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Tony F Dordogne

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Everything posted by Tony F Dordogne

  1. Why on earth does the agent have the money and not the notaire.  You may owe the vendor is you didn't have a clause suspensif in your original agreement but the money should have been channelled through your notaire.  Perhaps you need to ask your lawyer why the agent/notaire didn't follow the usual procedure, unless of course you - on your lawyer's advice - agreed to do something putside the norm.
  2. But that's why you see the law-abiding French citizens pulled over and parked or outside the car using their mobiles, obviously pulled off the road.
  3. A ready made sousol?  That is really scarey, vice cache?
  4. There are a couple of Brit electricians working in the south of the Dordogne (Perigord Noir) and they seem to be doing ok.  But as somebody else mentioned, there is a serious downturn in house building and renovation work here and a number of artisans are turning to other things - I know of two plumbers, both Brits, who are labouring because they can't find any other work. To be honest unless you have excellent French and understand the French system well and have qualifications that can be transferred easily, even perhaps have a job lined up with a company (tho unemployment round here is high) I'd think very long and hard about moving to this area. That said and for what it's worth, life in this part of the Dordogne is pretty good but then we're early retired and have a regular income so we don't have the economic pressures that others have. Could I also add that you seem to have done this the wrong way round.  If your house is already on the market and you'd already made the decision to move, you're doing things the wrong way around, many of us did all the research and asked all the questions long before our houses went on the market and from experience of meeting younger people with families who have done what you're doing, with one notable exception, they all ended up with substantial problems from unhappy children to no work, to being wholly unable to get into the employment or health systems and many have ended up working on the black although they hopefully didn't arrive here with those intentions. Sorry if this sounds negative but this place isn't a place to come unless you have evevrything organised and in place first and for many of us we spent up to 2 years researching the move before we sold our house.
  5. Moon, our plans and the reality of how the house was built and the layout of the fosse differ.  There was no way of us knowing until we moved in and started to have work done round the house. Unless you're going to go for some sort of vice cache argument with your insurance company and even then it may be very long, protracted and you'll get no result, I think you'll have to accept that this is down to experience unless you have a very high stress threshold and a lot of available funds to chase a claim but as others have said, you'll be chasing your Mairie/original builder and even determining who to chase is likely to be expensive.
  6. Cassie, you may want to make enquiries at your Mairie, that would be a good place to start.
  7. Prospect, may be an idea to look at your other thread for an answer.
  8. [quote user="virginia.c"] If you were in the Dordogne I could probably call on your services myself, and I wouldn't be the only one. [/quote] Virginia, depending where you live in the Dordogne, there are plenty of good stone masons here and a couple of them are Brits.
  9. As things stand at the moment, the mobility element of DLA is not transferable.  However, that element has been referred back to the ECJ for review by a UK judge and it is likely that the mobility element will, at some stage in the future, be exportable. As far as I know, your in laws will not be eligible for French benefits.  The Uk will always be their competant state - they will both need E121s if they want to move to France - and because of that, they can only claim UK benefits.  They haven't worked or paid into the French system and the French certainly wont give them benefit.  They should get 100%  for their ALD though, paid for by the UK. You don't say how old they are.  Be aware that under their new guidance rules, the DWP will certainly try to move your in-laws to Attendance Allowance when they hit retirement age and they move to France - if they're already that age, the change will be imposed - but they should then be able to claim Carers Allowance, all the above allowances (DLA/care, AA and CA) having been allowed again under the October 2007 ECJ judgement.  Apart from the change to AA, which should be seamless if they already get DLA, the people involved in the campaign on these benefits understand that current recipients should just continue to get their benefits without the rubbish the rest of us are having to endure.
  10. This one came in today from the Campaign to protect the benefits of people who should be claiming them: "In what may represent a dramatic victory for campaigners, Care Services Minister Phil Hope yesterday told a reporter at the Labour Party conference that DLA is not under threat by the care green paper. According to the Disability Now website, Phil Hope, when asked if he would abolish DLA after the election, replied: “No. All the models that we have done have not included DLA. But if people were to make a case to integrate DLA into a comprehensive system, then I'm very happy to hear that case and have those arguments. "DLA is not under threat and people can be very happy"." As many of the people at the DWP don't understand what abiding by the law means and cannot even understand their own rules and regulations, including the Ministers, let's just take this at face value for the moment but be aware that it may end up on the agenda.
  11. No reason at all not to plant out the onions and garlic from October - in October preferred for summer picking.  The catalogues in  France are advertising them an d I've received 3 emails from suppliers today advertising that sort of thing. Just need a bit of thought to over winter them.
  12. jehe, you have an address in the Indre and you don't understand the French system? This has been done to death in here.  If they are retiring they need to get the appropriate E forms, if they're not retiring and are continuing to work, they need to get the appropriate E forms, if they're sick and can no longer work, they need to get the appropriate E forms.  You cannot pay to join the French healthcare system, you join through the appropriate E forms and then pay insurance premiums for the top up, the bit between state payments (Uk subvention) and the actual costs. If they are not entitled to any E forms then they cannot join the French healthcare system unless they register a business in France etc etc and then they may be allowed to stay.  You cannot just come to France, pay CPAM and then stay here.
  13. And there's even more good news.  The DWP has decided NOT to appeal against the judgement of Justice Mesher in one of the more widely publicised cases (in the French/British press) and clearly they have accepted in that case and (by default) the arguments in the German case on the past presence (26/52 week) rule that they should - and have - paid all the back payments and re-instated the benefit at least for the claimant in France.  His carers are now pursuing the mobility element of his claim, which Mesher has already sent back to the ECJ for a revised decision on its eligibility as a sickness benefit. So it looks as tho they are accepting that their past presence rule argument has fallen tho it remains to be seen whether or not they continue to apply the argument to other people seeking reinstatement.
  14. Easy really, if you know where the signs are, drive within your knowledge and limits - it's easy to blame the signs, far too easy - don't want the fine, keep your speed down as several people have already said, you don't have to drive at the limit, that's only the indicator of how fast you CAN go, not how fast you SHOULD go. If you get flashed or think that the signs are wrong then complain to the appropriate authority in the UK or in France and make sure that the signs comply with the signing regulations. If you don't, coming in here and talking about it achieves nothing, actually complain about it and get something positive done.
  15. There has been a major development and another victory for the good guys - US - in the arguments which has effectively chopped one plank of the UK Government's refusal policy from under their feet. If interested parties go to the message board on the dedicated web site, all will be revealed.  
  16. Ignoring the OP because that has to be a wind up, we have a very active bartering and exchange system running round here where people actually do barter and exchange on a much more realistic basis than the nonsense in the original post - days or work for a few cakes, as if.
  17. Wondering what you can do in the winter and live within 40 kilometers of Le Bugue (24).  ACIP may be the answer for you! We have a very full programme running throughout the autumn, winter and spring.  Membership is open to everybody (€15 membership per person then most activities are free) and the Association is very multi-cultural.  It is based in Le Bugue where many of the meetings are held in a large room donated by the Commune for ACIP use plus plenty of outside events. The group runs a help and advice service which will provide fluent/native French speakers for people struggling with the language and have accompanied people to hospital, notaire offices etc etc, anywhere that help is needed. Activities include French conversation, advanced French, English for non-Anglophones, Wine Appreciation, Film Club (with a new classic film group watching and discussing classic films), Walking group (very popular), re-launched gardening group (which now includes a training/outreach/help project for members), Yoga, Art, Bridge, Rock and Roll and a few new projects are being discussed.  Plus there is also the social side of course, the Xmas lunch, vide-grenier etc etc. The web site is:    http://acip24.com and that has all the contact details.
  18. I don't have to buy wood -  gaz chauffage - and we have our own woods at the back of the house as backup. Sorry to ask a basic question but a stere is a cubic metre of wood?  And what is the capacity of a corde, is it three stere?
  19. Unfortunately not tho we did try at some length.
  20. But it's not only Ryanair.  A couple of years ago J and I were given very short notice that we had to attend legal proceedings in the UK.  We booked flights with Flybe 3 weeks before the date (that IS short notice) in June, cost €600 plus.  Two days to go, we got stood down, the Inquest was being adjourned. Even with supporting letters from the Coroner involved, they refused a refund but offered us time limited (up to 8 weeks) vouchers, non transferable flights to the same destination for half the cost and we 'lost' the balance, so over €300 'lost'.  Luckily, the Inquest has been recalled now and the Coroner concerned has agreed to refund the previous amount in full. But to me, they're all as bad as the other, in theory we could have lost the whole €600 plus through no fault of our own and they weren't interested in the reason why!
  21. I agree with Fay about Floyd on France.  I didn't see the documentary - can't stand Keith Allan and his mockney troupe of kids - but Keith Floyd was one of my culinery heroes. And as Fay said, my very old and battered copy of Floyd on France looks a bit battered likle he eventually did - time for a celebratory new copy I think.
  22. [quote user="rosienoo"]  My car is still registered in the UK because I still travel back there on a very regular basis for my work, being employed by a UK company still and staying over for a week or two, so it's gonna stay registered there until I'm good and ready and not when some plonker thinks it should be registered here. [/quote] Where you work doesn't come into the equation here.  The plonker that says you should have re-registered your car is the law, which may be a plonker, but going backwards and forwards to the Uk when you live here means the car should have been re-registered. Who knows, the plonker concerned may have seen your car here on and off since May and decided to give you a rather blunt reminder. But that doesn't detract from the fact the car should be re-registered and when you're good and ready wont be appreciated by some people who have been here for some time!
  23. Oh dear, a missing comma causes so much confusion and causes a new poster to think I may have insulted him - you want insults I can do them but they are against the rules here! And whatever Guile says, it still doesn't add up, I have a copy of the DWP decision maker's guidelines and the girl's case would still mean she is excluded from benefit with the information that Guile has provided and as he/she is unable or unwilling to give any further information, it looks as tho we can only make our own assumptions.  And the mother dying of cancer has no bearing on this at all, sad tho that may be.  
  24. Tony F Dordogne

    E121

    Still on the theme of E121 just want to clarify something from people who have actually been in this situation .......... J has the opportunity to do some work and she's contemplating doing so but it can be done in the UK or in France.  If she does the work in France does that comprimise her E121?She reached the magic number a couple of years ago and has her retirement E121 but does the fact that she would pay cotizations in France make France her competant state rather than the UK?  
  25. What really really hacks me off about this is that when I was heading up an Age Concern in  London borough we were having this argument with the local health authority and social services when older people were being discharged from hospital both malnourished and dehydrated which usually meant they were re-admitted almost immediately to get them fit and healthy (supposedly) and then they continued the downward spiral, leading to some of them even dying. And what was done about it - nothing, not a clinical staff function and not a contractor function to feed the patients, many of whom couldn't recognise the food nor did some of them have the physical capacity to feed themselves. What makes this even worse is that this argument has been rolliong around for the past 20 years that I know of and NO government, of whatever colour, has managed to really get a grip of it and neither has the national health service, it's just passing the buck between different departments, different managers within the local health authorities and in social services because the malnourishment of 'clients' still goes on in some local authority homes. Absolutely makes my blood boil, when J's mother was in hospital in Epsom, Surrey - admitted from the nursing home where she was being cared for, seriously demented - unless a member of the family was there at meal times, she wouldn't have eaten, not just on one admission but every time she went in there!
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