You're right about the cost of maintaining these properties. This year I came across a funny British show called "Escape to the Chateau" [1]. The couple there paid <400K GBP for a 45 room chateau. At one point they're not sure if they need a new roof. If they do? That'd cost ~250K GBP.
But one interesting thing they mentioned was that in France, heritage of old buildings like these is opt-in. If you choose to opt-in the French government will pay you but you then need to abide by all sorts of standards.
This is in stark contrast with, say, English Heritage where they can decide at some point that your building is now listed, you get paid nothing and any alternations or renovations need to be approved (for maintaining the character).
If that's true about France, I prefer the sound of that system. There are literally thousands of castle/chateuas in France. Is it really justifiable to preserve all of them? Especially given that many are falling into disrepair and many of these buildings are already falling into disrepair through lack of demand for buyers.
English Heritage sounds a lot like heritage in Ireland, where a heritage officer can make your home worthless (or worth literally less than nothing!) on a whim.
Worked out handily for me, buying a 200+ year old cottage for less than the cost of the land, but I've been DIY'ing everything but the thatching.
Horrible, awful for the previous owners who saw at _least_ €100,000 knocked off the value of their house.
Edit: to give context, I bought it for far less than €100k, meaning the site lost most of its value.
IIRC, this couple made a massive success out of this though. A lot of persistent hard work, and they now rent it out for weddings and function as a hotel (or pre-covid they did anyway).
The hard work included producing and selling a film of their experience, which might obscure the natural profitability of what they are attempting to do with the castle.
But one interesting thing they mentioned was that in France, heritage of old buildings like these is opt-in. If you choose to opt-in the French government will pay you but you then need to abide by all sorts of standards.
This is in stark contrast with, say, English Heritage where they can decide at some point that your building is now listed, you get paid nothing and any alternations or renovations need to be approved (for maintaining the character).
If that's true about France, I prefer the sound of that system. There are literally thousands of castle/chateuas in France. Is it really justifiable to preserve all of them? Especially given that many are falling into disrepair and many of these buildings are already falling into disrepair through lack of demand for buyers.
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escape_to_the_Chateau