Lay My Hat

I thought you had to be resident to be ME but it seems the rules have been changed since I moved from micro bic in 2011. These links might help: https://www.french-property.com/guides/france/business/micro-entrepreneur https://www.impots.gouv.fr/portail/professionnel/questions/je-ne-suis-pas-residen...

We have been with ING in France for 3 years as their charges are lower than the traditional banks here. They are legit!

My original thought was to keep the practical side that I already do as an hourly rate, and the the new admin part as a percentage of the rental. It's a 4 bedroom/2 bathroom apartment in town so no pool or garden to deal with, but most bookings are 2-4 nights which as you all know would be the same ...

I think you should maybe charge by the hour, or part thereof, plus expenses (and maybe a modest annual retainer). You could get yourself one of those timers that lawyers use and just get into the habit of recording the time of every interaction, phone, email or physical. I don't know what would be a...

Until 2015 we owned gites and did a little caretaking on the side for second homes nearby. Then we sold the gites and the caretaking became our primary activity, some houses are only used by the owners and some are rented out but we have only been involved in the practical side - cleaning, laundry, ...

You have nothing to lose by enquiring at least!

We have also benefitted from the free lightbulbs! We have also used the insulation scheme. Last autumn we were looking at the prices of loft insulation for our combles perdus and stumbled across this page https://www.leroymerlin-isolation.fr/ . After the initial assessment we were deemed to be too r...

We don't ever get official tips, but we do have a tips jar for the pennies we find under the bed - just for a laugh!

Our experience of French neighbours' and friends' homes is that generally they like to keep the place as warm as they can (24° is not uncommon) and walk around in light clothing, even t shirts, during the winter. We could never get our old house warmer than 18° so we didn't have many willing visitors!

One way to ensure quality is maintained, employ an ex-gite owner! Having sold our gites we are now full time caretakers of other people's second homes, some rented out, formerly it was a sideline. The very high standards have obviously stayed with us - but I echo the earlier post, getting some owner...

Hi Bob We are just across the water from you in Blaye. A couple of years ago my parents wanted to take our kids somewhere close for a week and I suggested Hourtin. Once I started looking for a rental, 2 things became apparent - the prices were high, even for a tiny place; and the resort is mainly fr...

My first csg bill was totally unexpected and a huge shock, I didn't really understand what it was. Looking at the small print I took it to be a tax on 'unearned' income which apparently gite income is, also it is levied on interest on savings and the like. The bills are still huge but at least I am ...

I second most of that!

We do spell out what we would like done but they still ask the question - that was my point!

I usually seek the guests out on the last day to confirm what time they will be leaving. The frequent question this year has been, "How clean should we leave the gite when we go?" How do you answer that one? Bearing in mind that the housebook asks people to leave it as they find it (which ...