
A couple of years ago, Chéri and I bought a little house near Saint-Chinian with the aim of transforming it into a holiday home. And now, more than five years later, we are about to open Gîte Le Priou. It has been a bumpy ride to get here, so let me take you to how it all began… Our story might help you with your project or help you avoid making the same mistakes. This is part I: the buying process, designing the plans, and filing for building permission.
First things first
In 2018, Chéri and I felt like starting another project. As we already ran a gîte in Cazouls-lès-Béziers near Béziers, the most logical thing was to buy a small house and create another holiday home. First things first- I started to look for houses in the area and roamed the websites of every real estate agent around. I also looked at the more general ones like the French Bien’Ici, Belles Demeures, and Le Bon Coin. International websites like Green-Acres, French-Property, Rightmove and Kyero also helped me in my search.

Designs and plans
Once I have set my mind on something, I can be quite enthusiastic. So, it didn’t take me long to set up a list of interesting houses. And after a couple of visits (and fails), Chéri and I had set our eyes on a sweet little house in a hamlet called Le Priou, part of Pierrerue near Saint-Chinian. As you can see from the pictures above, the house needed a lot of love and attention. But it had a lot of potential and was located in a magical spot completely excluded from modern life. To make the house more comfortable, we wanted to create an extension with room for a lounge and an extra bedroom. Therefore, we asked for help from a local architect, who drew some beautiful designs and plans for our future project.

Permission de construire
As soon as we agreed on the plans, the architect filed for a ‘permission de construire’. This is an official authorization you’ll need when making an extension to a house (like we did) or building something new. Here you can find more information. After a few months, we got approval from the prefecture. You then have to put up a sign (which you can buy at any hardware store), fill out all the details, including a copy of the official approval, and place this sign in a clearly visible place on the project site. This way, neighbours have two months to object to the building permission at the town hall. Although all of the official stuff took a lot of time, we were on a roll. We managed to find a builder who laid the foundation for the extension. And then COVID happened. And everything stopped. To be continued…
