Own the
extraordinary.
Share the dream.

The word "fractional" makes some people nervous. It sounds like something they've heard before — and not in a good way. Usually, the association is with timeshare: a fortnight in a Spanish resort, a salesman in a suit, and a contract you regret signing on the flight home.

Fractional property ownership through Comaison is something fundamentally different. Understanding why matters — not just emotionally, but financially.

What a timeshare actually is

A timeshare sells you the right to use a property for a fixed period each year — typically a week or two, at the same time every year, in the same resort. You don't own any part of the property. You own a usage licence.

That licence has almost no resale value from the day you sign. In fact, the timeshare resale market is notorious for being virtually illiquid — there are entire businesses dedicated to helping people exit timeshare contracts they can't sell. Annual maintenance fees rise regardless of whether you visit. The developer profits; the buyer rarely does.

What fractional ownership actually is

Comaison structures each property as a UK-registered Limited company. When you buy a share, you are buying genuine equity in that company — a real legal interest in the property it holds, registered at Companies House, governed by a shareholder agreement, and transferable at market value.

This is the same mechanism used in commercial property investment, in buy-to-let structures, and in family property ownership across the UK. It is a well-understood, legally robust structure that has nothing in common with a timeshare licence.

The five differences that matter

1. Your investment grows. As the property appreciates, so does the value of your share. A Comaison share bought today is worth more when you sell it than when you bought it — assuming the property market performs as it has historically in the regions we operate in.

2. Rental income offsets your costs. When Comaison owners aren't using their weeks, the property earns rental income. That income is divided between shareholders and applied against running costs. At conservative occupancy, most Comaison properties approach annual cost neutrality — meaning the net annual cost of ownership can be close to zero.

3. You can sell when you choose. There is no lock-in. No exit fee. No developer to negotiate with. When you decide to sell your share, it is sold at the current market valuation — subject only to fellow shareholders' right of first refusal. Your capital is yours to realise on your timeline.

4. You are not locked to one property. Comaison's points system gives you flexibility across the entire portfolio. Use your points at your own property or swap a week with another owner at a different Comaison home. A timeshare ties you to a fixed destination. Comaison ownership opens a door to a growing collection of exceptional European properties.

5. You have a vote. As a shareholder in the UK Ltd company that holds the property, you have equal voting rights on major decisions — improvements, development, management changes, exit. This is ownership with governance, not a passive contract.

The honest comparison

A timeshare typically costs £10,000–£30,000 to buy, depreciates immediately, and carries annual fees of £500–£1,500 rising year on year. Over ten years, you might spend £25,000 on something worth £0 at the end of it.

A Comaison share at £138,000 is a very different proposition. Annual costs offset by rental income. Capital that grows. An asset you can sell. And five to six weeks a year in a beautifully curated French property that is genuinely, legally yours.

The word fractional just means shared. What matters is what you're sharing — and whether it's a liability or an asset.

Most people who buy in the Dordogne buy in the Périgord Noir — the southern stretch that runs from Sarlat to Les Eyzies. Golden medieval villages. Cave paintings. Foie gras and walnut oil. It is, justifiably, one of the most famous landscapes in France.

It is also, increasingly, crowded. The villages are beautiful. The car parks are not.

The other Dordogne

The Périgord Vert sits above it — the northern quarter of the Dordogne department, running up toward the Limousin. It takes its name from its colour: an intense, rolling green of oak forest, river meadows and hedgerow country that looks, in high summer, like someone has turned the saturation up to maximum.

This is not a consolation prize. It is a different experience entirely — quieter, more personal, less marketed. The villages here don't appear on the tourist itineraries. The markets are for locals. The restaurants don't have English menus. The roads are empty.

Why property values are rising

For decades, the Périgord Vert was overlooked by international buyers precisely because it wasn't on the radar. That is changing — and changing in exactly the way that creates value for early movers.

Three things are driving demand. First, post-pandemic buyers increasingly want space, privacy and authenticity over resort amenities — and the Périgord Vert delivers all three in abundance. Second, the rise of remote working has expanded the pool of buyers who can genuinely spend extended periods in France. Third, as the Périgord Noir has become more expensive and more crowded, the natural move is north.

Properties in the Périgord Vert have seen consistent annual appreciation of 5–8% over the past five years. Character properties — stone manoirs, farmhouses, mills — are particularly sought after and particularly finite. They are not building new 18th-century buildings.

Getting there

One of the strongest arguments for the Périgord Vert is how easy it is to reach from the UK. Ryanair flies direct from London Stansted to Bergerac — fares from £35 return, flight time 1 hour 50 minutes. From Bergerac airport, the northern Périgord is an hour and ten minutes by car.

Limoges airport, to the north, is even closer — 45 minutes to many Périgord Vert properties, with regular services from Birmingham, Manchester and East Midlands. This makes the region genuinely accessible for a long weekend, not just a two-week holiday.

The Périgord Vert in practice

Lanouaille, the nearest market town to Manoir de Nanthiat, is 10 minutes away. Nontron — a proper town with everything you need — is 25 minutes. Périgueux, the departmental capital with excellent restaurants, a Roman amphitheatre and one of the best Saturday markets in France, is 45 minutes.

Brantôme — the Venice of the Périgord, built on an island in the River Dronne — is 35 minutes and worth every one of them. The abbey dates to Charlemagne. The restaurant at Le Moulin de l'Abbaye holds a Michelin star. The Saturday morning market is the kind of thing you plan your whole visit around.

For UK buyers specifically

The Périgord Vert has long had a significant British community — enough that French estate agents routinely list properties in English — but not so many that it has lost its authenticity. French is the language of daily life. The food is resolutely local. And the sense that you have found somewhere the guidebooks haven't fully discovered yet remains entirely intact.

That won't last forever. Which is, of course, the point.

There are places in the world where owning property is about more than financial returns. Burgundy is one of them. It is one of the most culturally significant wine regions on earth — the home of Chablis, Meursault, Gevrey-Chambertin, Puligny-Montrachet. Names that appear on wine lists at the world's great restaurants. Vineyards that have been tended since the Middle Ages.

It is also, by the standards of other world-class wine regions, extraordinarily good value.

The Burgundy premium that isn't

Napa Valley. Tuscany. Bordeaux's Left Bank. These are all globally recognised wine regions where property prices reflect their fame. Burgundy is different. Despite producing wines that command higher prices per bottle than almost anywhere else, the region's property market — particularly in the Yonne department in the north — has not followed suit.

An 18th-century estate of 17 bedrooms across four buildings, set in 7.9 private hectares fifteen minutes from the Chablis Grand Cru vineyards, would cost several million pounds in the Cotswolds. In Burgundy's Yonne, a share in exactly that property is available for £225,000.

What drives Burgundy property values

Three factors are converging to push Burgundy character property upward. First, the Eurostar and TGV connections mean Paris professionals are increasingly looking at Burgundy as a genuine weekend retreat — the TGV from Paris Gare de Lyon reaches Dijon in 1 hour 35 minutes. Second, international interest in Burgundy wine has brought global buyers to the region who then notice the property. Third, the supply of authentic 18th and 19th-century estates is finite and shrinking as properties are acquired and held.

The Yonne department specifically — which includes Chablis, Auxerre and the northern Côte de Nuits — has seen consistent annual appreciation in character property of 6–9% over the past five years. The combination of Paris proximity, wine-country cachet, and still-reasonable prices creates a compelling investment case.

Chablis and the culinary context

Fifteen minutes from Château de l'Yonne, the Chablis wine region produces some of the world's most distinctive Chardonnay — mineral, precise, age-worthy. A visit to a Chablis domaine is the kind of experience that owners plan their stays around: a morning tasting, lunch at one of the local restaurants, an afternoon in the vineyards.

The broader culinary landscape of Burgundy is extraordinary. This is the home of boeuf bourguignon, escargots, époisses cheese, pain d'épices, and Dijon mustard. The weekly markets in Auxerre and Tonnerre are the kind of food markets that make you reconsider your relationship with supermarkets entirely.

Paris in two hours

Château de l'Yonne sits two hours from Paris by road — close enough for a Friday evening departure from Charles de Gaulle, far enough that the property feels completely removed from city life. Auxerre, the nearest city, is 45 minutes away with its own TGV connection making the journey to Paris under an hour by train.

For UK owners, flights to Paris CDG or Beauvais take 1 hour 15 minutes from London — making the total journey from London to the estate under four hours door-to-door.

The Comaison model in Burgundy

The Château de l'Yonne structure is particularly well-suited to the fractional model. The main château — reserved exclusively for the eight shareholders — sleeps 12 across six bedrooms. Three converted outbuildings generate rental income independently. The pool and padel court serve owners during their stays. And 7.9 hectares of private grounds give the estate a scale and privacy that would simply be unaffordable as sole ownership.

Three shares remain. Each is £225,000.

When people ask about the legal structure behind Comaison, they're usually asking one of two questions: is this safe, and do I understand it? The answer to both should be yes — and this article is designed to make sure it is.

The French alternatives — and why we didn't use them

The traditional structure for co-owning French property is the SCI — Société Civile Immobilière. This is a French civil company specifically designed for property ownership, widely used by French families and international buyers alike. It works well for small groups of people who know and trust each other. It is less well-suited to a structured fractional ownership model with eight shareholders who may not know each other.

The SCI has several disadvantages for UK investors specifically. It is governed by French law, operates under French accounting standards, and requires a French accountant and notaire to manage. French income tax on rental income applies at source. And crucially, the SCI's governance framework — while functional — is less familiar and less well-understood by UK investors than a UK company structure.

We looked at the SCI. We also looked at simple tenants-in-common structures (indivision in French law). Neither gave us what we wanted: a clean, well-understood, UK-governed structure that UK investors recognise and can engage with comfortably.

The UK Ltd structure — how it works

Each Comaison property is held by a dedicated UK-registered Limited company — a standard private limited company incorporated at Companies House. That company owns the French property outright. The eight shareholders own shares in the UK company.

This means everything about your investment is governed by UK company law. The shareholder agreement — which sets out your rights regarding use, rental income, maintenance decisions and exit — is a UK document, enforceable in English courts under English law. Your shares are UK assets. Your accountant can understand your investment without learning French corporate law.

What the shareholder agreement covers

The shareholder agreement is the document that matters most to you as an investor. Ours covers:

Use rights. The points system that governs when and how you use the property. Peak weeks, shoulder weeks, off-peak weeks. How points are allocated, carried over, and used across the portfolio.

Rental income. How rental income from the property is calculated, distributed and applied against running costs. The process for approving rental management and pricing.

Major decisions. Any significant expenditure, improvement, or change to the property requires a shareholders' vote. Each shareholder has equal voting rights.

Exit provisions. How and when a shareholder can sell their shares. The right of first refusal for existing shareholders. The valuation process. The timeline.

Dispute resolution. The process for resolving disagreements between shareholders — starting with mediation and escalating to English courts if necessary.

Tax considerations

The tax position for UK investors is straightforward in principle but individual in practice — which is why we always recommend independent tax advice. The key points:

Rental income generated by the property is received by the UK company. The company is subject to UK corporation tax on its profits. Income distributed to shareholders is subject to the normal rules for UK dividends. Capital gains on the sale of shares are subject to UK capital gains tax.

French property transfer taxes (droits de mutation) apply at the time of purchase, as they would for any French property transaction. These are included in the acquisition costs factored into the share price.

What Comaison's stake means

Comaison retains a minority interest in each property company. This is not a hidden charge or a mechanism to extract value — it is a deliberate alignment structure. We participate in the upside when the property appreciates. We are affected by the same running costs as you. If the rental income underperforms, we feel it too.

We chose this structure because we believe the interests of a property manager and an investor should be identical. Ours are.

Independent advice

We provide this overview as context, not as advice. Before investing in any Comaison property, you should obtain independent legal advice on the shareholder agreement and independent financial advice on the investment. We will provide full documentation and are happy to answer questions from your advisers directly.

The structure is designed to be transparent. We have nothing to hide in it.

Let's start with the fantasy. A stone manor in the French countryside. Dinners on the terrace. The smell of lavender and old wood. Sunday markets. Your own pool. That glass of local wine at dusk that tastes better than any wine you have ever drunk at home.

All of this is real. The French countryside delivers it reliably. What is less frequently discussed is what it costs to keep the fantasy going.

The honest cost of sole ownership

A five-bedroom French manor with pool — the kind of property comparable to Manoir de Nanthiat — costs in the region of €900,000 to acquire. Add French notaire fees and taxes (typically 7–8% on older properties) and you are at around €970,000 before you spend a penny on the building itself.

Then the annual costs begin. A realistic breakdown for a property of this type:

Property insurance: €3,000–5,000 per year. French insurance is comprehensive but not cheap for character properties.

Taxe foncière (property tax): €2,000–4,000 per year depending on the commune and property value.

Utilities: €8,000–12,000 per year for heating, electricity and water — higher for older buildings with less insulation.

Maintenance: The standard rule is 1–2% of property value per year in maintenance costs. For a €900,000 property, that is €9,000–18,000 annually. For older character properties, budget toward the higher end.

Pool maintenance: €3,000–5,000 per year for chemicals, filtration, and seasonal opening/closing.

Garden and grounds: €5,000–10,000 per year for a property with significant grounds.

Total: €30,000–54,000 per year before any mortgage payments, management fees, or improvement costs. At current exchange rates, that is roughly £25,000–£46,000 per year simply to keep the property standing.

The usage problem

Most British owners of French holiday properties spend four to six weeks there per year. That means the property sits empty for 46–48 weeks. During those weeks, it still costs money — maintenance continues, insurance continues, utilities continue. The pool doesn't maintain itself because no one is swimming in it.

For a sole owner using the property six weeks a year, the annual cost divided by weeks of actual use works out to roughly £4,000–8,000 per week of enjoyment. That is a very expensive holiday.

How rental changes the picture — and why it's complicated

The obvious response is to rent the property when you're not using it. This does improve the numbers — but it introduces a different set of problems. A well-managed French rental property can gross €40,000–80,000 per year. After platform fees (Airbnb takes 15–18%), management fees (typically 20–25% for a local agency), and cleaning costs, net income is usually €22,000–45,000.

That net income helps significantly. But as a sole owner, you are running a business. You are responsible for finding and managing a rental agent, handling bookings, dealing with guests, maintaining the property to a rental standard, and navigating French tax obligations on rental income. Many buyers discover they have bought themselves a second job rather than a second home.

How co-ownership changes the maths entirely

The Comaison model is designed around this reality. Here is what changes:

Purchase cost shared eight ways. Instead of €970,000 to acquire the property, you pay £138,000 for a share in a five-bedroom Dordogne manor. Your capital exposure is a fraction of sole ownership.

Running costs shared eight ways. Annual costs of around £73,000 divided by eight shareholders equals approximately £9,100 per owner per year — less than £175 per week.

Rental income shared eight ways. At conservative 22-week occupancy, Manoir de Nanthiat generates around £76,000 in net rental income annually. Divided eight ways, that is approximately £9,500 per share.

Net position: near breakeven. For many Comaison properties, the rental income offsets running costs almost entirely. The annual cost of owning a share in Manoir de Nanthiat, after rental income, approaches zero at conservative occupancy assumptions.

Comaison manages everything. No rental agents to find. No guests to deal with. No maintenance to coordinate. Comaison handles the full management of both the property and its rental programme. Your experience as an owner is simply arriving to a beautifully prepared home.

The honest conclusion

Sole ownership of a French property is wonderful if you can use it extensively, afford the running costs without the rental income, and are prepared to treat it as a part-time job. For most people, those conditions don't apply.

Co-ownership through Comaison is designed for people who want the experience of ownership without the burden of it — five to six weeks a year in an exceptional French property, running costs effectively offset by rental income, and a share that grows in value while they're at home.

The fantasy is real. The maths just work better when it's shared.