I-Spy Property Finders is born

I was pleasantly surprised about how supportive other expats were about my business ideas. One of those was Peter Elias who runs a property business called Allez-Francais. I originally met Peter to talk about my photographic business and he demonstrated his enthusiasm for my proposals by providing me with my first assignment in France.

However, Peter picked up on something else I said during our meeting; I mentioned my idea about also establishing a property finding business to help people through the process of finding and purchasing a property in France. Having negotiated the tricky process of buying a property in France and having learned much along the way, I felt there was an opportunity to share that experience by helping others to turn their dreams into reality.

Nice idea, but once again the French system was providing a significant obstacle. Although I had managed to get registered as an auto-entrepreneur for my photographic business (see the previous post), the system in France is such that anyone operating a property based business must either be a fully qualified Immobilier (which involves three years of study and requires an in depth understanding of French property law, thus making it virtually impossible for a non native French speaker to get qualified) or they have to be working for a qualified Immobilier in the capacity of a registered ‘Agent Commercial’.

Clearly I am neither of these things. Becoming a qualified immobilier was a non-starter and, because I wanted to be able to operate completely independently from any immobilier, working for one was not an option either. But Peter had an idea; a cunning plan. Using his extensive network he was able to introduce me to an immobilier based in Paris who was prepared to allow me to operate as an ‘agent commercial’ under his umbrella registration. However, he agreed that I could operate completely independently, without any requirement to include any of his properties in my search portfolio. I would simply pay him a small commission for any business I generated. Perfect!!

I-Spy Property Finders was born as an independent property finder able to operate purely on behalf of my clients.

Not so fast! Before I could launch I-Spy Property Finders I would need to complete my registration as an ‘agent commercial’. This would require a visit to the ‘Greffe du Tribunal de Commerce’ in the local prefecture capital of Perigueux, a lovely town to visit but a 90 minute drive from Busserolles. Armed with my contractual agreement to operate as an agent commercial and with every piece of ID I could muster I presented myself at the Greffe and asked to be registered. With a knowing look the lady at the counter proceeded to present me with a pile of paperwork to complete. My heart sank but with a determined intake of breath I resolved to fill out the forms there and then. “Where could I go to complete the forms?” I asked, expecting there would be some tables and chairs for such a thing. “There is only this counter” she replied so, not to be deterred, I leant on the counter and started writing.

After half an hour (which involved frequent accessing of the French/English dictionary I had on my iPhone) I had completed all I was able to do but felt that I had done pretty well. I returned to the queue and presented my form for checking.

Then came the hammer blow – “you need to put your French social security number here”, she said, pointing at an obscure box that I had missed. “I have not yet been issued one” I replied. “You cannot register without one”, she said, with that stereotypical French shrug of the shoulders.

There was only one thing for it – take a deep breath and go and have lunch at one of Perigueux’s many lovely restaurants!

It was another three weeks (during which time I was asked to provide documents which I had already provided – as ever, keep calm and just send them again!) before I was finally issued with a French Social Security Number and was able to return to Perigueux. This time the forms were deemed to have been completed to the satisfactory standard and so……..we went for lunch, this time feeling pretty pleased with ourselves.

I had not been idle whilst waiting for this exercise to be completed and had spent the time building a website for my new business. This was my first experience of creating a website but, if I say so myself, the final result looks pretty good. So, having now become registered as an ‘agent commercial’, I was able to launch the website: www.i-spypropertyfinders.com

Now it’s time to find my first clients!