LIVING in a World Heritage site might seem an impossibility when you think of the Old City of Jerusalem, the Tower of London or the Taj Mahal. Yet for an increasing number of Britons, including Jon Green and Jenny Barnard, who live in the ancient medina of Fez, this is a reality. The couple have spent the past 16 months restoring Dar Settash, a traditional home tucked awayin one of the Moroccan city’s 9,400 winding streets.

“We thought it would be a nice little project for a year,” says 24-year-old Jenny, who took on the house with her partner Jon, 23, after her parents, Jim and Kay, decided to invest in a property there. “And it turns out we’re pretty good at restoring homes,” she adds confidently. So good, in fact, that the family have bought a second property near by, which the couple are renovating while developing a consultancy business to help others to do the same.

While there are only a handful of British residents in Fez, the recent arrival of Ryanair – with flights at under £100 and just over three hours’ flying time from London – could mean that Jenny and Jon have their work cut out.

Brian Smith is one of the American founders of the medina-based estate agency Fes Properties, which has seen the city’s housing market grow considerably during the last six months. “Ninety per cent of our business is British people,” he says, “but we’ve seen French, Russian and Canadians – many properties have doubled in price over the past year.”

Interest is focused on Fez el-Bali, the 12th-century part of the city, which was declared a Unesco World Heritage site in 1981. There is growing interest in property and land in the modern Ville Nouveau, adds Brian, where £40,000 will buy flat with more than 130 square metres of living space. But if you prefer character over convenience, the medina has much to offer. Jon and Jenny’s century-old four-storey home has a central courtyard, open to the sky, with rooms off. They paid £22,000 for the property, which offers 250 square metres of space, and another £22,000 was spent on restoration.

A grander riad, with a garden in the courtyard, costs around £62,000. The next step up, and harder to get hold of, is a kasr or palace.

What is clear is that buying and restoring a property in the medina is a long process, particularly if you want to do it right. Jon and Jenny found both of their properties through a local estate agent, or simsar, which in the Moroccan dialect literally means “snake venom”.

“Getting simsars to stick to your budget and produce houses which are value for money can take a long time and is extraordinarily hard work,” says Jonathan.

It took two months to finalise the purchase of Dar Settash and a further three months for the previous owners to move out. Many houses have multiple owners, which can often slow the process, especially if they don’t get on. When the couple started the project in July 2005, they were overwhelmed. The last time the property had received any attention was in 1946. Jon says: “We had a really tough time in the first few weeks. It was very grubby and infested with cockroaches. The electricity and plumbing were prehistoric.” In fact, there were only two shin-height taps and a basic lavatory, which was blocked. The voltage of the electricity supply also meant that it took 40 minutes to boil a kettle – and five visits to the electricity company to get the voltage changed. “But we quickly got over that,” says Jenny, with British stoicism, and the couple set about cleaning the property from top to bottom.

Before they began, the couple spent five months carrying out research and learning Arabic. They created floor plans, met local architects, sourced building materials and visited artisans in workshops that have changed little since the Middle Ages. Before work could start, they applied for a restoration permit.

Their plans included adding an en suite bathroom to one of the lower salons, while creating two extra bathrooms and two kitchenettes on the upper floors because they plan to let two of the salons. Work involved replastering the walls, renovating the huge doors off the courtyard, replacing hundreds of coloured tiles and renovating the stained-glass windows.

Dar Settash is finally complete, but what is the result? The courtyard has a myriad of decorative detail from which the rest of the house takes its cue – tiles pepper the floors and lower walls, while carved plasterwork surrounds each window and door.

The other rooms lead off this central area, and the whole house has a feeling of immense space in contrast to Fez’s narrow streets. Each room feels light and colourful. The terrace at the top is the crowning glory, offering a view of the medina rooftops peppered with drying animal skins and satellite dishes.

Understandably there is concern that Fez could turn into another property gold rush. But the reality is that, without investment, parts of the city are in danger of collapse and the local people do not have the funds to repair them.

So, are the locals happy? Yes, say Jenny and Jon. “I opened the door one day and there were two local women talking very fast,” says Jenny. “After about a minute I realised one of them had grown up in the house and had been married in the courtyard. They were really happy to see the house as they remembered it.”

FACT FILE

- The popularity of Morocco is not new – it was a favourite destination with Winston Churchill and the Getty family.

- There is no sales tax on property but land registry and legal fees add 5 per cent to the purchase price. There is no inheritance tax if you leave property to a family member in your will.

- Roads and trains are poor compared with Europe, but a government programme aimed at rectifying this is well under way.

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