Buying off-plan in the Alps

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Buying an off-plan apartment or chalet can have many benefits. When I started out in this job (15 years ago) I thought that buying into a development should cost less than buying something you could see. I was focusing on the risk and the waiting time.

I was wrong though. Buying a brand new property generally comes at a slight premium. Compare it to buying a new car. You can specify everything to be just how you want it from the outset, you might have to wait a few months for delivery but then you’ll be the first to use it.

new build property in St Gervais
Appt. clos du Savoy in St Gervais, see link below for more info.

I’ve listed the advantages here:

  • Payment is in stages, staggered over the build.
  • There are lower notaries fees and stamp duty (2.5% vs about 8% on anything but off-plan properties)
  • The latest buildings are much cheaper to run thanks to the eco-legislation in place in France.
  • You can normally adjust the specifications to your taste.
  • There are often options to buy extra parking and garages.
  • The VEFA legislation in France makes this one of the safest property purchases you can make.

Against

  • There will be a wait of at least a year, sometimes 2.
  • You can’t judge the quality of the finished product. Always ask to see a development built by the same developer to reassure yourself.
Off plan apartment near Annecy
Appt. La Bastide on the side of Lac Annecy, more info on the link below

VEFA (Vente en l’état futur d’achèvement)

This is the contract that lays out what the development will provide, the specifications, dimensions, tolerances of the build, delivery dates, when you will pay, under what circumstances you can withdraw. It is very detailed (and will be in French), there is a clear explanation of the document here.

http://vosdroits.service-public.fr/particuliers/F2963.xhtml

I’ve written in the past on the more general subject of how to buy a property in the Alps.

http://blog.alpine-property.com/2014/03/31/how-to-buy-your-alpine-property/

Getting a mortgage for an off-plan property is fine too. In fact in provides yet another safeguard. The mortgage company will want to see that the developer is doing everything by the book. They’ll ask the developer to show that every guarantee and insurance is provided for. The most important is the GFA (Garantie Financière d’Achevement). this is an insurance policy that guarantees the project is completed if the developer finds themselves in financial difficulty and unable to complete the work. Some of the smaller developers might try and avoid some of these. Especially if they are not a legal requirement. So if the mortgage company knocks back an application because they are not happy with the development then you should ask questions as to why.

Finally, assume that the delivery day will be missed. Probably because of “weather” issues. They’ll be a clause that protects the developer in the VEFA that allows for inclement weather. So don’t make any financial commitments based on the delivery date! Like an assumption that you’ll have a rental stream or a holiday booked to stay in the apartment. If you do get you “keys in hand” by the date you expect then it’s time for a celebration!

More details about the Clos du Savoy apartment development in St Gervais here.

https://www.alpine-property.com/saint-gervais-les-bains/appt-clos-du-savoy-group-4/2662

More details about the properties we have for sale by Lac Annecy (including the Bastide development) here:

https://www.alpine-property.com/location/lac-annecy

Mont-Blanc shrinks to 4,808.73m

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Today’s big news. The height of Mont Blanc is 129 cm lower than in 2013. Read on for the full story:

Mont Blanc was First climbed on August 8 1786. In 1863, the official height was measured as 4807 meters.  At some point after then it became 4809m. That’s the height given by Wikipedia. Now it is recognised as 4810m. The IGN (Institut Géographique National) have it at this height on their maps. You can take a look here.

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Every two years since since 2001 the height of Mont Blanc has been measured to keep a track of the amount of snow on the summit. The result so far.

2001 : 4 810,40 m
2003 : 4 808,45 m
2005 : 4 808,75 m
2007 : 4 810,90 m
2009 : 4 810,45 m
2011 : 4 810,44 m
2013 : 4 810,02 m
2015 : 4 808,73 m

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A full report on the current measurement can be found on the Dauphine Libere website. http://www.ledauphine.com/haute-savoie/2015/09/10/l-altitude-du-mont-blanc-mesuree-a-4-808-73-metres. In fact the height of the solid bit (rock not snow) is only 4 792m, the rest is the snow cover, up to 18m of it! The summit moves around depending on the prevailing wind and amount of precipitation.  In 2009 the summit was 34 m further East than now.

September is the time of year when there is least snow on the mountain. This does not tally with the height measured in May (greatest snow depth) of this year at 4807,88m. The discrepancy is probably down to the winds.

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These pictures where all taken on a ski trip to the summit in June 2009. the top one shows the route. The summer walking route takes a different line.

 

 

 

Traversée du Lac d’Annecy

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Traversée du Lac d’Annecy (or Lake Annecy Traverse)

This open water swim is an annual event held on the “quinze août” in Annecy. It’s been going since 1931. The 15th of August is often regarded as the beginning of the end of the summer holidays in France. When it falls on a weekday it is taken as a bank holiday.  This year it fell on a Saturday so we “lost” the holiday!

Full details of the swim, pictures, drone footage and results can be found on the event website. http://www.traverseedulacdannecy.fr/

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About 1500 people took part this year. The numbers were boosted in no small part by 40 who had come down from Bathgate Swimming Club in Scotland. Bravo à tous!

There are three distances you can swim 1000m, 2400m and 5000m. There is also a 500m swim for the under 10’s.  About 1500 people take part over the morning with the 2.4km swim being the most popular. I did the 2.4km last year and fancied having a go at the 5km this year. Thanks to the fact this longer distance is part of the French Cup it is quite competitive.  The first woman to finish was Aurelie Muller (10k open water World Champion) in 1:02:35 and the men’s winner Romain Béraud is current French Champion over 5km, he was only 2 seconds ahead of the current European 25k champion Axel Raymond. To give you an idea how fast that is. Their average pace for 100m is 1’10”. That would be 16 seconds per 25m in your local pool. If you can swim that fast over 25 m (starting from in the water!), just imagine trying to keep it up for 5km!

There is quite a lengthy video here produced by the organisers after last years event.

And a short  article and video here from France 3, it starts off by featuring the water dogs that are used to help with the rescues. France 3 Alpes

The route is marked on this map (you can click on it to make it larger), the ideal route as a broad red line and my efforts are the thinner line. My swimming is not as erratic as this makes it look. It’s hard for a GPS to keep track of its position when it is spending half the time under water!

annecy swim

The full details on Strava are here.

https://www.strava.com/activities/369459116

It’s always easy to keep an eye on the temperature of Lac Annecy by looking at this website.

http://annecy-meteo.com/temperature-du-lac

There are details of a secret swimming spot on Lake Annecy here. http://wildswim.com/lac-dannecy-roc-du-chere

Which have come from this book on open water swimming in France. http://www.wildswimming.co.uk/wild-swimming-france/

I’ve written a couple of other blog posts on swimming in the Haute Savoie, I have put them here for reference.

http://blog.alpine-property.com/2014/09/05/swimming-in-the-haute-savoie/

http://blog.alpine-property.com/2015/07/10/swimming-across-lac-leman/

Property Prices across the Haute Savoie

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I am often asked about current and historical property pricing data in the Haute Savoie. It is a fair question. In the UK very accurate and open data is available. The answer for France is not quite so straightforward. The Notaires collect all the data, it is publicly available on a broad scale. More accurate information is available on a pay basis, it’s not easy to get though. the free stuff has to be read with caution!

Below is a coloured map of the Haute Savoie, the redder the colour the more expensive the commune. It makes sense, Chamonix, Megeve, La Clusaz, Annecy  and Les Gets come out as the most expensive. Followed by Morzine, Combloux and the rest of the Chamonix valley. Manigod, Le Grand Bornand and  Chatel follow along after that. Samoens should be in that last group too but a quirk of stats has knocked it down a peg.

prix immo

You can click on the image and make it huge or go to the website I took it from.

http://www.meilleursagents.com/prix-immobilier/bonneville-74130/

Take the actual value/m2 with a pinch of salt, this always reads too low in our experience. The price trend graph looks about right though. But read the title, it is for the whole of the Haute Savoie and not for each commune as it seems to suggest on the website! So it shows a massive price increase between 1999 and 2007, a small drop for the following 2 years and then stability. We think this will start to climb again at the end of 2015 and into 2016 driven by the weakened Euro compared to Sterling.

property price evolution

If you zoom out a bit on the commune map you start to see what sort of bubble there is in the ski areas. We already know that you only have to drive 15 minutes from the resort to see the prices half, well looking at this and you’ll see you have to drive an hour from the resort and the prices drop to 25%.

prix immo 2

Chalet d’alpage, a little history.

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The Chalet d’alpage are the mountain chalets that you come across far from the tarmac road, they almost (but not always) have 4×4 access and in winter the access is normally on foot, snowshoe or ski. These are the ancient summer residence of the farming communities that used to be the life of the Alpine valleys. In winter the cattle would be stabled in the valleys and in summer the cattle and the farmers would move up to the high pastures. The cattle would be milked in situ and cheese made on the spot too. This still goes on but for the whole process to be done in the old way is rare. The only place I can think of in the Morzine valley is the Ferme Auberge de Freterolles. I’ve just Googled them and see they have a page on TripAdvisor! Another is LaPisa just over the border in Switzerland. They have a website too. If you pass in the summer you will see them heating their milk over a wood fire.

Farming in the Alpine valleys fell apart after the First World War, the Alpage were abandoned by most families as they lost their men to the fight. The requirements of industry pulled the young out of the valleys to the cities too. During the period between the Wars the tourist industry in the Alps started up. The Second World War was less devastating to the population but then skiing arrived. This industry was much more lucrative and was the final nail in the coffin for Transhumance .

Nowadays these chalets are generally retained by the original families and used as weekend retreats. They require a lot of upkeep though and they need owners that treat them as a labour of love. I have often heard it said that corrugated iron is the saviour of the Chalet d’alpage. Without that cheap lightweight covering most of the properties will have rotted away. Now at least roofs are easy to repair and a property can be “kept on ice” until someone in the family comes along to look after it.

Rarely do these properties come for sale. When they do they are very sought after. Often they are more expensive than you might imagine! We don’t have a category on our website for “Chalet d’alpage” because we never have that many to sell. I’ve had a look through and have found 4 at one time. This might be a record!

Chalet Paradis
For Sale: 273 000 €
Le Petit Bornand Les Glières
https://www.alpine-property.com/le-petit-bornand-les-glieres/chalet-paradis/2608

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Chalet Sous Les Crètes (next to the pistes!)
292 000 € Habère Poche
https://www.alpine-property.com/habere-poche/chalet-sous-les-cretes/2494

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Chalet Berger (comes with vehicle for all year round access)
495 000 € Mégevette
https://www.alpine-property.com/megevette/chalet-berger/2618

chaletberger_5

Chalet d’Alpage Bonnavaz
225 000 € Les Gets
https://www.alpine-property.com/les-gets/chalet-dalpage-bonnavaz/2343

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Swimming across Lac Leman

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Swimming across lac Léman

AKA Lake Geneva to the English

During the heatwave last week (first week of July 2015) we decided to take the opportunity of a very warm Lac Léman  to swim from France to Switzerland. We are not superhuman so we left the “classic” traverse from Evian to Lausanne alone (13km) and headed for the narrowest section instead. From Nernier to near Prangins (3.5km according to the map)

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Nernier is a small quiet and picturesque little village. The is minimal parking available so get there early in the holidays. We arrived at 9.30am and found somewhere fine. You can drive down to the water’s edge if you need to drop off a boat but it’s not easy and best avoided. There is a public toilet at the Port if you need one.

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We were a little worried about the various hazards the lake can present. We’d checked the weather forecast and there were no strong winds likely, go before 10.30am and the lake is most likely to be mirror smooth too. After this time the thermic breezes will start up adding some ripples. There is a regular ferry service which doesn’t like to give way to anything but it’s only an issue close to the port of Nernier, if you don’t set off or arrive as it is docking or leaving it should not be an issue.

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The temperature of the lake changes very quickly. Up to 2 °C from the morning until the evening on a hot day. It’s easy to gauge with this website though.

http://meteolakes.ch/#!/hydro/geneva

The figure you need is the “Température eau 1m”. On our day it was 21 °C which was fine without a wetsuit. The only hazards we encountered where the occasional small wakes from passing boats.

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The headland we landed on is private land, there was noone around though and it’s not overlooked. There is a sign which politely asks that you don’t venture beyond the beach.

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We used a GPS to track our actual route, this is my return swim (the two of us took turns swimming and paddling the canoe), we had been heading towards the wrong landmark so had to change direction half way! According to the GPS it was a 4km swim which took 1hr 15min.

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Campsites in the Portes du Soleil

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The campsites around the Portes du Soleil are “fine”.  However they cannot be compared to the really big campsites available around France. No swimming pools in the campsites around here! I’ve made a list as a resource.

Camping in the Haute Savoie

The best campsite in the Portes du Soleil is probably in Chatel.

Camping L’Oustalet 4*
http://www.oustalet.com/

For the Morzine area there are two.  I know some people prefer the camping in Essert Romand, though Le Pré in Montriond offers better access to the river trail for bikes and dog walking.

Essert Romand
Camping Les Marmottes
http://www.campinglesmarmottes.com/

Montriond
Camping Le Pré 2*
http://www.savoie-mont-blanc.com/en/offre/fiche/camping-le-pre/74356

The best views are from this one in Les Gets, though it is quite a hike up the hill. No website that I can find.

Camping d’été La Grange Au Frêne
http://www.lesgets.com/les-gets/hebergement/campings.html

Camping in St Jean d’Aulps is just by the main road . It is walking distance from the shops though and it’s on the river trail and very near the stables for horse riding.

Camping Le Solerey
http://www.valleedaulps.com/camping-le-solerey-1.html

For short stays, there is the municipal camping at La Baume. It’s bound to be the cheapest option too.
Camping Municipal De La Baume, call 04 50 72 10 06, open July and August

camping 2

You don’t have to go far for some bigger and better options though.

Samoens
Camping Le Giffre 3*
http://www.camping-samoens.com/

Or there are a number down by Lac Léman (Lake Geneva). These two are by the beach at Excenevex.

Camping La Pinede 3*
http://www.camping-lac-leman.info/

Camping La Pourvoirie des Ellande 2*
http://www.camping-lac-leman.com/

Rain across the SE of France, the Haute Savoie gets flooded!

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After 36hrs of continuous rain the Haute Savoie has woken up to floods, damage and a fair amount of clearing up to do. According to the Dauphine Libere, the rainfall figures are:

– Est de l’AIN : 50 à 80 mm localement 130 mm à Chézery
– SAVOIE : 50 à 90 mm localement 140 mm (Valmorel, Aillon-le-jeune)
– HAUTE-SAVOIE : 60 à 100 mm localement 175 mm à Thônes, 190 mm aux Gets.
– ISÈRE : 50 à 80 mm sur le relief, localement 120 mm à St-Pierre-les-Egaux, 160 mm au Verney.

You’ll see that Les Gets takes the rather soggy biscuit.

I took this picture yesterday, the Passerelle in St Jean d’Aulps, shortly after the Commune turned up with a digger and removed it!

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a before and after video of the bridge.

.and then this was taken the next day, if you watch you’ll see a big tree being uprooted.

I’ve been out this morning and taken quite a few pictures around Morzine and St Jean d’Aulps.

passerelle

This is the same spot, the bridge is gone, the river is twice as wide and the school is starting to lose its playground.

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Further up the valley, this is the “river trail” across from Carrefour, or it was, it’s totally gone and there is no prospect of replacing it. If things carry on like this we’ll lose the road next.

river trail

More “river trail” pictures, this one is up by the Plagnettes roundabout.  No sign of the trail here. This at least is repairable.

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Plagnettes again, near Morzine, the owners of the house probably had a sleepless night.

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Lac de Montriond and the Verdoyant.

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The Bout du Lac end of the lac.

Les Mouilles

Near my house!

Some background to the episode here.

http://meteonews.fr/fr/News/N4270/Pluies-abondantes-en-France-ces-derniers-jours

The previous record for rainfall in Chamonix was 59mm (May 2010), this time they got 81mm. Les Gets got 190mm!

A ski lift from the motorway to Flaine?

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This is an idea that has been around some time, it seems to be gaining momentum at the moment. Linking the Autoroute du Mont Blanc (Autoroute Blanche) to Les Carroz and Flaine.  8km long, 1300m of height gain, up to 2,000 people an hour, 5 stations, a pylon every kilometre (wow) all at a cost of 85 M €.

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It’s obvious why the Grand Massif want to link via telecabine (a 3S) down to the autoroute at Magland . They’ll reduce the traffic up and down the road to Flaine, and they’ll improve their accessibility. They might even capture some of the traffic heading to Chamonix. Apparently it might happen by 2019.

It’s got plenty of support in Les Carroz.

There is a reportage here.

http://replay.8montblanc.fr/watch.php?vid=bde9c01cf

And a document here. (click on the image).

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So if you want to speculate on the future, consider this place. If the project goes ahead it’ll be a 10 minute walk from one of the stopping off points.

La Cortiena Mountain Lodge, 895,000€

La Cortiena

Rental income on second homes in France

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A basic rule of life is that income is taxed. Somehow somewhere. That’s the basic rule anyway. Some people seem to manage to use the rules to their advantage but that isn’t what this brief article is about.

Apartment for sale in st Gervais

So if you have a second home in France then you rent out then you will have to pay tax on the income. It doesn’t matter if you live in France or elsewhere. The tax should be paid in France in the first instance. If you live in the EU then the double taxation rules apply. This means that if you pay less tax to the French authorities than you will have done in your home country then you should pay the difference in your home country.

  • If you get an income from a second home in France then you will need to submit a tax return in France.
  • If you live in the UK then you will need to declare the income there too (but the double taxation rules apply).

The basic rate of tax on this rental income in France is 20%. Since January 2012 there has been an attempt to collect a further 15.5% in Social Charges on rental income and Capital Gains too. This has recently been deemed illegal by the European union.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/france/11468615/French-tax-on-Britons-second-homes-illegal.html

Anyone who paid this extra tax in the meantime is entitled to a refund.

There are a couple of different regimes under which you can register yourself for tax purposes in France. They are quite different and the best way forward is often not clear to the uninitiated. I would suggest that the best option is to speak to an accountant. In the Haute Savoie  we would be happy to introduce you to our English speaking contacts at SAREG they will be available for an initial consultation at their offices in Les Gets or St Pierre en Faucigny.