Accounting for Holiday Rentals in the French Alps

Our accountancy partner Debbie Bradbury, is an English born ex-pat who has spent half of her life living in France. Debbie works for the accountancy firm SAREG and her help and advice has been invaluable for many of our Chalet owners over the years. Here’s how she can help with accounting for holiday rentals…

What is your role with SAREG?

I have a very varied role, which includes:

• Being the first port of call for all new English-speaking enquiries.
• Drawing up articles in English
• Creating the adverts for our company and its services
• Managing the website
• Hunting out prospective clients

I have a small team who work with me on files that do not require accounts (as I’m not an accountant myself). These include micro-entrepreneurs and residents requiring more complex personal tax assistance (income tax and wealth tax).

I also do all initial consultations surrounding rental activities, setting up in business and becoming resident, trying to give the chartered accountants time to manage their clients and look after their accounting teams!

Do you liase with clients of English and French nationality?

I love working with French colleagues but I get the best of both worlds here as I run the English-speaking team so 99% of my enquiries come from English-speaking people.

So on the one hand I spend a lot of my time consulting in English and on the other hand I liaise with colleagues and the French authorities in French.

I love being able to switch from one to the other and learn new laws surrounding taxation, new rules and regulations surrounding investment properties and rental activities, and generally being able to learn anything new that could be useful for current or potential clients.

Can you tell us why SAREG is a great accounting solution for property owners in France?

SAREG has been around for nearly 40 years now and has developed in the past 30 years a strong English-speaking team that specialises in anything related to property investment and rental activities. This is partly to do with the fact that we are based in a region where property investment is still strong.

Skiing, cycling and walking holidays also are popular so there is always a market for rental properties all year-round and the property market has not been hit as badly as in some more rural areas of France.

We still look after clients with properties all across the country, but in the ski resorts, we have the added experience of tour operators, catered chalet businesses, passenger transport activities and other tourist-related activities.

We know which type of purchase structure should suit the client, according to their individual situation, and can look further ahead at what they’re planning to do with the property, rather than just how they purchase it and what should happen in the event of their death!

If you’re thinking of purchasing property in France or looking at getting into the rental market we strongly recommend that you get in touch with Debbie. We are always happy to recommend Debbie and her colleagues at SAREG, as we use their services ourselves and they have always been extremely helpful.