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Renover Louer Herault

Friday 20 May 2005, by Rob

The Department of the Herault, the French state and ANAH, Agence Nationale pour l’Amelioration de l’Habitat, have all joined forces in a campaign to bring more properties in the Herault onto the letting market.

This is the first time in France that such an initiative has been launched on such a scale.
The need is obvious:-

The Herault is seeing its population grow at an unprecedented rate - more than 1000 extra inhabitants each month - as a result there is a taut property market and a growing shortage of of privately owned rental accommodation, most markedly in the East of the Herault department.
At the same time, the number of empty properties is increasing, specially in town centers.
There are already certain grants available on a very local scale (OPAH, PST etc). But the problem is departmental in scale and hence this new initiative.
This operation, ’Renover Louer’, targets 161 communes (75% of the population of the Herault) in the regions of Montpellier, Sete, Frontignan, Agde, Pezenas, Clermont l"Herault and Lunel and will run for a minimum of three years.

The aim : to persuade owners, who don’t want or can’t afford to renovate their empty properties and hesitate to rent them out, for fear of tenant/rent problems, to join in this campaign , which works to the benefit of both owners and tenants.

- The owners will benefit from exceptional grants(up to 60% of costs) towards the renovation and improvement of the properties (comfort, cleanliness, security, insulation and equipment). On their part, they must rent out each property for a minimum period of 9 years with a rent fixed by the rules of the scheme. The rental payments will be guaranteed by the state and will rise in line with inflation.

- The tenants will benefit from renovated properties, fixed rents, as long as their earnings fall below a certain ceiling (65% -70% of the Herault popilation would qualify).

The first objective : 300 more properties on the rental market.

Grants range up from 40% of the renovation costs.

Please note not all the communes in the regions mentioned qualify. i.e. Gabian does not, Montagnac does.
Hence this huge ruin in Montagnac might be a very wise investment.
For more information about the schrme please visit http://renoverpourlouer.com/ the official project site.


This has been provided by Rob Thorne of The French Property Company Ltd

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