The trials and tribulations of building a self build chalet in the French Alpine town of Morzine.
Thursday, December 03, 2009
Money money money
Somebody asked recently how much it had all cost and I realized that I had not actually really worked it out properly. Sounds weird, but I know it will be too much! I know how much the loans are costing and how I have spent on them but I have not broken it all down.
We bought the land, about 1338 square meters, for two 4 bedroom chalets for 530,000 French francs (before the change to Euros) My half was 26,000 pounds. A small unforeseen cost involved here was the Notary's fee. This is the "solicitor" who does all the legal stuff. He cost 45000 FF or about 4500 pounds. We financed this on loans and overdrafts from the UK. Then I had to pay for actually building the chalet. This was financed through a French mortgage. In fact this was relatively simple once we had solved some issues about the land ownership.
As we had bought the land jointly with a friend and his wife, in order to get a mortgage we had to formally split the land in half, this cost us about 11000 euros to the notaire! (Some percentage of the price of the land) Then the mortgage could be arranged (through the notaire), 210000 euro mortgage cost us 3079 euros to arrange. Then there was a problem with the neighbor and his access that cost another couple of grand to the notaire to sort out. OK so I have now spent £26000 for the land + £19000 in Notiares fees (!!!)
The mortgage amount was based on the architects rough estimate of 292500 euros based on the habitable area of the house (136.33 m2) I was allowed to borrow 70% of this.
The concrete work has cost me 102500 euros. The woodwork cost me 134000.The Architect has charged my about 14000 for his services.
All that comes to 250500 Euros and that is only the external shell no finish inside at all, no electrics, no plumbing nothing extra but walls, floors and roof.
This is obviously more than my mortgage so I had to arrange a top up loan of 50000 Euros (notaire cost something like 3000 E)
I am now reaching the end of my 50000 and as I used it to pay the balance of the construction and the architects fees an a bit of tax I have come up short. I guess I will need about another 10000 Euros to finish the place.
So all in all it will have cost about 320000 euros, about 30000 more than estimated (I think most of that went to the Notaire!)
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4 comments:
Hi, I am a student from Edinburgh Napier University, currently on my final year. I am carrying out a research for my dissertation, researching general public knowledge on possibilities of self-build and “green” methods of construction. I would like to send you a short questionnaire. Please contact me on:
06012266@live.napier.ac.uk
Thank You
Legal fees seem quite high in France. From your photos it seems that you layed the planking directly on top of the heating wire; is this standard practice, or should it not be covered with a cement mix which includes a heat conductor? Eamonn.
Hi Richard, just sent you a PM through the selfbuild.com site. Best regards, Calum
Hi Richard, just sent you a PM through the selfbuild.com site. Best regards, Calum
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