Beyond The Romance - The Reality Of Houseboat Life In France

No matter the time of year a soft breeze, gentle lapping waves, and a warm welcome can be found here. Your houseboat moored under the birch trees that line the edge of Le Canal du Midi. There’s nothing quite like the freedom of living on the water, it is a dream for many to have no obligations and move like the water, pulled one direction or another, never knowing what kind of adventure you might find yourself in. In France, this is a reality for many, houseboats made from refitted grain barges, catamarans, riverboats, and, even, yachts, can be found if you spend enough time strolling around the country's canals. However, living on a boat isn’t all rainbows and sunshine, of course, unlike life’s other pleasures, government regulation is a certainty.

Before your vessel can take its maiden voyage to settle in a nice place where you can kick back and relax, inspections are in order. At the very least a hull inspection is mandatory to ensure the integrity of your vessel, this is done every ten years and must be done in a dry dock, so plan for fees associated with moving your boat, especially if it does not have a motor, on top of the inspection fee.

Mooring might seem as simple as can be, simply park your boat where you want, no one owns the water, right? Technically, you would be correct, federal law dictates boats can be moored anywhere along the edge of a canal or waterway as long as you are not tied to a tree. However, many jurisdictions have placed restrictions on where and for how long a boat can be moored in one place. Anytime over what the local authority has dictated for public use must be negotiated with a Contrat d’occupation temporaire du domaine public or Cots. These are usually annual contracts allowing a boat to be moored in one place for an extended period of time. One upside to this arrangement, however, is that you don’t have to pay any land tax!

Many boathouse owners do enjoy a life of relative stability like the rest of us, even if their homes do rock back and forth. They work in the cities they dock at and send their kids to public schools. So, if you’re going to live a regular life while also enjoying the water, you might want to think about how you’re going to get your mail, your electricity, water, and where you might dump your waste.

Luckily, many townships don’t have a problem, after you sign your Cots, to provide an address for you.

Electricity can be a bit more finicky as a line may have to be run out for you and this can be pricey and take some time. A generator might seem like the easiest solution, but they can get very expensive, so many houseboat owners choose to invest in solar power and run either off a backup generator or battery when the panels are not able to be used.

Water can be very tricky, most townships will not run water out to your abode if it is not already available near you, so a great deal of houseboats are equipped with a water tank to provide clean water for drinking and basic hygiene.

Your waste is something that you will have to deal with whether you like it or not. Until recently, local authorities have had very little problem with you dumping your gray and black water directly into the canals or rivers. Some townships, however, have begun to require you to take that waste to their treatment plants as a condition of their Cots. Other cities, like Paris this year, have been handing out government rebates on equipment needed to hook your boat up to the local water and sewer system.

Does all this regulation sound like too much of a headache to you? I’m not sure if I have the kind of conviction needed to build and maintain my own, but I can understand the appeal of wanting to live on the water. While most of France lives in single family homes rather than apartments, the romance of “getting away from it all,” is ever present no matter where in the world you are.