A British couple who swapped Gloucestershire for a French hamlet say they would never move back to the UK
A British couple who renovated their dream home in France and now live mortgage-free say they would never move back to the UK thanks to the French lifestyle, the lower cost of living, and the healthcare system.
Phil and Kirsti Coley were living in picturesque Gloucestershire in 2016 and considering buying a home near Cheltenham.
“What we were looking for, a house that was bigger than our two-bed terraced house, was going to be too expensive,” Mr Coley, 56, told The i Paper. “But what we could afford – something around £200,000 – wasn’t what we wanted.”
While they were discussing moving house, the couple watched a programme on TV about people who had moved abroad, and researched house prices in France.
“House prices were cheaper,” Mr Coley said. “The houses were massive.”
They made a shortlist and decided they could get the most for their money in central France. So in September of that year, they took a two-week trip to France and decided on a fixer-upper – a rundown house that had not been lived in for 20 years in a rural hamlet in Haute-Vienne, in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region in mid-west France.
“It needed a lot of work – everything had to be gutted – but it had a barn, more than an acre of land, a terrace, and a pool,” he said. “There are eight properties in a small hamlet, and we’re surrounded by farmland and a big forest.”
They bought it outright with their savings for around £25,000, starting renovations on it while they continued living in England for another two years, Mr Coley running his own marketing company and Mrs Coley working with horses.
They say the cost of renovating the house, which they estimate to be about £80,000, is similar to what they would have spent in England.
Then in 2018, Mrs Coley was diagnosed in the UK with stage three skin cancer. “She started treatment in the UK, and they thought they had caught it, but they hadn’t – it had spread,” said Mr Coley.
“By this time, Kirsti had moved (prior to me) to France and was in the French healthcare system. There were a couple of treatments she got in France that she couldn’t have had on the NHS in the UK. They put her on a trial drug, which was fairly revolutionary. It was expensive, but covered by the healthcare system.”
Looking back, he wonders whether the outcome for his wife would have been different if she had continued to be reliant on the NHS.
“If it hadn’t been for getting treatment in France, I’m not sure she would have been here today,” he said.
In France, healthcare is privatised, with every person paying monthly for their coverage. Now a family of four, Mr Coley pays €100 (£87) a month for healthcare, which covers the cost of any doctor visits, medicine, operations or treatment.
By 2020, Mr Coley had joined his wife in France; he continued to run his marketing agency, and Mrs Coley opened her own furniture refurbishment shop in a town 20 minutes away from their new house.
Having made the move before Brexit, they only needed to get their French residency permit.
Today, Mr Coley says he loves the space in France – the countryside, the mountains, and the sea – all easily accessible by well-maintained roads. “It’s very clean and tidy,” he said. “There’s a lot of pride in local towns.”
He also appreciates how they are able to bring up their children, Teddy, three, and Alicia, two, here, and the difference it has made to their family life. When their eldest daughter was getting ready to start school, they inquired about prices at a local French private school. It costs only £200 a month. “And that includes a four-course lunch,” Mr Coley said.
Whereas back in England, he would have been working extra long hours to cover a hefty mortgage, he is now able to take his daughter to school every morning and attend all the school events.
“In the UK, a huge percentage of someone’s salary goes on a mortgage,” he said. “We don’t have a mortgage, and that makes a big difference in getting the life/ work balance, rather than the work/ life balance, right.”
Their free time as a family is spent outside (in the mainly dry, warm weather) walking, camping, cycling, and swimming. “There are some big lakes with beaches,” he said. “And it’s all free.”
Now that they have finished renovating their house, they also love spending time at home. “We’ve got a huge garden, a massive sandpit, a terrace, trampolines, swings, a pool, and chickens,” he said. “The kids don’t know just how lucky they are.”
Generally, the couple’s costs are all lower in France than they would be in the UK. They are mortgage-free, do a weekly shop for under £100, and spend under £100 a month on electricity in their four-bed house.
Eating out is cheaper, food is fresher, and very good quality wine costs about £8.
The only thing Mr Coley finds difficult in France is the bureaucracy and paperwork, and he describes having to jump through hoops to “jump through hoops to get into the French social care and finance system”.
“For instance, if you’re trying to get a planning application for building,” he said. “Things don’t happen as quickly as it does in the UK. It’s a pain in the backside for the British and for the French.”
Mr Coley’s adult children from a previous relationship are still in the UK, but visit frequently, and both Mr and Mrs Coley make the trip home at least once a year.
“Neither of us would move back to the UK,” he said. “If we suddenly fell out of love with France, we’d move elsewhere in Europe.”
