Let there be light!

And lo! there was light.

The electrician came. Our bathroom now has a light in - and it's even one that's safe to use in bathrooms, unlike the very pretty one we have before, which even without a leak upstairs apparently wasn't safe to use in bathrooms. Awesome. I love it when people try to kill their tenants for the sake of aesthetics.

Anyway, it's fixed now and we can see again.

Door is also fixed, and boiler is certified as safe. Our flat is now almost perfect.

Tree chopping person is supposedly coming later to sort out the tree outside our window - I'm more bothered by the mattress and carpet bits outside, to be honest, but they scare me too much to try lifting them. Creepy crawly things live in carpets outside, I'm not going near them. The council will get rid of them. (Hopefully.) Maybe the tree people will help...

Read more...

Finding a flat in Nice

I have had a request! (There are people who actually read this! I'm shocked!) I've been asked to explain how we found our flats - which is a good idea, and one I should have written about before. Thank you for the prompt, Martin.

The first flat, we found through Anglo-Info.com (on their rental properties board) -I recommend starting looking there, since it's one of the few places I've found that allow landlords and tenants to talk to each other directly, without having to go through an agent. Which means you avoid honoraires (agency charges) - normally a month's rent. It's also helpful if you don't speak a lot of French (and Anglo Info in general has some helpful articles on living in France, if you can wade through their crap website design.)

Another website to consider, particularly if your French is better, is De Particulier a Particulier - this is more use if you're in Paris, where they have lots of properties (we found at least one of our Paris flats through PAP), but they do have some properties in the Provinces...

The flat we currently live in, we rented through an agency - we'd been looking for flats in Villefranche since we first saw the place, and seloger.com came up with this one, along with the contact details for the agency managing it.

You will need quite a lot of pieces of paper to rent somewhere in France - as with most things in France, actually. Passport (or ID card), proof of income - you are supposed to only rent somewhere that costs 1/3 of your income, and agencies check - proof of your last address (be warned that agencies, particularly, may contact your old landlord for a reference). Probably some other things I'm forgetting, I'll add to this if I remember them...

Price - I've just noticed Martin particularly asked about prices. €550 a month is a cheap 1 bedroom flat in a fairly dodgy part of Nice; prices go up from there. Posh parts of Nice tend to be around €850-1000 a month - you should check whether charges are included (charges compris) or not. If they are, check what that actually means. Usually, it means water (and sometimes gas, if they're using gas) is included, but electricity is not, and taxes are not. But this varies - where we are now, all charges including electricity and taxes are included. So it's definitely worth checking.

Outside of Nice, prices vary. Villefranche is more expensive than Nice, possibly because there are less grubby bits. Monaco is shockingly expensive. If you can afford to live in Monaco, you probably don't need my advice, because you can afford to pay someone to do it all for you. Beausoleil is a slightly cheaper alternative to Monaco proper, but that's not saying a lot.

I'll add to this as I think of more things to say. Martin - and indeed, anyone else who is reading this - if there are specific questions you want me to answer, let me know either in the comments or by email...

Read more...