Suandpete

    I googled spain health newcastle letter and it appears to be an anomaly which works only in Valencia and not in the rest of Spain - a local loophole.

    We have found that most of our workmen start at 8 or very shortly after - maybe you should plan on arriving a little earlier?  It would be awful if they turned up at 8 and left again 'cos you weren't there!

    When we had mega problems recently I discovered that it is quite a good idea to print off your address book every now and again - particularly in your case as you must have many many new addresses in it!

    We're in 79 and haven't had ours yet.

    Does anyone know if you have to claim the tax refund in the same tax year that the woodburner is installed?  Is there a time limit to claiming?

    You get the same cover as you do with a 106 - ie you will still need a top up insurance.  Newcastle provide confirmation once a year to the French Authorities that you will be covered for a further year - the best thing to do is give them a bell I should think.  I have a friend who has one because her husband is employed in UK and he has just written to Newvastle to ask them to generate whatever they do for a further year.  It will continue for as long as he is paying NI.

    As I understand it,  if you are resident here and your husband is working and paying NI in UK then you are entitled to an E109.

    Our house the day we decided to buy it... [IMG]http://i124.photobucket.com/albums/p22/suandpete/7.jpg[/IMG]

    Interesting - ours has always been 1 October to end Sept and I thought we were all the same.......

    But unfortunately they are not - most peoples ran out on Sunday......

    Our first 5 year Titre de Sejour has just exppired and so we went to our Mairie yesterday armed with print-outs of the appropriate legislation from the Government web site to ask for a new 20 year one which would no longer show us as inactif.  The "responsable" rang the Prefecture in Niort (we heard her end of the phone call and she told them that we were specifically requesting renewal and read out to them the relevant paragraph) they said that we could not have one but that she should issue us with an attestation signed by the Maire which shows the date we came to live in the Commune. Has any one (from a European country) managed to get a renewed Titre/Carte de Séjour from Niort?

    That is exactly the paperwork which we took with us to the Mairie this morning - they rang the Prefecture in Niort (we listened to the phone call) and they said NO!

    We went to our Mairie this morning (St Varent, 79 Deux-Sèvres) armed with print-outs in French of all the relevant laws.  We have been here since April 2002 and are almost 2 years away from an E121 so the fact that we need to prove we have beeen here for more than 5 years may be crucial.  We explained the CMU problem (they were totally unaware) and so they rang the Prefecture in Niort who said NO.   We were kind of expecting that but the Mairie have provided us witha certificate signed by the Maire with a Commune stamp stating the date that we came to live here so hopefully it will do the same job. Time will tell.

    We live in the centre of a village with a very large square opposite our house; it is a favourite place for the Gendarmes to park and then they stand on a corner so that they can stop people coming from a number of directions.  They are there at all times of day and night, maybe five times a month doing various types of contrôles - speeding, paper checks, breathalysing etc.  However in the five years that we have lived here we have never yet seem them there when it is raining!

    We have been thinking this over extremely seriously - and given that we already have a booking for next March (ie during the period when people can't be evicted) we have decided that we won't do any lets for people working - just carry on with the way we have been doing it up until now: holidays, house hunting etc. Many thanks for your help.

    Medium term!    We can't do long term cos we have bookings from next March onwards.  However as far as we have been concerned up until now 3 or 4 months was long term!  I do realise that it isn't - however it is very different to the way we normally let the gite - hence the enquiry.

We have had our gite for 4 years and up until now everyone renting it has either been from the UK or French people just wanting to rent for a short period.  However we have suddenly begun receiving enquiries from people who are employed locally wanting to rent it for several months.  I am aware that if the period of stay goes past October there are different regulations - we cannot evict people during the winter etc.  However, can anyone point me in the direction of some standard French terms and conditions for letting furnished property for a period of several months?

    It's not hard is it....... christine animal., chris pp, matin watkins and Timco, SUNDAY DRIVER, and so many others who would come more readily to mind if I hadn't had a glass or two...... Many thanks to all the regulars ...  your time is appreciated!

    Thank you, I'll make them my first port of call.

    I never thought that I would be posting in this section however........   I took early retirement from the UK Civil Service in 2002 and am in receipt of a (very small) Civil Service pension.   My husband has a services pension and everything was fine - we have one gite which gives us a few bob extra and all earnings are declared on our French tax return.  Since 2004 we have been paying our contributions to CMU - however it is becoming increasingly obvious that this will not be allowed to continue. As the replacement healthcare costs are likely to be considerably higher we need to try and offset them in some way.  (Just for 23 months until I am 60 and become qualified for an E121).      I would be quite happy to do a part time job of some sort and my French is reasonable.   Can I now (after being here since April 2002) go and sign on with ANPE(?or maybe someone else?)  I realise that I wouldn't receive any benefit but would my signing on entitle us to continue paying our 8% for our healthcare?  How long can you sign on for?

   Thanks for the suggestions... however as we continued we discovered that about a quarter of the floor has had the tiles removed and has been concreted - so we won't be able to use the old tiles and will probably retile on top of them.  Consequently there will be no need to remove all the old glue.  It's a shame because the old tiles that are there are nice; however as we all know there is no such thing in an old house as an easy straightforward job!   All we have to do is scrape about 35sq metres of old hessian type underfelt off...............

    Many thanks - guess where we're going in the morning!

    We have a Maison de Maitre and have finally, after 5 years, found the courage to lift the fitted carpet in the Living Room.  Underneath are what looks like 1930's matt quarry tiles with a 4 tile repaet pattern - which is a wonderful bonus and not what we were expecting at all. However the hessian type underfelt has been stuck to the tiles with glue.  We can get the hessian stuff off but the glue has to be scraped with a wallpaper scraper and we are worried about damaging the tiles.   Does anyone know of a solvent which would work on carpet glue which has probably been dow at least 30 years?

    Yes I agree totally, and that is what we have done in the past.  I am beginning to wonder if this letter which we have received has been sent in error as it would seem to be the one they normally send to non-EU citizens.

    I see what you mean La V - in the list of "Pièces à joindre au dossier" on the back of the form for declaration of revenue - however our covering letter states" l'imprimé de demande de la CMU de base est erroné sur ce point......"   We have been here for over 5 years now and I assumed that this was just something they do every now and again to ensure that the rules are being complied with - however maybe this isn't the case. The issue is that we need (somehow) to prove that our residence is stable and regular - which won't be proved by a UK passport or a utility bill.