John Newman Prentice - English-Speaking Estate Agent in Toulouse

06/08/2026

Rugby wasn't born in Toulouse. The story of how it got here is more interesting than the myth.

The official birthplace is Rugby School, England, 1823: a pupil named William Webb Ellis supposedly picked up the ball and ran. No contemporary witness ever confirmed it happened. The statue was built anyway.

The game reached France in 1872, brought by English residents who founded a club at Le Havre. Paris played its first championship in 1892. Toulouse hadn't even heard of it yet.

That changed in 1893, when two schoolboys at the Lycee de Toulouse, taught the game in Paris and Reims, started a team called the Sans-Soucis. As students, they founded the Stade olympien.

On 2 May 1907, student clubs merged into what we now call Stade Toulousain. Five years later, in 1912, the club was champion of France. And that red and black strip everyone recognises: the leading theory traces it to the robes worn by the city's medieval capitouls, centuries before the club existed.

4 hours, free, one-to-one: my standing offer to English speakers buying or selling around Toulouse. Claim your free time with me: the link is in my bio.

Sources: Cairn (Panard, 2023), PUM OpenEdition, Wikipedia (Stade Toulousain), stadetoulousain.fr, Top 14 official site.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons (licences).

06/08/2026

Where should you live around Toulouse? It depends entirely on what your week looks like.

Working at or near Airbus? Blagnac, Colomiers and Cornebarrieu are the natural base. Short commutes, newer housing, and the International School of Toulouse, teaching the IB curriculum in Colomiers since 1999.

Want city life without needing a car? The centre and Saint-Cyprien put the Capitole, the Carmes market and the river within walking distance. Smaller flats, higher prices, everything on foot.

Want space and quiet, still close to town? Minimes runs along the Canal du Midi with a metro line straight into the centre. Further out, Lardenne trades a slightly longer drive for an actual garden.

Ask yourself three questions before you start viewing: do you need to be near an English-language school, do you want to live without a car, and do you want outdoor space more than square footage in the centre. The answers usually point to one of these three.

Every week, 4 hours set aside for English speakers buying or selling around Toulouse, one-to-one and free. Claim your free time with me: the link is in my bio.

Sources: Expat.com, Migaku (Toulouse neighbourhoods guide, 2026), checked 08/2026.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons (licences).

06/08/2026

20,000 euros. That's the typical "notaire fees" bill on an older Toulouse property. Here's where it actually goes.

Roughly 5.8% of the price is droits de mutation: a tax that goes straight to the state and the department, not to your notaire.

The notaire's own fee, the emoluments, is fixed by national scale. On a typical sale it works out to about 1% of the price. The rest covers land registry and paperwork.

Two habits worth keeping: use the free official calculator at immobilier.notaires.fr before you budget, and if agency fees are charged to the buyer, check whether the tax is calculated before or after them.

4 hours a week, given away one-to-one to English speakers buying or selling around Toulouse. Claim your free time with me: the link is in my bio.

Sources: notaires.fr, French-Property.com, checked 08/2026.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons (licences).

05/08/2026

Walk down Rue d'Alsace-Lorraine and look up: above the shopfronts, a clock has been keeping time since 1895. Its face carries 24 numbers instead of 12, and the hour hand turns exactly once a day. It isn't broken. It was built that way.

The building opened as a bank, and the 24-hour dial was the message: money moves around the clock, day and night. More than a century later, most people walk straight underneath it and never notice.

Find it yourself: 59 Rue d'Alsace-Lorraine, on the corner of Rue Rivals, inside the round window under the slate dome.

One-to-one, free, 4 hours a week: that's what I offer English speakers buying or selling around Toulouse. Claim your free time with me: the link is in my bio.

Sources: Le Journal Toulousain, ToulouseSecret, Grand Sud Insolite.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons (licences).

05/08/2026

One of the most-asked questions about French property, answered straight: buying a home in France gives you zero residency rights. No golden visa exists here, at any price.

Without a visa, non-EU citizens (including Britons since Brexit) can stay 90 days in any 180. From 2026, the EES biometric border system counts every single day.

The real path for most people is the long-stay visitor visa, the VLS-TS: twelve months, renewable, no working for a French employer, proof of income and health cover.

And here is the part nobody tells you: owning a home HELPS that file. It proves accommodation and real ties. Wrong order ruins projects. Visa first, keys second.

Ten honest minutes on france-visas.gouv.fr, the official wizard, will tell you exactly where you stand.

4 hours. That's how much time I give away, one-to-one, to English speakers buying or selling around Toulouse. Claim your free time with me: the link is in my bio.

Source: france-visas.gouv.fr, checked 08/2026.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons (licences).

05/08/2026

My mother sold farmhouses in Ariege to British families, back when the paperwork was typed and the dictionary lived on the kitchen table.

I grew up in the back seat of her car, between two viewings and two languages. England until I was 8, then a village an hour south of Toulouse.

I watched her translate more than words: surveys, notaires, neighbours, the whole French system, for people signing the biggest cheque of their lives in a language that was not theirs.

I became a real estate agent too. Same job, both directions: helping English speakers buy around Toulouse, and owners sell from here or from abroad. You will find me at Orpi Les Carmes, 16 place du Salin, and everything happens in your language, from the first conversation to the notaire.

Every week I set aside 4 hours, one-to-one, for English speakers buying or selling around Toulouse. Claim your free time with me: the link is in my bio.

Photos: Mirepoix and the Ariege countryside, where it all started (Wikimedia Commons, licences).

03/08/2026

One of the most-asked questions about French property, answered straight: buying a home in France gives you zero residency rights. No golden visa exists here, at any price.

Without a visa, non-EU citizens (including Britons since Brexit) can stay 90 days in any 180. From 2026, the EES biometric border system counts every single day.

The real path for most people is the long-stay visitor visa, the VLS-TS: twelve months, renewable, no working for a French employer, proof of income and health cover. And here is the part nobody tells you: owning a home HELPS that file. It proves accommodation and real ties. Wrong order ruins projects. Visa first, keys second.

Ten honest minutes on france-visas.gouv.fr, the official wizard, will tell you exactly where you stand.

4 hours. That's how much time I give away, one-to-one, to English speakers buying or selling around Toulouse. Claim your free time with me: the link is in my bio.

Source: france-visas.gouv.fr, checked 08/2026.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons (licences).

03/08/2026

June 1875. Three days of rain met the Pyrenean snowmelt, and in one night the Garonne rose to 8.32 metres at the Pont-Neuf gauge.

Its normal summer level is about 80 centimetres.

The left bank took the worst of it. Two bridges broke. The Pont-Neuf held, thanks to unequal arches, cutwaters, and those round holes through the piers: the flood passed through the bridge instead of pushing against it.

Toulouse rewrote its building rules afterwards, and sealed the memory into its walls. If you want to touch that history, three stops make one short walk: the carved stone on avenue Etienne-Billieres, the enamel plaques in impasse Barutel, and the round hole (an ouie) in the central pier of the Pont-Neuf.

4 hours. That's how much time I give away, one-to-one, to English speakers buying or selling around Toulouse. Claim your free time with me: the link is in my bio!

Sources: Wikipedia (Crue de la Garonne de 1875), prefecture de la Haute-Garonne, PAPI Toulouse.
Photos: Wikimedia Commons and BnF/Gallica (licences).

31/07/2026

NEW ON THE MARKET Toulouse City Center 🤩

2-bedroom apartment (T3), each with its own bathroom.
City Center – Facing the Garonne River
Prestigious 1900 building
Small co-ownership of 4 units
2.87m high ceilings
2 levels (split-level)
Air-conditioned
Low building charges
Energy rating: C
No upcoming works scheduled for the building. Meticulously maintained co-ownership with low fees.
Sold with a fully equipped kitchen. Furniture and home cinema negotiable.
More details upon request!

Call now to connect with business.

27/07/2026

To every British owner of a French house who has thought "we should probably sell": this one is for you.

Selling from abroad is very doable. Three things catch people out:

🧾 Capital gains tax (plus-value). As a non-resident you may owe French CGT on the gain, BUT the rate tapers with years of ownership, and after 22 years (30 for social charges) it can disappear entirely. Bought in the early 2000s? You might owe far less than you fear.

📋 Diagnostics. France requires a pack of surveys before you can even list (energy, asbestos, lead, electrics). I organise all of them with local firms. You do not need to fly over.

✍️ Signing from abroad. A power of attorney (procuration) means you can complete the entire sale without leaving the UK. Done properly, it is routine. I did exactly this for a client this year, tenants in place and all.

Own a place around Toulouse, the Lauragais, Ariège or the Tarn? Happy to give you an honest, no-pressure idea of what it is worth today. Message me on WhatsApp: [WhatsApp]