Tony F Dordogne

Many thanks for all the kind comments and best wishes.  That's it folks, ttfn.

Coops, you have a pm

Will be here until this evening, dealt with that thanks WB. If I delete my profile, will that also delete all my messages, all the DLA stuff too?  And Mods around can clarify please?

Mike, you need to join the Facebook campaign site http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=117479494959353&ref=mf You need to get a basic profile, set all your settings to private so nobody else can read what you/we're saying, ask for permission to join and I'll grant you access, there are some serious experts on there. It's too complex to go into here.

[quote user="Gemonimo"]  Now that you are leaving, I'll be sending you a PM about something quite unrelated to the Forum![/quote] You have a private message :)

I've been in this Forum whilst it's gone through (I seem to recall) 3 systems changes and my current membership has been valid since 10 April 2005, which is when we got back online after moving to France in January 05.  Seen a lot of people come and go in the 8 years or so I've been on here, seen postings that are good, informative, tragic, abusive, funny, silly, bordering on the downright stupid and helpful.  Shared some of our great and not so great experiences of living in France and have found one or two people who we've met who have become good, firm and kind friends and have met some people in cyber space that I wouldn't want to know at any level. But, all things must come to an end and I've decided it's time to fold my tent and steal off into the night, I'm sort of doing life laundry with other things and France Forum is one of the things to go. We both still love France, with all its quirks, its bizarre administration, its problems, its politics and we both think that moving here for our early retirement was the very best thing we could do, we're both really happy and so pleased we found our small house out in the woods with our wonderful garden and woods which I'm now (health permitting) going to concentrate on more than I have been. So, farewell, have great lives, for those living in France bon courage and for those who aspire and have dreams of living in France full-time, they can be a great as you imagine them to be with a little application, some patience, a smile and some good nights sleep.  And please, if anybody tells you that they're/you're being ripped off by the French because you're a Brit, just ask yourself whether you would want to be speaking to this wazzok in the UK!

[quote user="Chancer"] Blimey if he has me down 6 times no wonder he is happy! [:D][:D][:D] Seriously though what UK benefits should not be claimed by someone that owns property in France or Pakistan? [/quote] If you've been in France for 6 years he's been paid 6 annual stipends for you, hence Chancer x 6. As for the benefits, some are restricted to Uk domiciled people but one of the major qualifications is that you have to be alive which, apparently, some of the claimants no longer are!  People who claim a benefit in France and the same in the UK after France becomes their competant state but much easier to do in Spain apparently.

[quote user="Chancer"]  I am still on my doctors list in my village in Sussex and he is (was) happy to treat me not that I have seen him for a good few years, I cant see this being the fraud that they are talking about.  [/quote] Whilst you should have come off your doctor's list (why on earth would you want/need to stay on it?), IF your UK doctor knows that you're left the Uk, it's him that commits the fraud.  UK GPs get an annual payment for every person they have on their list, sort of a stipend, whether they see them or not.  Your old GP has had 6 x stipend for Chancer, therefore it's HIM that has committed the fraud IF he knows you're no longer a UK resident.

Live in back of beyond, no passing traffic at all so not an option, have even tried advertising it in the commune newsletter and still no takers.  This time round I'm not pressing the issue, now have identified a lovely long garden sculpture to make with the wood instead.

Rather than put the onus on the Mairies, why not ask the fiscal and the various CPAMs to send in details.  If the CPAM details are used and the person's national insurance number is used to cross reference against NHS records, that may throw up some of the Brit health tourists - like people who 'forget' to tell their hospital/doctor in the Uk that they now live abroad and then continue to get treatment there whilst living in France. The fiscal may be more of an issue because if you're fiddling your health care, you may well be fiddling the tax authorities also, can think of a few examples of that happening here locally. And how does a Mairie differentiate between a maison secondaire owner and a permenant resident?  If people are on the fiddle, they could play off the Marie against HMG - this could be an administrative nightmare and cost an awful lot more that the £66 million the Government is trying to save.  And as for implimenting this anywhere in the Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi sub-continent, chances are pretty much nil I would think.

I've given up trying to give the (oak) wood away, decided to use the logs/wood for ornamental things round the garden now!

[quote user="Chancer"]  Anyway here I am now living permanently in France and still claiming disabiity benefit at my UK address, what can they possibly get from the land registry other than if  I had sold the house to move abroad in which case I could not be recieving benefits there. What have I missed that those wiser and less honest havn't? [/quote] It's not a case of what the land registry will tell them and if they're using that as a criteria, I can't see how it can work effectively.  There are many hurdles to jump over to maintain benefits in Europe having started to claim them in the UK but they're a right by both UK and European law for people that should be claiming them, not as an income supplement.  I think what may be being targetted are people who have a foot in both camps, they move to a European country, Pakistan whereever (the USA was also mentioned as a target area) and stay in the UK system as a resident of the UK.  But if their names remain on the land registry because they own what is effectively a maison secondaire in the UK, how will that help. It's like the 'live in France and don't tell the Uk tax authorities dodge', people live outside the Uk and still maintain their links with the UK health service and benefits system when they should, correctly, transfer their 'domicile' to their new country, join CPAM etc.  It's like health tourism in reverse.  And there's quite a few people in France doing something similar, that came out very clearly during the continuing DLA/AA/CA campaign. The good thing is the new invalidty/back to work benefit in the UK is really flushing the system through, those people who haven't been re-assessed yet will be and already a good number of people who are deemed fit for a return to work - people off work long-term with stress caused by their previous employment, simply as an example - are being invited to do a different form of work where the stress may not be present. I think this is, actually, an old policy being revamped or relaunched as a new Year headline. 

[quote user="pachapapa"]French Assize Court...jury + Presiding Judge.[/quote] I've long dispared at the Uk legal system but having sat through a long and well publicised French Court process last year where a severely drunk driver who killed 4 people including two 10 year old children (who were in the boot of his Jeep Cherokee) in an over loaded car when some of them weren't wearing seat belts was given a 2 year suspended sentence, a €200 fine and a 7 year ban that applied only in France AND then avoid paying any of the 7 individual and corporate litigants in the civil case ANYTHING because he'd moved all his assets back to the UK the day before the trial, there is nothing too great in the French system either.  Tho the stupidity in this case wasn't anything to do with the Human Right Act, the judges and adjudicators agreed with the Procureur, he'd suffered enough. As for the UK case, if it were my child he'd killed I'm afraid I don't think he'd have made any sort of trial.

Where in the Dordogne are you moving to?

[quote user="cooperlola"]   My o/h does all the food shopping as a rule.  Are there any chaps on here who do the Christmas cards or share the job, or is it one of those Mars and Venus things - ie a good excuse to avoid doing something?  There's a good controversial subject for us to try and discuss without being snide![:)][/quote] Ummmm, that would be me I'm afraid.  I do the majority of the shopping, it's me that nips off to the shops, now even started doing the long-distance trips to Perigueux, J doesn't like it at all.  I also do 95% of the cooking, look after the kitchen, happy to do the washing (in the machine), the whole domestic bit.  This year J's done the cards (she has a new knee so isn't too mobile and volunteered) but that's the way it's been for me since I was small with my parents, did work where I was on shifts so was at home during the day etc etc. My shrink told me that it was because I didn't differentiate between Mars and Venus, to me it's a partnership and that's what makes sure we get along so well.