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~ A fairy-tale cottage by the Seine in Normandy

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Monthly Archives: November 2011

Five reasons to buy in France

29 Tuesday Nov 2011

Posted by chaumierelesiris in France, Property in France

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Buying a house in France, Notaire, Property

Everyone gave us reasons not to buy a house in France. The impenetrable legal system. Totalitarian mayors. Unthinkable plumbing and sewage systems. The Euro! (This last, in retrospect, was probably the best reason). Everyone we knew seemed to have a friend who had had terrible trouble with a property transaction in France. Practical strangers volunteered their (mostly negative) opinions. We had bought and sold homes in London, never in France. London had not been easy. We expected the worst.

In the event, the transaction couldn’t have gone more smoothly. (I have written elsewhere about the bits that were difficult – finding the right house in the first place, and dealing with the French bank.) There are many places where you can read about the legal process of buying a house in France, including FrenchEntrée, Angloinfo and French Connections. Here are some of the books we found helpful:

These are the five top things we most enjoyed about the transaction.

  1. No gazumping! Rather wonderfully, the written purchase offer, the offre d’achat, prevents the seller from showing the house or considering any other offers after yours has been accepted. Having been gazumped (outbid after our offer was accepted) a few times in London, this started things out on a positive footing, for once.
  2. No surveyor! Surveyors feature prominently in London property exchanges, though it remains unclear to me what value they add. The sale price never seems to change, no matter what horrors the surveyor finds in the house you are buying. And there is always something that is not discovered by the surveyor – the boiler, inevitably, breaks down beyond repair the week after you move in. In France, our seller had kept excellent records of all works done on the cottage. He was a retired builder from Paris’s 16th arrondissement, and he had looked after the cottage carefully. Moreover, the French legal system requires the seller to secure independent reports on heating, electrics, asbestos and much more. Those reports were more thorough than anything we had paid a surveyor for in London.
  3. No lawyers! In UK property transactions, every step you take, every move you make is a legal one. The lawyers wrangle over which surveys can be done and which appliances are included in the sale and what will be done on which date. In France, property exchanges are overseen by the notaire, a public official who conducts searches, prepares documents, and collects the taxes. The same notaire acts for both parties. The process is heavily regulated and requires extensive disclosures from the seller, meaning we didn’t need a lawyer to secure the right documentation or set an appropriate timeline.
  4. Meet the notaire! In the UK, completion is purely a legal act, done by fax and email. It is quite possible that you might never meet the seller in the flesh. (They are running away before you discover all those faults the surveyor didn’t spot). In France, the Acte de Vente is an event. The buyer and the seller meet at the notaire’s office. Our notaire was based in a low-slung, modern building near the centre of a market town. The entrance had the feel of a GP’s office, but inside the corridors and offices were lined with traditional glass-fronted mahogany book cases that were stuffed from floor to ceiling with fat, ancient legal texts. The notaire was youngish, very tall, and utterly professional. During the previous weeks he had proven particularly effective at convincing French bank clerks to do their jobs in a timely manner. Intriguingly, there was no sign of a computer in his office. The huge desk which stretched diagonally across the room, leaving the rest of us an odd triangular space in which to arrange ourselves, was entirely covered with untidy stacks of case files. The meeting lasted about an hour. The notaire went through the paperwork section by section, checking that all was in order. Finally we all signed each page of the contract, and by the end my hand ached. And then we all shook hands with each other several times, and the notaire hurried us out and went off to greet his next appointment.
  5. Welcome home! Like sellers in London, estate agents tend to disappear from the scene once the exchange is done. In France, our estate agent – mid fifties, easy-going and athletic, always up for a drink and chat and never even a bit pushy – had made other arrangements. We would all, he announced, go back to the cottage after the completion. And so we did – the estate agent, the seller, as well as the seller’s daughter and granddaughter, a couple from down the street, and the children from next door. We drank champagne which the estate agent had arranged with the seller to chill at the cottage in advance. Boat on Seine, NormandyThere were candies and cakes for our children. Our seller, glass in hand, took us around the house again – showing us every light fixture, where the pipes were situated, how the electrics worked, hidden cupboards he had designed, and we could see how much he loved the cottage and how sad he was to leave. We knew he would be returning to the area for medical check-ups, and we invited him to visit when he did, and knew that he would. And then everyone left, and we walked down to the end of our garden and finished the champagne, watching the boats go past on the Seine.

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Off-Season Honfleur

19 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by chaumierelesiris in France, Normandy, Things to do, Travel

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Art, Carousel, Honfleur, Normandy, Quebec, restaurant, Travel

A few miles west along the Seine from our chaumiere is Honfleur, one of Normandy’s most picturesque fishing villages. Honfleur has long been important to Normandy, as a safe harbour during the Hundred Years’ War, then as a centre of maritime trade. French explorer and diplomat Samuel de Champlain, the founder of Quebec City, left for Canada from Honfleur in 1608.

HonfleurHonfleur

Today Honfleur attracts many tourists in the summer months. We have visited only in spring and fall, when it buzzes gently with weekending couples, and there’s enough watery sun shining for the restauranteurs around the rectangular harbour to keep a few tables outside.

Honfleur

This restaurant, right on the harbour, looks perfect for colder days: they provide a blanket on each chair to pull around your shoulders. We had a wonderful meal at the tiny Bistro des Artistes, which is on an upper floor of one of those tall buildings by the harbour. The menu is short but all freshly made. You access the restaurant from the street behind, and get a table by the window for a fabulous and unobstructed view out over the harbour.

Honfleur carousel

Honfleur is a lovely place to wander through. In the spring and summer there is an old-fashioned carousel by the harbour. (We are becoming aficionados of carousels in Normandy: there is another in Le Touquet which I have written about here.) There are many interesting shops to explore – gourmet food; incredible chocolate shops with elaborate seasonal creations in their windows; and a host of art galleries.

Honfleur galleryHonfleur gallery

We haven’t needed to stay overnight in Honfleur, but at this B&B, the proprietors were very kind when we needed to find a toilet for a toddler, quickly. It is set off the street around a charming courtyard, filled with flowers.

Honfleur shopLa Cour Sainte Catherine

There are many museums and historical sites in Honfleur. We haven’t visited most of them yet: we have been having too much fun eating and walking around. There are markers in the harbour recording the departure of Samuel de Champlain’s fleet. Quite striking and worth a look is the Eglise Sainte Catherine which, unusually for a large ecclesiastical building, is made entirely of wood. It was built by shipwrights in the 15th century, and the interior does have a nautical feel.

Samuel de ChamplainLavoir

We were fascinated by this public lavoir or wash house, fed by natural streams, up on the hill behind the harbour. It was closed on the day we visited, but is apparently still in use for much of the year.

Update: Here is a useful guide to Honfleur from The Telegraph: Honfleur, France: a cultural guide, 15 November 2011

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Good Neighbours

12 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by chaumierelesiris in Food, Les Iris, Normandy

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

bread, Food, London, neighbours, Normandy, village, Walnut bread, walnuts

What makes a good neighbour? In London, where we share the walls of our terraced house on both sides, and hear more intimate details of each other’s lives than anyone is ready to admit, a good neighbour allows you space. No obvious peering over fences; no comment about what may have been seen, the curtains you haven’t managed to hang after a year of living in the house, the unpruned hedge in your front garden, your children’s early morning violin practicing. A good neighbour offers to help with maintenance of shared walls and informs you of upcoming and noisy building works, but doesn’t pop round for a chat and a cup of  tea unless invited properly.

And then Normandy. Our whole village, spread out on the hillside, has a smaller population than one half of our street in London. On the village feast day they all gather for a meal in a tent by the river, dining on ripe cheeses and homemade fruit tarts at long trestle tables. When you meet neighbours along the road you greet and chat: 5 minutes at least, but more likely 10 or 15 minutes. You will be told if your hedge is felt to need pruning. People are popping in and out all the time. It’s never, never an inconvenience.

Recently our neighbours took delivery of some new furniture while we were away. Not only did they help get the furniture into the cottage: they also assembled it and arranged the living room, a wonderful surprise when we arrived, tired and late after long days at work on an October evening.

Walnut  Bread

And the next morning, a knock on our door and gifts. A basket of walnuts collected from their garden and, wrapped in a white linen napkin,  hot and sweet from the oven, a steaming loaf of just baked walnut bread.

I could get used to this kind of neighbourliness.

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Peacocks and Pelicans: Le Parc de Clères

05 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by chaumierelesiris in Normandy, Things to do, Travel

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Birds, Cleres, Gardens, Landscape design, Normandy, Zoo

I had read about the chateau and gardens at Clères in passing. It is mentioned for its interesting collection birds in guidebooks, and recommended as a good day out for families staying near Rouen. The Michelin Guide Normandygives it several stars, but doesn’t explain why. I was intrigued, and when we found ourselves wondering what to do on a cold, bright autumn morning in Normandy, we packed everyone into the car and headed towards Clères.

Nothing prepared us for quite how lovely Le Parc de Clères would be. During the 1860s the park was landscaped by the Comte de Béarn dans le style des parcs à l’anglaise. In 1919 Clères was purchased by zoologist Jean Delacour, who hired English Arts & Crafts garden designer Henry Avray Tipping. Delacour was a great traveller and collector, and in time Clères became a home for his collection.

And what a collection! Clères is famous for its birds but there are also mammals: peacocks, pelicans, cranes, ibis, gibbon, wallabies, antelopes and many more. Most live in the parkland in semi-freedom: there are few visible cages or barriers. It took us about two hours to walk around the gardens, with many stops to climb trees, watch flamingos balancing on their spindly legs and pelicans dipping their droopy beaks.

Parc de Cleres

We loved the juxtaposition of the historic chateau with these southern hemisphere mammals, lazing in the watery autumn sunshine.

The chateau, which was not accessible for visiting on the day we were there, is interesting too. There are buildings from many different periods, including medieval fortifications, a 16th century manor, and later additions.

CleresCleres

The town of Clères is charming and a short walk from the Park’s gate. There are several tea rooms and bars, perfect for a refreshment before the drive home. All in all an excellent, and inexpensive day out for our young family. Our reduced price tickets were 4 EUR each – a bargain compared to urban zoos in the UK which can cost over GBP 15 per person.

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