Leaving the rat race - Starting a business
My wife Linda Jane was a teacher at a special needs school, and I was head of technical operations for Chelsea Digital Media (the internet and TV arm of Chelsea Football Club), while my 30-yearold daughter, Abbi, worked as a software developer. I was away in London for five days a week living out of a suitcase (unless Chelsea were playing at home and then the weekend was reduced to just one day) and Abbi commuted from Derby to Nottingham every day. My pension was suffering, and the endowment was showing a big shortfall, so we decided to pack up, release the equity in the house and start a new life and business in France.
Our plan was to offer holiday accommodation during the peak school holiday periods and various courses and breaks for the rest of the year, such as video and photographic holidays for amateurs; also guitar and art courses, as well as themed breaks such as hen parties and pampering weekends.
Six months before the move, Abbi had decided to sell her house in Derby and rent closer to work. When we told her about our proposed venture, she saw it as the ideal opportunity to invest the equity from her house in a new property and business. So in 2006, we pooled our resources and bought a Landais farmhouse, with 2.5 acres of land, in the village of Pouillon, south-west France, for €395,000.
Our first year hasn’t been without its ups and downs; Abbi has missed her friends and going to the pub, and we’ve all missed the ability to speak to people and be understood. But now Abbi has a great social life, and we all have a good mixture of English and French friends.
Thanks to the internet, we keep in regular contact with people back in the UK. The property needed a lot of renovation, but now that’s done, the business is going from strength to strength.We are looking to add golf and fishing holidays to appeal to a broader clientele. Abbi, whose main duties have included looking after guests and helping me to market the business, has also launched a handmade jewellery business, Zéste, which has started to reap rewards.
There is much to consider when taking on a project such as this and there was a lot of bureaucracy involved in the initial purchase, renovation and getting permission for things such as building the pool and extending drainage systems. But the only real problem was trying to forecast realistic budgets, given that prices differ greatly from those in the UK. We found the French people and local authorities to be extremely welcoming and happy to help.
We had to make a sequence of lump sum payments when starting out on this venture and, after having initially used a few companies to transfer small amounts of money, a friend recommended Currencies Direct so we used them to transfer the bulk of the money across to France. They offered the best rates: using them rather than the bank saved us about €20,000, providing enough cash to build a swimming pool.
For anyone looking to do something similar, it is vital that the area is right for your requirements, you have enough money to see the project through and have a basic grasp of the language before you start
David Utal www.photo-vacances.com
Currencies Direct Tel: 020 7847 9291 www.currenciesdirect.com