Yes, lot's of people have. But then, you could probably have answered that question yourself. LOL

So what was the question you really wanted to ask and why did you want to ask it?

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00abuse

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OldPro,
I can always count on you to make me laugh.... I guess what I really want to know is:

Has anyone encountered difficulties with the town ( commun) renovating a historic or listed building, and what were the problems?

Merry Christmas!

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00abuse

two general types of issues... first, there will always be disgruntled contractors that didn't get any work from you, so you must cross all T's, etc. Knowing what those issues are is often the challenge. The other side of this is the historical review people, which vary widely from region/provence. I personally did a lot of work on my Abruzzo house which sits in the middle of the Centro Storico, but simply got lucky as none of my neighbors complained. Given that this is the town of my ancestors helped, but I know plenty of people that got burned for lack of permits and reviews, so my suggestion is to find an english speaking mentor to guide any project...

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00abuse

Well, the answer to your second question is, wait for it...................
yes, people have encountered problems of various kinds.

But again, I bet you could have answered that yourself lifelover. ;-)

I think I can now guess what the question is that you should really be asking.

'Should I contemplate buying and renovating a historic building?'

The answer to that is MAYBE. It depends on whether you see the reward of doing so as greater than the risk of doing so. Most decisions come down to 'risk vs. reward'.

Should you rob a bank? Maybe, if you can expect to get away with a million or two. Should you risk if for $100? Of course not, the reward is not great enough.

So with renovating a historic property, you have to look at the risks vs. the reward. That is difficult to do unfortunately. For one person the reward might be quite high. They just love the idea of living in a 16th century townhouse perhaps. For someone else, it would just be an OLD building. Only you can decide how great the reward would be to YOU.

On the risk side, you can perhaps be a bit more analytical and practical. You look at a building and then you go and ASK what you can expect in terms of building permits etc. What restrictions if any you will have to meet. Who can oppose your plans. How long it generally takes to get planning permission and so on. What the potential cost of renovation would be based on at least 3 WRITTEN estimates by reputable contractors.

These are all the same things that the prudent person would do in their home country. Then you have to add on the additional risk involved with being in a foreign country where you do not know what you know in your home country.

Would I personally buy a historic property and renovate it? No, never. But for ME the reward would simply never be great enough to justify the risks. I'm just not a particular fan of old properties.

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00abuse

I have another thought for you Lifelover.

I have owned several classic cars over the years. A somewhat similar situation in some ways to a 'classic building'.

I have learned two things about buying classic cars. One, it is better to buy one that is already restored.

This is because an individual who buys and then restores themselves or pays to have it restored, RARELY if ever does not end up selling at a loss IF they ever decide to sell.

Two, you must have a restored classic car inspected by a classic car SPECIALIST, not by an ordinary auto mechanic before you buy it. An ordinary mechanic does not know as much as a classic car specialist knows to look for.

I would be inclined to use those 2 same criteria if I were thinking of buying a 'classic' building.

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10abuse