Building Work in France

I try to answer all mail I get, a lot is asking me about moving to France or getting work in France – when there is something which may be of interest to others, I publish them in my blog. This came in today.

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Hello Tony and Family,
Â I would be grateful if you could tell me what are the possibilities of work for an Â 53 yr old ‘fit’ carpenter. I have a wide experience of house building gained over the many years of living and working in the UK and Ireland and even a short spell in Brittany. I am very capable at brickwork , block work stonework, I can roof almost any type of house and finish carpentry is my trade anyway. I am very experienced in Groundworks from setting out for excavations to laying all services and pipeworks.
My wife and 11 year old girl(who absolutely adores dogs ,and has 3 little terriers) are probably less enthusiastic than I, but given the right area(we live in the countryside ) the may be for turning.
We have our own house here which we would have to sell or rent, but could look at that down the road.

I would be very much appreciate any advice you have to offer.

Yours sincerely
Michael
Ireland

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Hello Michael,

I have write a lot about working in in my newsletters and blogs, you can see these notes in the archives at http://www.nizas.com/newsletters/archives/

There is building work in France and skilledÂ tradesÂ are valued – the techniques are substantially different to the UK, but this i not a problem for aÂ craftsman.

The problem is the need to register with theÂ authoritiesÂ - penalties for illegal working or not issuing invoices can be high and working illegally has many risks and will not get a good wage. However – getting a job with a building company is very difficult as most builders are very reluctant to have employees due to the high social charges and employee benefits imposed.

There are a large number of “general” builders and “odd-jobbers” in France – most are voslute rubbish and many are dangerous – the good ones are in high demand and it is all “word of mouth” in the non French community – the French people generally prefer to only use French workers.

My advice is to come and stay in France for a while – at least a couple of months to see how things are – do you speak French?

Hope this helps a little

Tony

One Response to Building Work in France

Dave Phelan says:

September 1, 2009 at 8:18 am

Hi Tony, Glad to see you back. I am a teacher in Ireland and hope to take early retirement in possibly two years. Over three years ago we bought a house in Belveze du razes about 8 km north of Limoux. We use it at all the mid terms and holiday periods. I have book marked your house for passing on to people that ask me about holiday accommodation. It looks really nice and the website is very good to look at. Two things struck me, if I had two single friends who were willing to share a room, do you have single beds as your rooms look to be all doubles? The other was a table showing the rates.
When we retire we would hope to spend periods of time of up to 4 months in Belveze. We have met many English and Irish people in the last number of years, that frankly, scare me. They have sold up all and bought a property and just moved out. Then they have discovered that with little or no french they cannot cope and find they cannot sell up as they are not getting the price they paid.
Anyway , best of luck with the new sites and I will keep checking in.
Dave Phelan

One Response to Building Work in France

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