France Expat Forum

caramellos
Joined 2015
Posts: 5

7 years ago

Purchasing a house

7 years ago

Hi again,

My partner and I are homeowners in the UK, and while he grew up with the concept that flat living was the way to go and big cities were preferable, after having found enjoyment in the sleepy village near a big city nature of our current location and feeling the frustration of confined UK housing, we are certainly keen to purchase a house outside of Paris in a relatively nearby town or city.

We would like to know what sort of costs and hurdles we face in acquiring a mortgage, we are still a relatively young couple so while we are selling our house at a profit, we will still need a mortgage and would like to save some of the money we get for our daughter and other life events.

When playing with estimators online, we saw there was some ridiculous fee like 25,000 euros for a 300,000 euro home in Paris, does this hold true in the surrounding areas? Are we misinterpreting something? We viewed it as akin to a particularly egregious version of Stamp Duty at the time, but may just be ignorant of the process in general. How do mortgages and the process work in France?

We will also look to potentially add on to a property we purchase. In the UK this is relatively easy due to the popularity of former council housing and the lack of space otherwise, but my partner's parents mentioned struggling intensely to get a small building added to their vacation property in the west of France - is it difficult and expensive to simply get permission to extend one's house or modify the structure?

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