husband and I and two doggies and we are looking to buy in the Vendee area (somewhere between Nantes and La Rochelle). We’d like to buy somewhere rural or on the edge of a village with scope to maybe have a very small B&B but we are generally moving to France to retire.

Our aim is to get our property here in the UK ready for sale over the next few months and then put it on the market in early Spring 2018 with the hope of selling it and completing by this time next year (you know how long it takes for conveyancing in UK …) - I am an estate agent so realise it could take longer than this to sell our house but am being optimistic that it’ll sell quickly.

We will also sell as much of our household stuff as possible in the UK, bringing only as little as possible with us.

I’d love to hear from you guys especially with tips for the following topics:
a. Is our idea to sell up in the UK and rent in France a good one? If so, can you advise what do we need to do to find a place to rent, preferably in the countryside
b. Health - we both have pre-existing medical conditions which need medication. What do we need to do to register and would we need to take out medical insurance or would registering in the French health system automatically cover us for pre-existing conditions?

There are a million other subjects we need to ask about and I am so pleased to have found this site (recommended by a friend who has already moved to France).

Your help would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks everyone.
Carol

Well…why not!
We arrived almost ten years ago in 33 and we are almost Dordogne…almost.
We tried to move on…leave our beautiful house and income and move on…had a buyer
but we said “NO” and decided to carry on enjoying this extraordinary beautiful countryside and interesting mix of people.
We go back to UK to visit…
Yes travel as light as you can when you come over.
Try to have some more time in the area of your choice…just to be sure.
Good luck with your adventures and if you want to read about other b and b ers have
a look at “lay my hat” forum.

Renting first is an excellent idea in my opinion. Having said that, it may be easier said than done, but it should be easier to find somewhere to rent in the countryside rather than in a town.

[quote=“Hobbers, post:1, topic:16767”]
Health - What do we need to do to register? [/quote]
Your route to healthcare depends on your status in France. Will you come here as EU pensioners, ie receiving your UK state retirement pensions, or will you be early retired or “inactif” as the French call it? But if you’re not moving until 2018 it may also depend on the terms of Brexit so I think you need to build in flexibility, just in case.

Hi Barbara. Thank you very much for your response and for your excellent information. We are very much looking forward to this new adventure and will also look into the other b&b forum you suggested. Best regards, Carol

Hi Anna. Thank you so much for the info. Brexit is very much an unknown quantity at the moment. My husband (who is currently 62) is retired but I am still working in UK (I’m 52) but don’t plan to work in France except for possibly running a small b&b if the property we buy allows it. We will look more into the health aspect. Re. renting, we have no knowledge at all about how to go about this in France and whether it will be feasible but if worst comes to the worst, we do have several friends who own homes in France that we may be able to ask if we can use their place as a long-term informal let. Thanks so much. Regards, Carol

post deleted - brain not working this evening.

well good luck.

Thank you.

Ok, thank you.