Hegs

It's not so bad but overpriced for property and land. Restaurants are nice, but there have been factory closures so the town is relying more and more or tourism. But, the town is in a staggeringly beautiful location that the factories (especially Formica) have probably been damaging tourism anyway. I think it will come back sometime soon.But Limoux and Mirepoix only just to the north have been making all the running in the tourist stakes recently with all the books about the area.

If you have no luck with the more direct approach, set up a website detailing your complaint against the company and send them a link to it. Be careful you can justify what you say on the website.

This seems like a good service for those who want advice but without the fear of being ripped off or sold inappropriate investments! http://www.grant-thornton.co.uk/pages/services-online_tax_advice-advice_request.html

I'd recommend it too if you don't have ADSL. I've renewed the subscription on two computers two years running.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4485840.stm is a pretty good explanation of what appears to be happening. The overall warming effect in inland central and southern France is minimal, it is northern France, UK and Benelux/Scandinavia most at risk here.

It's the coldest Dec since we've been here (4 years). I've never seen a long period before with average nighttime temperature below zero before Xmas. In practise the house seems warmer than last year with a new roof,  the house is relatively dry and heating working working well.

For installation of ground drainage. PM me here please!

Can't read Private messages. None of the links on that line (Active, Unanswered) etc are clickable, nothing happens when you hover over them. IE works just fine.      

Well, I declared the cassoulet, had my bags searched, and they said it was OK, they knew what it was :-) Even the cassoule made it through without shattering this time. One happy boss and Mrs boss. I asked if I should declare it in future and they said yes.

Quite. Anyone other than the notaire - despite whatever their legal training they might have - is just a bystander in the legal process of buying a house in France. A notaire can - and must by duty - advise on issues of inheritance, transfer of right etc.

I'll take the rest through anyway but declare it. The worst they can do is confiscate it. Min $100 max $1000 fine for non-declaration!

We've literally just eaten one of the cans I was going to take (gulp!). It was a Walter Spanghero and it was good, the sausage especially was great. Usually I eat the Maison du Cassoulet brand (I have three of those to take, one is just duck not confit of duck) and on balance I think I prefer that by just by a little. I haven't tried many other varieties but eat it a lot in restaurants. Any recommendations?

Does anyone, by any chance, know what my chances are of getting canned cassoulet through US Customs? Last time I didn't even declare it, now with bird flu they might be taking it a bit more seriously

Cool, it's a date!

Drop the price of the UK house by (up to) the amount of the deposit on the French property, in exchange for a quick exchange. You have nothing to lose.

If you have a V92 modem (standard of the last two years or so) and non-ISDN dial up, I would think that the majority of the benefits of OnSpeed would be lost, lossy image compression being the big speedup. If you have an older modem on a dial-up (non-V92), then OnSpeed will manage to compress web pages a lot more than your existing modem, for the simple reason the previous compression standard was written a long time before web pages were invented. If you have ISDN, you have no intrinsic compression and OnSpeed will give you a very good experience.

There have been special trains going from Limoux every year, going up to Carcassonne at 8pm and back at 1 am. Don't know if the bus extension runs though.

I've probably used it for two years how. It works for me very well on ISDN (probably the case where it works best) to the extent I would not like to do without it. I don't get any server-based timeouts, but I do occasionally have problems connecting to the OnSpeed proxy itself, however my networking environment is very complex.

It's going to be one hell of a blast that night ;-) We tried to book with the same result, and we're only 30 mins away. Current plan is to park 10-15kms away then cycle into town!

Britline www.britline.com can organize French car and property nsurance, in English. However: - Definitely not the cheapest, especially for car insurance - Make sure you have documentation you understand and do not rely on what they say over the phone. I drove without insurance for six months because of them! - Sometimes some funny clauses (like rewiring barns) you need to deal with that a local chap could sort out Round my way, the "online" insurance just seem to fax the local agent with your details, who then comes round for a vist :-(

cfcjohn, I presume your architect is a member of the Ordre des Architectes, you should get in touch with them. This is from the standard contract form from www.architectes.org/ "C 10 - DISPUTE RESOLUTION In the case of disputes concerning compliance with the articles and clauses of the present Agreement, the parties agree to request the opinion of the regional council of the Ordre des Architectes where the Architect is registered before any legal proceeding other than preventive action. This referral intervenes on initiative of the more diligent party." I don't know if this will help, but at least will give substance to a later complaint. You might want to read through the rest of the document and see if they have made any other "oversights".

http://www.digiguide.com/ is very good but you have to pay 9 quid a year.

I would contact a CAB in the UK, as the lawyer is practising there and is subject to UK law. Or do you have legal insurance cover in either country you can use? Bear in mind the documents are your property and the lawyer has acknowledged them as such. The lawyer in the UK may or may not have a civil case against you for non-payment of an invoice but denying you use of your property (the documents) is theft and is a criminal offence. However you need to formally demand the return of the property with a paper trail (i.e. recorded delivery letters). Lawyers will push the law but not break it when pushed themselves.

I don't know any English who do this (not saying there aren't, just I don't know), but I do know for certain that a lot of local Belgians and Dutch who do. My local impression is far from being scroungers the English are renowned for stupidly declaring all their income to the taxman and for not claiming their due. I think this just sheer lazy ignorant journalism having a pop at the English (no figures, no names, no context) - and smells to me as if it is linked to a current attempt to blame "Europe" for France's domestic economic issues, in particular due to the elections after Germany.

This is how my commune(11) is playing it: - Everyone inside the village must be connected to the mains drainage system - Everyone outside the village but in the commune needs a properly inspected fosse. Grants were available. - Connection for permanent residents is paid for from the land boundary (ie except the last few metres) - Holiday home owners, or those who outside the village who want to connect, need to pay from the egout itself - Contractor will give good rates on the connection when the time cones