Buying Property in the Languedoc: Listed Buildings - The Practice

From the evidence of the Bâtiments de France in Carcassonne, it exists to employ functionaires, to delay work, and incur additional costs for the owners. Here is a personal view from the Aude département.

We should be ideal suited to the Bâtiments de France, since our intention was to use traditional materials and traditional techniques for everything, even emplying stonemasons and blacksmiths.

• When we bought our property it was not listed. It had been falling into ruins for centuries, had been knocked about to accomadate farm machinery, vandalised and used as quarry for stone for new houses. As soon as we bought it, and it was finally safe, we were notified that it was to be listed. At that stage, we still thought this was a good idea, but as they pointed out our opinion did not matter as they had the power to list it anyway.
• We had a unstable internal wall that they said was in imminent danger of collapse. They said it had to be attended to immediately. We said we'd start the next day. "Oh no. You can't do that without permission". We waited six months (the statutory maximum) for them to provide permission.
• We were obliged to put drainage in the courtyard. We fixed a start date, at which they announced that we could not start without an archaological study in case there was anything of interest under the courtyard. This was to cost about 4000 Euros which we would have to pay. The archaeologist came, used a mechanical digger to make a few holes, then went away to write a report that said nothing that was not already known. Clearing up by hand after his departure we discovered that he had torn up the original surface of the coutyard, and destroyed the wall of a ancient pit, without noticing either.

Our experience was in the Aude département. Beware their are many much worse stories elsewhere, so think carefully before buying a property that is, or might be, listed. It will cost you tens or hundreds of thousands Euros extra, and if your experience is like ours you will not have seen a cent in grants after six years.