J2Ski Forum Posts and Replies by msej449

I know I've said this before, and I know that not everyone agrees, but I don't see the logic in buying in the UK as opposed to the ski resort. Now, I have myself bought ski boots at huge discount in a Decathlon in Montpellier in a blazing hot summer, but that was because they were so cheap. Various people I know have gone through the routine of buying them in the UK; everything feeling OK; waiting 3 months; skiing in them and being crippled within a couple of hours; taking them to a shop to see what they can do; hiring something else out of necessity; bringing them back; going to the shop; having them adjusted; waiting 9 months; paying to take them out; and repeating the whole process for the next couple of years.

The alternative is to wait; hire from a good shop on the basis of 'try and buy'; try out 3-4 different boots; buy the ones you like; go through a couple of adjustment visits to the shop; and return home happy.

This usually produces a posting about a bad experience with a resort shop. But there will always be bad shops, whether they're in a resort or in the UK - with people who are just out to sell you anything. The difference is that at least you can (a) try them out on a hire basis and (b) take them back for adjustment and try them again if you use a resort shop.

Contacting the Tourist Office may be the easiest route - let them do the work. Villars and Champéry are the nearest to Geneva, with Verbier, Crans-Montana further but probably with more transfer options? I'd also say Zernatt or Saas Fe but the journey from Geneva is rather longer and involves a train change at Brig/Visp. If you want to make the most of your travel day, hire a car and get to the rental shops in the late afternoon so you can be on the slopes asap the next day. However, from Geneva, budget at least £40/day including travel days i.e. £200+. The alternative is public transport at around £70 return from Geneva Airport via train/télépherique/bus but this will take longer (see www.sbb.ch special deals for non-Swiss 'Transfer Ticket'). Are you really determined on a hotel? Self-catering studios may be a cheaper alternative and you can spend the oney on going out to eat instead. You should be able to get a studio for, say £350+ although if you're spanning a weekend then this may be a problem, I'd admit.

La Tzoumaz has a new fast gondola to Savoleyres (9 minutes) or a short bus ride to the baby-slope and a couple of chairs up (20 mins). Generally short queues at the télécabine, other than opening/closing time but nothing like the congestion of the Plan du Feu out of Nendaz. From Savoleyres summit, you can ski down to Carrefour (20 mins) and over to the (ancient) Mayenzet chair up to Ruinettes then La Chaux express or over to Lac de Vaux. No need to queue at the Médran in central Verbier. However, out of school hols and weekends, I can't deny that it will still take you an extra 40 mins to get over to the main Verbier slopes.

The other problem is if the snow is thin - worst case scenario is more likely in March but it has been bad even in February e.g. 2005 (I think) when the ski down to Carrefour was impractical and we had to take the old gondola down to Verbier (Savoleyres Sud base) then a bus and then join the Medran queues. Nightmare. So if the tourist office can find a small studio for you at a reasonable price then you will just have to accept that the price you pay for cheaper accomodation is the risk of a long morning transit if the snow is bad.

The other downside is that La Tzoumaz is oriented towards families and self-catering, so if you're a party hound then it's going to seem very quiet. More so because most of the accomodation is owned by Swiss locals and so the percentage of rented places is lower even than Verbier.

If you do opt for La Tzoumaz also bear in mind that the transfer options are more limited than Verbier: We now get the train to/from Geneva Airport and then the bus, or the (new this winter) Riddes-Isérables télépherique then bus. Cost is much cheaper than a Verbier transfer bus: about £60 return. But you need to schedule your flights to arrive on/before 10:30 and depart after 15:00, because the buses tend to be scheduled for people going skiing or working in the village i.e. transfers from the valley village of Riddes around 9am and 4pm Unfortunately, the winter timetables don't start 'till December and you may have to book your flight without being exactly sure about the train/télépherique/bus schedule.

What's you accomodation budget? A 4-6 person apartment in La Tzoumaz is about £675/week so you may be able to get a studio for around, say £350. I suggest you contact the La Tzoumaz Tourist Office and ask them for something suitable. Verbier accomodation is notoriusly expensive, but the satellites are cheaper.

Although it's tempting, I'd wait until I was on the snow if I were you, and could try some pairs out and simply see which ones work best. My first pair of bought skis came from a UK shop but subsequently, I did far better hiring and then buying.

Also, beware the 'leaseback' option in Switzerland. In France, this seems to have some genuine return as it's a n official mechanism for you to avoid paying VAT when renting-out (so as to encourage rental of new properties). Elsewhere, it's just a sales ploy, not an official programme - You hand over the rental to the developer or selected agency, pick a couple of weeks for yourself, and they guarantee to pay you so much per week (usually in the high season only). I don't like it because in reality there's a good chance the place may actually be empty and that you could use it, but you're prohibited. It's just a mechanism to make the immobilier's like easier by having a pool of empty places.

Why not wait until you're actually skiing and in a resort? Surely, it's better if you can try them out and go back to the shop the same day to get them adjusted? The alternative is to buy them in the UK, go on your ski holiday, find they're not right, ski in them for the remainder of the holiday, come back, return to the shop, get them adjusted, and then repeat the whole process.

We bought in La Tzoumaz (4 Valleys) in 2003, fortunately when there were 2.33 CHF to £1 rather than the current 1.75 although that's up from 1.52 last December (i.e. it's steadily improving). Generally, foreigners not resident on work permits or intending to become domiciled can only buy in designated areas in any canton. These are generally holiday areas such as the ones I imagine you're considering. The option of buying a residential place in a valley and driving is not likely to be viable, unless the valley location itself is designated a tourist area. A property needs to carry a permit for foreign ownership (it's the property which gets the permit, not the owner). In the Valais (Verbier, Nendaz, La Tzoumaz, Les Collons, Crans-Montana, Champery etc) you'll see the estate agents (immobiliers) websites and offices indicate a property or off-plan is 'Vente a étrangers' i.e. for sale to foreigners with a permit assigned to the property or in the process of being granted. The cantons control strictly how many new permits are granted every year, and in the last 2-3 years the backlog has built up, due both to general popularity of Switzerland and a Cantonal desire not to over-develop. Moreover, it seems common for the canton to impose a rule that you can't sell-on for 5 years (or whatever) from the date of the permit grant/transfer.

If you're buying an existing licensed property, the process is fairly streamlined. It took us all of 2½ hours from walking into the immobilier, through viewing the apartment, to signing the documents and getting the keys. Not bad. In the Swiss Romande, the same notary (notaire) acts for both buyer and seller and is accredited by the canton. If you have the cash then all the paperwork goes on to the notaire who enforces settlement and would deal with any issues like non-payment, building problems, etc. Once you sign the paperwork with the immobilier you are committed and can't back out without the notaire enforcing a penalty. My understanding is that there's no concept of hiring your own legal eagle, as the notaire is an independent, accredited legal representative. Once you pay up you get the requisite legal documents from the notaire. If you buy an apartment in a block, you would be a 'co-proprietaire' i.e. a co-owner of the building along with the other owners and and a 'PPE' or proprietaire par etage literally 'owner by floor'. I like the mechanism of quoting the useable area in M2 which makes cost comparison much easier than in the UK.

Swiss builders usually provide more generous M2 per room than in French ski property e.g. our 68M2 apartment with 2 bedrooms in Switzerland would probably be divided into three bedrooms in France. Also, Swiss adverts usually don't include the basement storage area ('cave') or parking in the quoted M2 while I've seen some French adverts do so, but be careful to check in any case. The immobilier also organised a bank account for us, for bill payments and rental income: the Swiss bank thing is often overstated - it's no more difficult to open a standard Swiss bank account than it is a UK one. However, you will probably have to give the agency access to your account if you expect them to pay bills on your behalf and accept rents. One convenience is that you should expect to get a debit card with the account which can be quite useful, as some Swiss shops don't take credit cards.

If you are taking out a Swiss mortgage the process may take somewhat longer and definitely will involve more communications with both the bank and a notaire. The process is just like the UK, with you providing financial details to the bank, and signing documents with the notaire. To avoid having to travel over it is common practice for the notaire to ask you to assign certain legal powers to a paralegal representative. You may also have to meet a bank representative in person, just as you'd expect to in the UK. We switched our mortgage from the UK to Switzerland and it was all straightforward. Generally, if you have a mortgage with a swiss bank you would be exempt from bank charges.

I've not bought off-plan so I can't talk from personal experience. However I have met people who have done so without the permit having been issued, as it's been in the backlog. This seems to be OK but the date on which the permit is granted to you (or transferred) is often used as part of a rule where you can't sell-on for 5 years subsequently (or however long it is in your canton). Basically, you need to get a very clear idea from the immobilier of how this will work if you're buying off-plan. I have heard feedback from people who've waited 3-4 years for their permit to come through at which point the 5-year resale clock starts ticking, which you might consider too limiting a constraint. Remember that the mountain building season is relatively short and that it can take a 2-3 summers before an off-plan property is complete, especially if the spring/autumn weather is bad.

If you're buying a chalet and grounds, some cantons also limit the total ground area for a foreign buyer. Numbers I've come across have been around the 600M2 mark. Obviously, you'd need to check in your case.

There's also a limitation - not sure if it's cantonal or national - that you can only own one property. You may say "if only" now but you never know, in the future you might like to buy another apartment in the Italian lakes area (the Ticino - like Lake Maggiore) etc. Essentially you can't.

Overall, we found it astonishingly easy to buy an existing holiday property, but this was six years ago and we had UK funding lined-up already. Expect it to be more involved if you are organising a Swiss mortgage (hypotheque) and if you're buying off-plan. DON'T be seduced by estate agencies catering specifically to the English market who invariably try to sell only their own property portfolio (obviously) and generally seem to inflate the CHF/M2 cost.

If you plan to use the property in the summer, bear in mind that there's an often dramatic change in some resorts when the winter/summer seasons end, with the place going very quiet. If you want to use the place in the summer then a big factor will be whether the lifts are running. Where we are it's only July-August while in adjacent Verbier they run for longer.

Overall, my advice is to stand back from contacting any estate agents until you have decided on the location you want and done some work to look at different CHF/M2 prices and see what's on the market. We visited first and went round a few resorts, then sat down at home and narrowed it down to 2-3 locations and then did another tour, before going into any immobiliers.

FInally, I discalaim all responsibilty for the accuracy of any information and recommendations. Things have changed in the past few years and the buying conditions now may be different than for us, and of course, our requirements and preferences will be different to yours. Also bear in mind that wherever you buy property there is always the possibilty of a bad experience and a dishonest builder/ agent/ notary.