Lets give it a push
Our tobacco barn has troubled us since we arrived. It is big, at 20 metres by 12 metres, and quite close to the house and barn. It is useful for parking and storage, and sometimes these old wooden barns are renovated into gites. So we have spent five years trying to decide whether to smarten it up or demolish it.
Every time we decide to get it knocked down, along comes someone else to talk about heritage, and oak beams and the like. But this time we’re going to be tough, and get it knocked down anyway. We don’t want to spend money maintaining it, and we are trying to make a clear divison between the house and the barn, with the theoretical possibility that we could sell one half and keep the other half for ourselves.
Either now, or in many years time, I’m not bothered either way, but sooner or later.
At the moment the two halves of the property are equally attractive, but the big barn is likely to deter any potential purchasers. Who would buy the house and cottage half of the property when we could, in principle, then add two big gites looking over their boundary fence?
Anyway, remote as the possibility may be, it has prompted enthusiastic discussions in the family about whether we would prefer to sell the barn and live in the house, or vice versa. Currently we have a split vote. Two of us want to move back into the house where we lived for our first three years in France, and two of us want to stay in the barn where we have lived for the last two years.
And none of us are sure whether we would prefer to sell the whole property as a gite complex and buy a new ‘project’. Mrs B insists any new house has to be within walking distance of our local town (as we are now) which limits the possibilities enormously.
Let me know if you want to buy a house and cottage, or a lovely barn conversion! In reality since we haven’t spoken to an estate agent (I can’t bring myself to agree to their 7% charges) we are likely to be here for many years to come.
Anyway, this morning someone came around to give us a demolition quote for the old wooden barn, which will mean that we will have plenty of firewood for a couple of years at least, wherever we end up living. And enough lintels to last a lifetime.
Which brings me to the title. demolition will cost about 5000 euros, so plenty of astonished locals ask us why we don’t either push it down, or set fire to it, and save ourselves a load of money. Trouble is, I don’t really know the answer.
Why would you want to PAY to get it demolished? I’m sure that a few euros of petrol and a match would work wonders and probably be a much more French way of doing it anyway
The estate commission seems to be on a sliding scale: 3% is more typical.
One thing to watch though is that, ideally, you should sell whatever property you’re living in as that means zero Capital Gains Tax vs something somewhat more substantial if you sell a business property (ie a gite).