Baby Boomers Move to France

The adventures of 2 Baby Boomers moving to France

Next Steps for the House Purchase in France

by · October 19, 2025

Week 11 in France 10/12-10/18/2025

Welcome to the 39th weekly post of our Baby Boomers Move to France blog. We are in our third month of full time living in France.

The weather most of this week has been cool in the morning and then warms up to the 60s & 70s by the afternoon.

This week we will update our house purchase activities and outline the purchase process for you. Also, we will fill in some blanks regarding Lyon that we missed last week.

Things on the agenda this week:

  • Rosie vet for nail trim
  • Continue researching pellet burners for heat.
  • I need to find a self-serve car wash too.
  • Follow up car license plate. Where is the permanent tag?

Why this Blog?

If this is your first visit to our blog, WELCOME!

If you are planning a move to France or just thinking about it or maybe you are wondering what got into our head and inspired us to make the move, you might have questions about our adventure, please feel free to ask in the comment section below. Long story short, we are a couple of “Baby Boomers” that have moved from Venice, Florida to the French countryside as retirees.

As we shared our move plans with friends and family, we were asked questions about who, what, why, when and where, so we figured that there is enough interest to share the experience. So, we started this blog. We publish a brief update on our life in France every Sunday. Hopefully we answer some of those questions and keep answering more as we work our way to our new life.

We will also include thoughts on the lifestyle and culture of our new home.

After a little over a year of planning and fretting we moved to France on 1 August 2025. We are happy to share our experiences and also share YouTube channels that we like and that have helped and inspired us. (See the resources tab)

This Week in General

ROSIE Update

Rosie got her nails done this week at the local vets office. We walked to the vets and waited 5 minutes and we went into the room with Rosie while she had her nails trimmed. No charge and she did good.

Trying some different foods

Cuisine Familiale Parmentrier de Canard sounds pretty fancy. EB picked this up at the grocery store (E.Leclerc) and she didn’t have her phone translator, but she figured it sounded like duck so how bad could it be. OMG it was really good. Shredded duck and mashed potatoes. I love it! Just basic hardy French family food. She added her salad of chopped cucumbers, onions and peppers in balsamic vinegar and olive oil and voila what a feast. We added some cheese and sausage and a baguette. The best meal ever. Super simple and amazingly good tasting.

EB picked up a roasted chicken at the farmers market on Monday and made a feast of it. It kind of reminded me of Publix roasted chicken. I don’t know about you, but I love Publix roasted chicken.

The thing about the farmers’ market is that it is 50 feet away every Monday morning and all of the fresh fruit and veggies are super good and inexpensive. When you visit France, you need to visit a countryside farmers market. Stay with us and we will make sure you visit a farmers’ market. Bring your euros and a big shopping bag!! If you don’t have a bag, we will hook you up. LOL We love the farmer’s market!

House Update and Next Steps

Some purchase details:

  • We sent the Notaire 425 euros for expenses including:
    • Preparation and writing of the presale contract
    • Registering the contract with the state
    • Advance on completion fees
  • We will drive to Ruffec on October 21 to sign the Compromis de Vente (contract of sale agreement which binds the seller and the buyer) This is the first step in finalizing the purchase agreement.
    • This document is in French, so we want to go to Ruffec to have the clerk at the notaire’s office explain each line before we sign.
  • We will transfer the 10% “deposit” to the notaires account.
  • According to the Leggett Immobiliere International site the following are the next steps (As you know our agent is part of the Leggett organization):
    • The Compromis de Vente document includes
      • Details of the civil status of both purchaser and seller
      • Description of the property and details of the plot
      • Confirmation of ownership of the title deeds
      • Agreed price, full estate agency fees and estimated notiare’s fees (7-10%)
      • The notaire also collects and pays land taxes for us.
      • Deposit (usually 10% to be held by the notaire
      • Provisional conditions to our offer
      • Results of the DDT (Dossier de Diagnostics Technique)
      • Target completion date
      • List of furniture and fixtures included in the purchase
      • Details of penalties should either side fail to complete the contract
    • After we sign the Compris de Vente there is a 10-day cooling off period during which we can pull out of the purchase without penalty. After 10 days if we pull out, we lose our 10% deposit. If the seller pulls out after the 10 days, they must pay us 10% and we get our deposit back as well.
    • Assuming there are no issues we will be good to go to the next step which is the Acte de Vente. Typically, it takes about 3 months after the signing of the Compromis de Vente to get to the Act de Vente. This is the final document in the purchase process and when signed we will be the proud owners of a piece of France.
    • This is where the rubber meets the road as the remaining balance of the purchase must be in the Notaires hands prior to the day of the signing.
  • Of course, we will need to have the insurance for the house prearranged before the signing. I expect our agent will help us with this and getting all of the utilities arranged as well.
  • By the way, the money transfer and foreign currency exchange for these transactions are going through an account that EB set up with SmartMoney. It is free to set up an account, and it is pretty easy.

The Compris de Vente (Sales agreement)

We received a copy of the 46 page Compris de Vente via email this week for our review. Of course, it is all in French as all French legal documents are. Luckily, I figured out how to translate it with translator on Word. We were able to read it and came up with a bunch of questions for the notaire when we see him next week. There is some terminology that we aren’t familiar with and interesting rules that I never encountered before. Like rainwater runoff from the house is not allowed to flow onto the street. I guess there are a series of pipes that are connected to something that channels the water away from the road. We will ask about this. I’m assuming that means that you aren’t allowed to wash your car on the street. This might be a local ordinance. There is a whole section on the rules of ownership of hedges and walls. The house is in a village in the country so I’m thinking that there might be some ordnances specific to the village.

Anyway, it is a pretty detailed document that will all be explained to us on Tuesday.

Lyon

I mentioned last week that with the traveling we didn’t have a lot of time to write much and Lyon deserves a little more attention. For some reason, I couldn’t bring the “Babyboomersmovetofrance” blog up on my iPad while we were in Lyon so didn’t have a chance to edit and add stuff.

As everyone knows my sister Cindy and Don are avid Dragon Boat racers, so I had to make sure that I included this picture of a Dragon Boat on the Rhone River as it runs through Lyon, France. I see a lot of pink so maybe…

By the way, there are a lot of activities around Breast Cancer awareness this month all over France.

Lyon is the prefecture of the Auvergne-Rhone-Alps region and is the second largest city in France and third most populous city with a population of 570,000 and a metropolitan population of over 1,400,000. It is located at the confluence of the rivers Rhone and Saone and is northwest of the French Alps and is only 113 km (70 miles) from Geneva, Switzerland, 278km (173 miles) north of Marseille. There are 2 airports and a train station with connections all over Europe via the high-speed TGV train and regional TER trains.

As with all cities in France this city is loaded with history. Lyon has been an important city since the days of the celts. The name is said to come from ancient Gallic and the old town is designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Romans came along and latinized the name and then it went through various changes and finally in 1794 it resumed its name, Lyon.

There is so much to see in Lyon like parks, museums that include histories of the silk manufacturing and weaving industry and the French Resistance, churches like the Basilica of Notre Dame de Fourviere which you can visit by riding up the hill on one of the many funiculars or you can take the staircase if you feeling really energetic. Then there is architecture including a Roman theatre.

Speaking of the theatre, did you know that Lyon is considered the birthplace of cinema? Lyon is famous for the Lumiere brothers who invented the cinema in 1895. The now named Rue du Premier Film (the First Street of Film) was where the brothers invented the movie camera and projector and created their first film. On the street is a museum dedicated to the inventions.

Lyon benefits from the French government investments in science and technology research and development. A number of universities and institutes participate in research of AI, medical, aerospace, biotech and more. In addition to the government investment in R&D, private investment is prevalent as well.

If sports are more your thing Lyon has professional teams in football (soccer), rugby and basketball. Then there are ice hockey and volleyball tournaments too.

There is even an indoor surf pool, and lots of water sports on the Rhone and Soane Rivers as well as a number of nearby lakes.

Below is a picture showing the basilica on top of the hill. Also note the colorful buildings along the river. One guide mentioned that the colorful buildings are due to the Italian influence in the town. Sorry the picture is a little tilted. Good thing I don’t take pictures for a living. LOL

The spit of land between the Rhone and Soane is full of shopping plazas, restaurants and historical buildings.

French Lifestyle and Culture

Restaurants in Duras

I have shared some info about our favorite places to eat in Duras. Our Cafe de la Paix is closed for vacation for 2 weeks, so we just go across the street to the Chai et Rasade (Chai and shot). Chai is some kind of spicy tea and of course you know what a shot is. I haven’t tried the tea yet. They do have our go to red wine though. The wine comes from a local winery called Chateau de Molhiere. From the Appelation Cotes de Duras. It is a merlot/cabernet sauvignon blend that is really good. I think that we will take a case with us to Confolens.

We noticed during the tourist period all the restaurants are open and busy and they take turns being open after hours. We like Karls for a quick snack and beer. They are usually open 10:00ish and close at 2:00 and open back up at 6:00. While Chai et Rashade is open all day and closes at 7:00. Notice they have tapas and ice cream.

We got a pleasant surprise on Friday: Parvas Magna was open. We got to have a dinner at our favorite restaurant in Duras. I’m sure that I mentioned that they were closing for the winter, but the weather has been so nice lately that they opened for dinners a few nights per week. Next week will be raining most of the week so Friday was probably the last time that we will be able to eat at Parvas Magna since we will be leaving for Confolens at the end of the month.

We did run into new friends, Dave and Carol, at Parvas Magna. They invited us to meet them on Saturday at Smoke Town BBQ Texas Barbecue in Saint-Sernin. I understand that the owner lived in Texas before moving back to France. The brisket melts in your mouth. Mmmm good stuff.

Don and Cindy

Don is recovering from a medical procedure, and Cindy says they will see how he is doing after his post op appointment and will start making plans for travel. It will be great to have them visit us in Confolens or maybe we will be moved into our new house in Chabanais when they visit. Based on the Compris de Vente the estimated date that we actually take possession of the house is January 6, 2026. That is less than 6 months after landing at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris. Wow, that is a lot faster than we initially planned.

Yikes that’s the middle of winter. We have never lived this far north. Luckily the microclimate in Chabanais does not include very much snow. It will be cold though. Average low temperature in January is about 36 degrees F and average high is about 46 degrees F. Precipitation chance stays around 30% throughout the winter. There is some possibility of snow in January. Snow throughout the season from October through April averages about 4.7 inches for the whole season but never sticks. We have been warned that dangerous ice does form on the roads sometimes. They call it Verre glace (glass ice). sort of like the black ice in the northern US states.

We are expecting some rain on our drive to Chabanais on Monday and our drive to Ruffec on Tuesday and a little breeze both days maybe as much as 15 mph and temperatures in the low 60s. We are going to Chabanais on Monday to look through the house again before we sign the initial paperwork

Car Wash

I found a car wash. You drive in, put your credit card in the reader and then stand back. I did the deluxe with wax and all (14 euros). It came out pretty good. Next time I need to take some microfiber towels to do the finishing touches. I love the blue sky.

The leaves are starting to change color around Duras. Look at those wispy clouds too.

Next Week (la Semaine Prochaine)

  • Monday will be a drive to Chabanais to check the house out one more time before we sign all of the papers on Tuesday. We will also drop off some of our bins at the gite too.
  • Drive to Ruffec to sign the Compris de Vente on Tuesday.
  • The rest of the week we will chill out as we start planning the move to Confolens.

Weather for next week

Weather forecast for next week in Duras is cloudy rainy with highs in the 60s and lows in the 40s all week.

It looks like our old stomping grounds in Venice, Florida are not in danger of a hurricane this week and will enjoy some nice weather. We can’t help but worry about our friends in southwest Florida. Hurricane season is almost over!!

Signing off for the week

As always, we sign off wishing you all a good week and remind you to take care of yourselves and your family.

Keep in touch and leave questions, suggestions and comments below. We really enjoy hearing from you. Your kind and encouraging words remind us that we can do this.

It has been a nice week in Duras. Actually, a nice 3 months. As we get ready to move to Confolens we know that we will miss Duras, but it is time to move on.

A bientot (see you soon)

Mark and Elizabeth Beiley

Babyboomersmovetofrance.com

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