Feichter

Thank you all for your quick replies! All very helpful. I can see that I can have contracts with all major providers.

Hi all and happy New Year! We have owned our house near Limoges for 11 years now, but have not connected our phone line. We only need the phone and internet access. I know we can't have fibreoptic since we are very rural. Ideally we would like to turn the service on/off since we will not be moving to France for another year or so, but that is not so important. Which provider would you recommend?   Any help/adivce greatly appreciated!

Hi all, We are resident in the UK and have owned a property in France for 10 years now. Every year in the spring we get a letter from the french tax authoroties asking us to confirm that we are resident in the UK and therefore we would not be paying the taxe audiovisuel. This was the case for a few years. However, last year and this year, the taxe audiovisuel has reappeared on our avis d'impot even though we have sent the letter in the spring. Has anyone else experienced the same? What can we do about this? Many thanks for your replies...

Here is some background to my original posting. My friend wanted a small conversion. Moving a bathroom from downstairs to upstairs, paritioning the upstairs to create two bedrooms, putting two windows in, installing a new fosse septique, adding a utilities room and combining two bedrooms downstairs to create a large living room. The builder in question produced a very detailed quote of 37.000. This seemed already a bit high, but having been assured of a good quality finish, it was agreed to go ahead. The project should have taken around 6 weeks and should have been finished for Easter. Needless to say the project was not completed on time, in fact, it was so far behind that he and his family had to stay at my place. The toiled was not installed and there was no running water. Being concerned about the quality of work my friend spoke to the builder, who again assured him everything would turn out alright. The costs for the project have also kept increasing. My friend has so far paid 54.000!!!. The brief of the project is still the same as it was back in February when the original quote was produced. The builder now wants a final payment of 3.000 to complete the work and has changed the locks on my friends place!!! He has deposited the keys at the local police station for safe-keeping. He keeps sending registed letters asking for payment. Does this seem reasonable to anyone? What should he do now? Any help I could pass on would be most appreciated. P.S. Could nicktrollope let me know how he found info on the said builder.

Hello allanD We have exactly the same set up as yourself and have sent money thru moneybookers to our Britline account for over a year now (around 10 transactions). You must not send the money to an e-mail address!!! Instead set up your Britline bank details in the "Profile" section in moneybookers. There you will see a "List of bank accounts" and the button "Manage". Add your account details there. Once you have done this, go to "withdraw" and you will see your bank details listed there. Also, make sure you only send money from your bank account in the U.K. in your(!!!) name to the britline account which must also be in your(!!!) name. i.e. only Joe Bloggs in the U.K. can send money to an account in France with the same name (Joe Bloggs)!! With regards to the money you have already sent to an e-mail address: this money will come back to your account if it is not collected. Perhaps give moneybookers a ring! Hope this helps.

We are in the middle of buying a french property and have been dealing with propertyfinance4less, which have arranged a mortgage thru Entenial bank and life insurance with CNP. However, we have problems with CNP giving us life insurance (it seem to be taking forever). Propertyfinance4less are now trying to arrange life cover with Generali France. Anybody have any experience with any of the above?