Renovation Project - How to open a B&B in France
This maybe a bit of
a belated post but we are finally there! So thought that it may be
useful to let you know how we did it. It may have been more useful
knowing this information before we started as apparently we left
things to the very last moment and the B&B may have been refused,
now that would've been rather upsetting after all the work we put
into it!
Please remember that
the following guidelines are based on our experience in Huelgoat,
Finistere, Brittany. The process may be different in different parts
of France so always check before following advice from non official
sources (including this one)
The first step is to
actually obtain permission to open a B&B, and as with most things
in France you need to visit your local Marie. this process was
reasonably simple, it would've been very simple had I been able to
speak french better! it took a little while but all the words were
there and I managed, I was actually rather proud of myself at this
point.
This is the very
first step to opening a B&B and should be completed before
anything else, before the renovations, before you buy your
furnishings and definitely before you set up your website, because if
the Marie says no, then there will be no B&B. We realised this
quite late on!
However it would be
quite strange for a Marie to say no, we do not want you to bring more
tourism to our town, contribute to our economy and pay more taxes but
it is better to be safe than sorry.
There were two forms
to complete, but these were only one page each. The forms were
called:
DECLARATION EN MARIE
DE LOCATION DE CHAMBRE D'HOTE
and
Recepisse de
declaration en marie de location de chambre d'hote
Both forms are very
simple and once completed they are to be returned to the Marie and
you wait for a response.
Once they have been
agreed, and signed and stamped you will receive them in the post.
So we are all set to
open up, the next step is to register with the local tourist board.
Again a very easy process (well it would've been easy if we had known
the tourist office had moved whilst work was being completed!) once
we found it we went in and had to arrange for a visit, unfortunately
they have no visits before we left for the UK, so we book in for our
return.
Our date is set and
when she arrives we sit and complete the forms, we have great fun
doing this as her English is not the best so we help each other
along, I speak French and she speaks English with each other
correcting each other. Luckily she is really impressed and happy with
the B&B so is willing to put us on the tourist website. There is
a cost of 100 Euro’s and we have to e-mail some photo's over later
in the evening.
If the tourist
office are not happy with your B&B they will not advertise it!
Next step is to make
sure we have public liability insurance, we have found a fantastic
insurance broker in our local town who is able to discuss all of our
insurance needs, the liability insurance is so much less than we
expected, which was a nice surprise. This is mainly because France
has not joined the lets sue everybody brigade.
We have had an
appointment with an accountant to look at our tax regime and will be
making an appointment with the local tax office to register under the
appropriate tax scheme. There are so many tax schemes in France that
you will need to take official advice as to the most appropriate
scheme for you.
So we are now
registered and really ready to go everything is in place or so we
thought, I have just realised that we have not registered the B&B
at the office for our tax fonciere, I will let you know how this goes
when we go to the office.
I hope this helps
anybody considering opening a B&B in France, it may seem daunting
at first, but we have found the process so much easier than we
thought it would be. Just remember to get the permission early
on!!!!!!!
.JPG "The Alchemist, Manchester uk")
