Escape from the chateau
I hoped it might not come to selling the Chateau, after a regretably non-grown-up divorce the time came and here I’ll share the journey.
A la Dickens the end to this story is not yet known but it starts with a week in St Ferriol meeting various breeds of estate agent, and discovering a surprising difference between the questions and requirements from them. I learnt things which would be useful to anybody selling a house, but as ever there are particular things that apply to castles for better or for worse.
My husband and I made our home our relationship, not our relationship our home. It was always unthinkable to move on however maintaining a castle and running a business is not something to stumble into happlessly. It needs great cooperation and the typical nuclear family model according to my statistical analysis rarely works.
There is the enormity of maintenance even if the renovations are finished, and also labyrintine rules of Frech taxation and commercial compliance. One sometimes feels that behind it is a commendable maybe, but misguided belief that turning something into a profit is in someway unholy. ]
France has a notriously business unfriendly taxation. French nationals who have grown up with the shiboleths and have a huddle of interested relatives to help figure it out. France is also a cheauvenist country. It is…
