In the last ten years, many Irish people invested in French Leaseback properties with great verve and enthusiasm.

With a love of all things French and a noughties exhuberance we signed off on mortgages and leases, with a somewhat complacent belief that the French property business wouldn’t hang us out to dry.

The properties were marketed heavily at Irish and English prospects through the main real estate agencies, dedicated overseas property agencies and Sunday newspaper advertising and articles etc.

There was the lure of a ‘hassle-free‘ French place in the sun and the promise of ‘guaranteed’ rents to cover the mortgage. There was the claim that all maintenance would be taken care of. The marketing was all ‘joie de vivre’.

For many of us, it’s all been a bit more like a never-ending debacle.

Some of us wish to share our experience and provide resources for beleaguered and stressed out owners. We also wish to gather some statistics on the scale of the issue amongst those people who bought into the investment. To this end, we have created a survey to draw out the level of investment, and on-going financial losses, of buyers of these properties. If you bought one of these properties, please do answer the survey. There are only 10 questions and it will take two minutes to complete. There is no requirement for personally identifiable information. You can take the survey here.

We also want to take initiative and campaign for the following by means of a petition:

  • Recognition of the issue by French government
  • Facilitate the cancellation of these leases without compensation to operators
  • Facilitate the cancellation of these leases without payment of VAT (TVA) to French revenue

 

We would like to underline that all views on this site are those of the site contributor and the information presented does NOT constitute legal or financial advice. It is merely the experience of owners.

There is NO commercial intent or aspect to the information contained on this site. It is intended as a platform for the sharing of information and experience.

Please communicate any inaccurate or misleading information to us via the contact form.