AN ABANDONED village is on sale in the Haute-Vienne – for €330,000.
Anyone interested in becoming the new owner of Courbefy has just 10 days to make up their mind, after which it will remain the property of the Crédit Agricole bank.
Put up for auction on Monday by a court in Limoges, it did not find a taker.
The hamlet, 40km from Limoges in the commune of Bussière-Galant, consists of 19 buildings as well as sports facilities such as a tennis court, stables and a swimming pool.
It was inhabited until the 1970s, but became deserted as people moved away to towns. For a period it was then used as a holiday village and in the 1990s a couple from the Gers tried to run it as a hotel and restaurant complex, but failed.
It is now abandoned and overrun by vegetation, only visited by drunkards and squatters; however older residents of the region say they regret its current state and remember it had a good atmosphere and there used to be country fêtes there in honour of the local patron saint.
Nearby, a chapel and ruins of a castle attest to a more prosperous past. It is said that in the Middle Ages it had a population of 2,000.
The local intercommunal body considered buying it, but said that it could not afford to take it on as restoring it would cost at least as much as buying it.
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