Since it was founded in 2004, Bon Séjour en France has become the top holiday rental agency on the Ile de Re.
In this section, you will find the answers to the main questions you have about our agency, our team and our know how.
Whatever you question, please don’t hesitate to contact us.
The headquarters of BSEF is located on the Ile de Re at 19 rue des Jaulaines in the village of Sainte-Marie-de-Ré (17740).
The business premises of BSEF are located place du Bois de l’Ardilliers (La Croix Michaud) in La Flotte (17630).
If you would like to contact us or write to us: general information by email: infos@bonsejourenfrance.com La Flotte, Saint Martin and le Bois plage en Ré, valerie@bonsejourenfrance.com or +33 6 72 60 55 61 Sainte Marie, La Couarde and Loix en Ré, victoire@bonsejourenfrance.com or +33 6 72 60 41 38 Les Portes, Ars en Ré and Saint Clément, jean-charles@bonsejourenfrance.com or +33 6 72 60 04 33
BSEF is a limited liability company registered on the La Rochelle company register. It was founded in 2004 As an estate agent specializing in holiday rentals, BSEF carries out a regulated activity in France and holds the appropriate licence issued by the La Rochelle police headquarters as well as a financial guarantee underwritten by the SOCAF.
Your zone manager will make an appointment with you to get to know you, present the agency and visit your house. After the meeting, you will receive a summary of the visit which includes a suggested price list.
Once we have your agreement, we will come back and photograph your house. This is an essential step as the quality of the photos is a determining factor in how well your house rents out. We will send you a mandate which is a contract between yourself and BSEF. Then it’s just a question of putting the house on line.
To summarize, these are the five steps we go through:
Net prices are fixed by mutual agreement and according to the season, ie rents, determined according to the period (very high season, high season, middle season and low season), are paid to you net of agency fees. The client pays rent per the prices indicated on the website which includes the net price due to you and the agency fees due to BSEF. The agency fees (around 20% on average) are, therefore, paid by the client.
Our holiday homes are presented on 3 sites and we work daily to ensure that they are as visible as possible on internet search engines with a particular emphasis on Google (which alone accounts for 75% of internet searches):
the French website www.bon-sejour-en–france.fr,
the English website www.bon-sejour-en–france.com,
and the blog www.locationiledere.org.
For the most popular searches undertaken by visitors (holiday rental Ile de Ré, house rental Ile de Ré, houses for rent Ile de Ré…), our sites appear on the first page of results on www.google.fr and www.google.co.uk. If you add extra search terms such as « luxury », « exclusive » or « high quality », BSEF appears in the top 3 results on the first page of Google for both French speaking and English speaking visitors.
BSEF does not require any exclusivity. However, for reasons of organization, responsibility and good management of schedules, we do not wish to compete with other agencies. When we have a reservation request, we systematically ask for your prior agreement before committing ourselves to the tenants. This allows you to have a total freedom towards us and not to feel committed. You can therefore lend yourself, rent directly if you wish, your house
BSEF is an agency specialized in the seasonal rental of beautiful houses on the Ile de Ré. It is positioned in the “mid to high end” and “very high end” market segments. This position on the market is not a coincidence. It is linked to our desire to select quality houses – not necessarily luxurious – but pleasant to live in and located in quiet areas. It also allows BSEF to be identified by the Google algorithm as the agency specialized in beautiful villas on the island of Ré. All our houses meet a quality requirement and this selection makes our rental offer homogeneous and readable for visitors. Each house is selected on the criterion “comfort” and “location”.
Bon Séjour en France, which specialises in the rental of exclusive properties on the Île de Ré, has put together a summary of the taxation of holiday rentals as 2013 gets under way. We haven’t addressed corporate taxation in this summary, ie when the rental activity is carried out via a company such as an SARL.< You can access this article by clicking on the following link: How your holiday rental income is taxed?
At the time of reservation, BSEF receives a deposit of 30% of the gross rent (the gross rent is equal to the amount of the net rent paid to the owner + the agency commissions). This deposit is then paid back to you minus the part of the fees contained in the deposit. If the payment of this deposit is made by the tenant with a bank card, BSEF takes charge of the bank charges. The payment of the balance of the rent is required by BSEF at the latest 60 days before the entry in the premises When the tenant enters the premises, the balance of the net rent – after deduction of the deposit – is paid to the owner.
The large house on the Ile de Re (more than 4 or 5 bedrooms) are easy to rent in the Peak Season when our clients are used to book with friends (or other family members). But you need to be aware, particularly for periods outside the Peak season, that it may be harder to rent because the clients are very often young couples with 1 or 2 babies or small group of friends. Therefore, our advice or our strategy, outside the Peak Season, is to reduce the capacity of this type of house by closing some bedrooms (or an annex) in order to offer the kind of price associated with a smaller house. This way, in lower seasons, a large house would have two prices: the normal price for the entire house and a reduced price for a “reduced” house.
A welcome message and a welcome booklet are sent to each tenant about 5 to 6 days before their arrival (usually the Monday before Saturday). The tenant is then informed of the first name and telephone number of their BSEF host. Each tenant is then welcomed directly in the house (check-in) in order to : hand over the keys, present the premises and give the instructions for use (household appliances, swimming pool, sorting and collection of household waste, particular points of vigilance,…), complete the last formalities (payment of the balance of the rent, taking the deposit, provide the household linen, hand over the welcome booklet, the guide to the Ile de Ré and give some tourist information (beaches, places to visit, restaurants,…), finally, make an appointment at the end of the stay to check-out with the tenant. The day before the end of the stay (usually on Friday) a reminder message is sent by SMS to the tenant to confirm the check-out time. At the time of the check-out, the BSEF receptionist checks with the tenant that the stay went well and checks the condition of the house. This meeting at the departure of the tenants (check-out) is compulsory (in no case the tenant leaves the premises by leaving the keys in the mailbox).
Of course : the breakage deposit must be paid when the rental period begins either by cheque or by credit card (BSEF has mobile credit card terminals which work on the GSM network). The breakage deposit is returned at the latest 2 weeks after the end of the client’s stay, subject to the cost of any damages arising (or cost of reparation).
BSEF provides house linen to the clients. Cleaning costs associated with this house linen (sheets, duvet covers, bathmats, towels and tea towels) are borne by the client. Only the occasional cost of cleaning other house linen such as mattress covers, duvets, pillows and bed covers is borne by you.
The end of stay cleaning is mandatory and its cost is borne by the client . Bon Séjour en France manages the cleaning service at the end of each client’s stay. BSEF may also be asked to provide cleaning services during the client’s stay (mid stay cleaning). This service is paid for by the client. Sometimes cleaning is required when the house has not been occupied for long periods of time (eg before the arrival of the season’s first clients). In this case, you will bear the cost of this cleaning service.
We ask you to have maintenance contracts with specialized personnel for both the pool and the garden. During rental periods, BSEF coordinates this personnel to ensure the garden and/or pool are correctly maintained. The pool in particular needs weekly maintenance visits (every three to four days in the summer when it is used frequently).