Britons ordered to leave France over bad first year of work lose court appeal
Order was upheld despite their Dordogne gîte business now doing better. They say they have ‘absolutely nothing to go back to in the UK’.
Stuart and Kimberley Hawley say it is a ‘bitter pill to swallow’. They have invested over €300,000 in their home and business
Kimberley Hawley
A British couple who moved to Dordogne to set up a highly-rated gîte and a farm have had their appeal against an order to leave France rejected – but remain determined to do everything possible to continue their life here.
“We will be coming back on the 90/180 days visa waiver rule and will alternate so one of us is always here and we will reapply 1,000 times for visas if that’s what it takes to stay here and make this our forever family home,” Stuart and Kimberley Hawley told The Connexion.
The couple received news from their lawyer last week that the obligation de quitter le territoire français (OQTF) order was upheld by a Bordeaux court and that they must leave.
The decision came after their lawyer pleaded their case on Monday last week. The couple say they were not able to attend themselves due to being under a house arrest order not to leave Dordogne.
The order to leave came from the prefecture of the Dordogne earlier this year after it refused their application for residency cards on grounds that their self-employment income had not been regular in their first year when they were on VLS-TS self-employment visas.
They sought no financial support from France and say administrative delays added to difficulties in their set-up year.
Booked on a flight and passports taken
Despite appealing, the couple previously told The Connexion they had faced pressure this year to leave. At one point they were handed a document by gendarmes that said they were booked on a flight, and that their passports – which had been confiscated – were waiting for them at Bordeaux–Mérignac airport.
There were two incidents of them being booked on flights, they said.
Their lawyer previously said that such pressure is unusual when foreign people have appealed and are awaiting a hearing in court.
The couple reported investing more than €300,000 in their property, including renovating the gîte, which has an overall customer approval rate of 9.8/10 on accommodation website Booking.com.
They said that after a patchy start due to set-up complications, their business is on a much better financial footing. However, the lawyer was given only about 20 minutes to explain their situation to the court, they said.
They are now expecting to be given a definitive date by which they must leave, but understand it could be imminent.
They have therefore begun packing and temporarily rehoming some dogs and working out what to do with their working farm, including culling some male pigs to control reproduction numbers.
There are also crops sown in the fields that will need attending to.
They said it was a “bitter pill to swallow” to have to leave with “absolutely nothing to go back to in the UK.”
“We are employing our first local French employee to look after everything here while we are gone,” they said.
“We are assessing options such as making a close French friend a part owner of the farm.
“We have absolutely everything invested in our home and business here.”
