The Offering
DwellParis will offer 12 ownership shares in a completely renovated and fully outfitted one-bedroom apartment at Rue Cujas in central Paris, located on the Rive-Gauche in the 5th arrondissement Latin quarter. Each fractional ownership share will entitle its owner to four weeks of usage each year forever. Each ownership share will be fully transferable so that a fractional owner may sell or gift his/her share at any time without restriction or group interaction.
The Usage Arrangements
DwellParis usage assignment system has been designed to ensure absolute fairness, transparency, and predictability for each fractional owner. Under our system, it is impossible for an owner with more time on his/her hands or a better relationship with a manager or some reservation software to take advantage of the system or of other co-owners. The main element of the DwellParis usage system is the elimination of the need to determine availability and make reservations. In addition to ensuring fairness in usage allocation, this arrangement dramatically lowers the complexity and time-consumption of managing the property for the co-owners and their management company, which in turn lowers the co-owners operating costs.
Each fractional owner of Rue Cujas will know exactly when he/she will be entitled to use the Paris apartment, one, two, five or even 20 years in advance. While this arrangement may seem rigid at first glance, it in fact offers the ultimate combination of simplicity and flexibility. A co-owner can easily determine, either far in advance, or at the last minute, when he/she has been assigned a usage period which will not work, and which of the other co-owners might have a usage period which would be preferable. Armed with this knowledge, an exchange or reassignment may be arranged via email.
DwellParis will offer several different usage options, and allow each purchaser to choose the one that fits his or her needs:
Fully Fixed Usage: Fractional owners who choose the Fully Fixed Usage option will choose specific weeks which will remain permanently assigned to them. For example, a purchaser might select the first two weeks in July and the first two weeks in April, retaining the right to use the apartment on these weeks each year. DwellParis will select a variety of weeks during different seasons to be offered as permanently assigned fixed weeks, and these weeks will be priced based on their desirability. Fixed weeks will be available for purchase on a first-come-first-served basis.
Floating Usage: Fractional owners who choose the Floating Usage option will be entitled to use the apartment for two separate two-week periods each year based upon an automatic annual rotation system. DwellParis will pre-select weeks during each month of the year to be permanently reserved for the floating week co-owners. This pre-selection will ensure that the floating week rotation includes weeks in each season of the year. The automatic rotation system will allow floating-usage fractional owners to determine one, two, five or even ten years in advance exactly which weeks they will have in any particular year.
Combination Usage: Fractional owners who choose the Combination Usage will choose two specific weeks which will remain permanently assigned to them, and participate in the rotational usage system for their other two weeks. Combination Usage will allow fractional owners to guarantee themselves usage during their favourite time of year, but still have an opportunity to discover and enjoy Paris during other times of year.
Regardless of the usage option chosen, fractional owners will retain the flexibility to trade usage periods with other co-owners or to allow relatives and guests to use the apartment.
Apartment Features
Coffee stained, solid oak floors throughout
Designer paint throughout
Texturized natural stone wall in living room
Kitchen backsplash mirrored over polished natural stone counter
Custom painted kitchen cabinets with both stainless steel and matching cabinet appliance panels.
Stackable washer/dryer in hall
Polished natural stone vanity top in bathroom with white and chrome fixtures
Demi-lune storage cabinet in bathroom
Black rails and grills on French windows
Top end German appliances
Gourmet kitchen wares with fine china, crystal, silverplate.
Original art throughout
Antique marble mantelpiece
Floor to ceiling silk curtains
Designer furniture with impressive color pallet in living room
Perfect balance of modern and antique furniture in living room
Beautifully designed bedroom furniture and tapestries
The Location
The apartment is tucked between the lushness of the Luxembourg Gardens and the grandeur of the monumental dome of the Pantheon, and overlooks the bibliotheque of La Sorbonne. It is simply impossible to describe all the charms of this neighbourhood, whose streets and squares are replete with restaurants and cafes, shops and galleries, museums and theatres, services including several health clubs and swimming pools, fountains and architectural wonders.
Since the apartment is located in the very heart of Paris, most of the Citys riches are within walking distance. Merely steps away are the Luxembourg Gardens, arguably the most beautiful park in the worlds most beautiful city. Created for a Medici queen of France, the meticulously manicured grounds have served as the backdrop for romances both personal and literary for centuries, and its flawlessly maintained palace is home to part of Frances legislature. In addition to the greenery, the Luxembourg Gardens features fabulous fountains, shady sitting areas, walking and running paths, tennis courts, and Paris most celebrated childrens playground.
Soaring into the Paris skyline just a few steps in the opposite direction is the Pantheon with its majestic dome, a monument to the great men and women of France. Just beyond the Pantheon begins the famous rue Mouffetard market with its slanting, medieval streets and seemingly endless line of stalls and shops selling every kind of French food and produce. A few minutes walk in another direction takes you through the heart of the Saint Germain district to the Seine, from whose banks one can gaze upon Notre Dame, or stroll across Pont Neuf to visit the Louvre. Yet another path takes you to the Marais district (less than 15-minutes walk), offering some of the Citys most interesting architecture as well as still another world of wonderful shopping, eating, and nightlife.
When going further afield there are numerous subway stations nearby. The closest of these, adjacent to the Gardens, is Luxembourg station, which provides rapid service to both Charles De Gaulle and Orly airports without changing trains.
The Apartment
Rue Cujas is an airy, bright, elegant, and spacious one-bedroom Paris apartment being meticulously readied for its new fractional owners. Viewed from the tall French windows of the large living room, the blue Parisian sky over the carved stone cornices, slate roof, and sculpted finial atop the dome of the Sorbonne may either call the fractional home owner out into the streets below to experience all the pleasures of living in the City of Light, or invite them simply to linger at home beside the open windows, breathing in the romance of the ages wafting in upon the very air of Paris.
On the fourth floor of a venerable 19th-century stone building on a corner of the rue Cujas, this apartment will be all that a part-time resident of Paris could need or want, including a modern elevator and newly redecorated common areas, climate control, state-of-the-art communications, and electronic building security system with intercoms. The finely detailed new kitchen and bathroom, large closets, quiet and cloistered bedroom with full southern exposure - streaming with sunlight, and exquisitely comfortable yet impeccably tasteful blend of modern and traditional furnishings and decor, with broad-plank solid oak floors, original artworks, and a wood-burning fireplace with period marble mantlepiece, will appeal to the warmest desires.
Designed to ensure the greatest comfort and ease of its fractional owners, the apartments practical side seeks to anticipate all needs. Equipped with all-new air-conditioning, highly efficient heating system, sound and temperature insulating windows, in-unit washer and dryer, dishwasher, microwave, large-capacity European refrigerator and freezer, oven and gas cooktop, kitchen and bath external air evacuation systems, and fully equipped gourmet kitchen, the apartment is eminently liveable. A full length bath tub and shower in the completely reconfigured and sunlit bathroom is complemented by a full collection of thick, luxurious towels, heated towel rack, and finished stone vanity. Individual storage units within the building for each fractional co-owner augment the apartments ample storage space. For co-owners guests the stylish sofa in the living room conceals a truly superior bed with a thick, firm mattress.
High-speed wireless internet will allow the fractional owners or their guests to roam the apartment with their own laptop computer, or use the homes dedicated desktop computer. Cordless phones on a voice-over-internet-protocol system provide seamless and free international and local calling, and will enable fractional owners and guests who so wish to remain available to U.S. callers at a domestic U.S. telephone number that is automatically forwarded to ring in their Paris apartment. A pair of French cell phones will be permanently available on a simple and reasonable pay-as-you-use plan so fractional home owners can communicate and move as easily through their Paris lives as they do elsewhere without the inconvenience or expense of using a non-French phone or network. Flat screen Samsung televisions with cable and DVD players in each room, and a high quality stereo and digital music docking capability complete the technical environment.
At the end of the day in the finely appointed bedroom, the high quality bed, at 1.6 meters several inches wider than an American queen-sized bed, will have been dressed in high thread-count luxury cotton linens for your arrival by a maid who provides weekly service.
The Legal Structure
The Rue Cujas factional owners will each be part of a twelve-member owners association (the HOA) formed under California law. The HOA will own a French company called an "SCI" which, in turn, will own Rue Cujas. Under this structure, the co-ownership agreement will be governed by and, if necessary, enforced under, U.S. law in the United States. This means that resales, gifts, and inheritances of fractional shares will occur in the United States, avoiding the logistical difficulties of a French real estate transaction. In the unlikely event that an owner refused to pay dues or assessments, or reimburse the HOA for damage to the shared apartment, the HOA will be able to use an efficient but fair U.S. foreclosure process. This ownership structure will also provide a platform for the fractional mortgages from U.S. lenders which are just beginning to appear for non-U.S. properties, and are expected to become more readily available over the next few years.
The Purchase Process
DwellParis invites you to come view Rue Cujas at your convenience. Should you decide you are seriously interested in purchasing, you may reserve the usage you want and enter into a conditional purchase contract. Although you will be asked to make a good faith deposit, your funds will be returned to you in full if you are dissatisfied with either the legal documents or the final condition of the apartment. The transaction and all funds will be managed by Fidelity National Title Company in San Francisco, and closing will occur within 30-60 days after the apartment is ready for occupancy.
The Management
DwellParis believes that the key to a successful fractional vacation home sharing arrangement is striking the right balance between co-owner control and full-service property management. Most fractional owners have little interest in spending their precious time on the day to day operation of their home away from home; their primary concern is arriving to find their dream Paris apartment in clean and perfect condition, exactly as it was when they last visited. Satisfying this desire requires a highly professional, experienced, and trustworthy local manager. But it is important to recognize that the manager or company that has the best reputation or most prestigious name today may not maintain their traditional quality in future years, particularly if their co-owner clients are a "captive audience" because they do not have the freedom to make a change if the service degrades. Most of the first-generation "timeshare" arrangements lost their value as the developers and managers lost the incentive to maintain the properties, or the maintenance and operating costs became unaffordable, and the co-owners had little or no control over how the property was operated or how the budget was established.
To ensure that a trip to Rue Cujas will always be spectacular, and that the fractional interests will always have a value commensurate with the property and its location, the Cujas co-owners will maintain ultimate control over all matters relating to the apartment, including the hiring and firing of the management company. To ensure that the apartment is always immaculate and perfectly equipped and stocked, and that the fractional owners do not need to worry about day to day operating details, the apartment will be managed by an experienced Paris-based property management firm (initially selected by DwellParis following careful screening) which will arrange all cleaning, maintenance, repair and replacement, pay bills, and facilitate co-owner communication and decision making.
All of the operating expenses of Rue Cujas, including all taxes, insurance, repairs, utility and communication costs, and management expenses, plus a reserve fund for periodic repainting, redecorating and replacement of furnishings and house wares, will be part of the co-owners annual budget. Each fractional owner will pay his/her portion of the budgeted expenses and reserves to the manager quarterly.
Shares in Rue Cujas can be reserved now. Early purchasers will have the broadest selection of usage rights and best pricing.
Please contact us for more information on this property.
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The Apartment