Jhc

This article doe snot make sense as translated by google.  If a person goes to a French GP and shows the Carte Vitale then the GP has no way of knowing whether that Carte Vitale was issued as a result of the person being in employment or through CMU.  I do not believe there can be any mechanism inplace for turning away people who obtain CV through CMU.

Newc will be fine about it and if you paid sufficient NI between April and Sept  2008 then you may be one of the lucky ones who get a 1 yr extension after your first one which will run out Jan 2010.

We transfer via LloydsTSB telephone banking - it is so quick and easy once you've set it up, takes about 2 mins.  

Hi - our ventilation pipe was not high enough with our new FS about 2 years ago.  I was able to climb a ladder to reach the top and fasten some old mesh ladies tights to cover the top - I was told that this is what the French locals do and it still allows sufficient air to go in and out of the vent pipe - there has never been any smell since.  I will, of course, need to remember to remove it if the Assainissement man pays us another inspection visit.

I think you are worrying entirely unnecessarily - if he is  a proper French artisan (and it sounds like he is) then he will do the work eventually and you will be really pleased with the job.  You learn to adjust to completely different expectations and timescales the longer you live in France.  Bringing UK expectations with you will just cause your blood pressure to rise unnecessarily out of frustration. When we fist bought our place 8 years ago we paid 30% deposit for re-roofing and after 18 months of waiting and excuses we were tearing our hair out and felt we were likely to have lost the money(and sought advice on this forum).  But no, he turned up when it suited him (he clearly had loads of work on elsewhere) and did a fantastic job.   It has been a similar story with all the other artisans we have employed - in fact if any had turned up within 4 months of accepting a job then we would have rejoiced - usually the wait has been 12 to 18 months for any piece of major work by whatever type of artisan - hence it has taken 7 years to complete our plans!  Have you checked whether he has actually banked your cheque as artisans often seem to keep them and only take them to the bank when they are about to start work and need to buy the materials.  It does not help much if you find he has not banked it as you can't cancel a French cheque without major hassle, but it might make you feel better.  Did he actually verbally promise to do it this year???  Most of the artisans round here have absolutely stacks of renovation work to do and as they never like to turn prospective customers away then it's inevitable that many will wait a long time for thier turn to come round.  Our French neighbours would say that if an artisan does not have 12 months of work ahead of him then he is likely not to be a v good artisan as its clear he is not in big demand.

Hi - there's  no need to smell a rat at all.  Our NZ, Australian, American and Canadian customers generally only want to stay one week as thay are usually on a European tour and want to see several different locations.  Many ask if they can pay by visa as most people are used to paying for package holidays, hotels, airline tickets etc by visa.  We feel it would cost us too much to get set up for visa and would not be a justifiable cost to us - we always just reply that we only accept payment by direct transfer into our UK acc or by a sterling cheque in the post.  We have never had anyone not book as a result of this approach.  Incidentally, this year we had several Australians who were able to make internet banking transfers from their home internet banking set up.  Australia is the only country that I am aware of who can do cross currency transfers with their home internet banking system.  In UK and France our home internet banking systems only allow transfers to be made in own currency.  It will be very useful when more countries allow cross currency transfers to be made via internet banking.  American customers are the only ones who ever seem to struggle with getting a sterling cheque or bank transfer.  Many Americans bank with local banks who are not set up for international transfers.  If they struggle too much we usually just give in and suggest they get a dollar bank cheque (not a personal cheque from their cheque book at they take for ever to clear).  However, it costs us money to credit these to our acc and from this year I am going to ask them to add an extra 15 US dollars on to the amount to cover our exchange costs.  In extremeis I would adopt the same approach with Aussie and NZ customers but I have never had any of them get back to me and say they have been unable to get a sterling cheque or transfer. I see that Mikki suggest Pay Pal - we have looked into this several times and always decided it costs us too much.  If around half of your customers are from non UK ( as ours are) and decide to use Paypal (as they probably will once they know it's an option) then with 2 payments per person (for deposit and balance) it add up to a lot of cost to us.  You could always add a charge for payment by Paypal -  while our current method works and does not loose us customers I think we will stick to our current method.  

I like the idea of supplying the first logs free, so they can light a fire on their first night.  Then I direct them to the local hardware store to buy bags of logs which are really v cheap, about 5 euros for a bag which would be a night's worth of logs.  I don't want to have to chain saw logs for customers to use - it's bad enough doing our own. 

Frederick - I do feel sad for you that you have to pay a bill of 4,000 euros for electricity that you had mistakenly thought was taken care of until EDF informed you that it had suspended payments because of abnormal use of electricity.  However, I think you will just have to put it down to an unfortunate experience and part of getting used to living in a new country and climate etc. - and not checking your bank account to see that the electricity was being deducted regularly is all part of that initial settling in process where things that you would probably have thought to do in UK just went out of the window in the haze and hurly-burly of settling-in.  Clearly EDF have made a fault by not informing you that it suspended you payments, and then waiting many months before presenting you with a bill but I doubt that will alter the fact that you owe them the money and should pay asap just to get on with your life again. (Hope you kept a reserve for unforseen circumstances arising when setting up an enterprise in France!) However, electricity here can be v v expensive during the winter, especially old models of heating (we have just arranged to have new electric convector heaters put in and I believe (hope) that they are much more efficient.  I would not take any notice of the previous owner saying that his electricity bills were half that cost as you have no idea whether he was really using electricity as his main source of heating.  All the French homes we have visited seem to use the efficient paraffin heaters as a mainstay of background heating throughout the winter, plus log burners, and just use electricity/gas/oil central heating systems to increase levels of heat at particularly cold patches or for part of the day.  Indeed, we do exactly the same.  You have no way of knowing whether the previous owner relied mainly on paraffin heaters (even for keeping the goats quarters warm if it is feasible to place them safely in a secure area in there). Indeed, the cost of heating and therefore general running costs may be one of the reasons he was selling up and he's certainly not going to admit that to you when you ring him to discuss current problem. EDFGDF is a law unto itself.  We have been paying bills here for 7 years and about 3 months ago they suddenly made a payment of 650 euros into our bank account!  We have had no correspondence to explain why and they definitely do not owe us any money for electricity consumed, everything is completely up to date.  Whilst not complaining we are mystified!  

Hi Pun - we have baskets and tubs at each gite - I usually say to customers something like 'I do water the baskets and tubs but it's really difficult to give then sufficient water in this heat, if you could give them some extra from time to time then it would really help and might prevent me from coming into your garden and disturbing your privacy in early morning or evening'.  Most customers rise to the occasion and say they are happy to do their own - I leave a watering can in a prominent position (many customers like to have privacy I think and if I did them it would be likely to be when they were sitting out having breakfast or evening meal, so that's part of the attraction of doing thier own).  We never use water to water the grass - it dies!  But when the grass is growing we always cut it while customers are out.

One of our gite customers asked a good question today - 'if the pool alarm goes off by accident, will it damage my 4 month old babies hearing if I am standing near it holding her?'  Well, we do not know the answer and told her so.  Frankly, it's so loud that it would not surprise me at all to find that it could do so but we had never thought about it before.  As it happens, we've got 2 alarms,  infra red beams for the main pool and an aquasensor for the toddler pool - I suppose that in a freak situation they could both accidentally go off together although it has never happened so far.  Surely AFNOR will have thought of this when testing these for use near small children.  Anyone else know the answer???

I put this query on this forum as some of you chambre d'hote members may already be doing what I would ideally like to do.  A friend and I would like to cook occasional meals for up to 20 people for special occasions (e.g. there are lots of 60th and 70th Birthday parties in our area and our initial soundings are that there would be lots of potential customers who want an alternative to cooking themselves or going to restaurant).  We do not want to do it to 'earn a living', just as extra 'pin' money  during the winter when not busy with gites.  We would probably only do a  max of 2 parties a month for 5 or 6 months and could provide centrally heated pleasant gite for venue or take food to customers own home.  Customers could bring/provide their own alcohol perhaps. Whilst I am happy to declare any income so earned on my tax form, my biggest worry is what permissions/permits/licences/registration would be necessary in order to do this?  Clearly if it is too much hassle and entails major expense to set up then we will forget the whole idea.  We do already know of a chambre d'hote that does something similar but to our mind they are not doing it entirely legally as they provide meals for customers to the total number they could accommodate if their chambre d'hote rooms were taken - even though the customers do not stay for the night.  We only wish to do it if we can find the fully legal route.  Any advice from anyone already doing this or who has explored the idea themselves would be greatly appreciated.

Hi - we had a problem with ours v recently and I posted some questions about it on the house renovation thread.  We eventually found out that our filter pipes were partially blocked because the fosse septique was not working properly (YUK!).  We have no idea why not, but the organisms in it seemed to have entirely died as they were not working and raw'ish sewage was exiting into the filter bed pipes and blocking them.  We had definitely not used any bleach etc so cannot understand it, plus we had the fosse emptied about 1 year ago. Take the lid off your fosse septique if you can, and if there is a mass of material floating at the top of the chamber nearest the exit pipe, then its not working and the material will be exiting into your filter bed and blocking it.  We managed to buy 2 pots of 'fosse recharge' from the hardware store which promised to 'shock' it into life and appears to have worked.  The next time I took the lid off the fosse there was no real mass of sewage and toilet paper (as earlier) and it appeared to be 'fizzing' which I took to be the organisms letting off gas and a good sign. We then flushed out our filter bed pipes with lots of water and we appear to have cleared them.  I would be interested to hear how you resolve your difficulties as we are now nervous about the fosse - like you we have gite guests arriving and using that fosse from Saturday.  Good luck.

Thanks Clair - that's a really good idea - I will order one right away.

Dave - thanks very much for those ideas - it has given me a lot to think about / explore but I will wait until the whole area is a bit dryer.  The grease trap water definitely does not go into the fosse - it was deemed too small to take that water - we were told it would be fine to have the grease trap water joining up with the effluent from the fosse and both going into the sand filter.  We got our Cert of Conformity on that basis. We had a local artisan fit the whole thing - he seems to do all the fosse/grease trap/sand filter installation around here.

Eparcyl is a powder available in sachets in a biggish box - available in most supermarkets (near the loo cleaners etc,) and in most hardware stores.  You put a sachet into the loo about once a week - instructions as per number of people are on the packet. Any loo cleaner /disinfectant you use should have 'sans danger pour la fosse septique' written on it.  I think washing detergent is OK as long as it is without bleach.

Dave - thanks - I am not sure I entirely understand your question but will explain best I can.  There is a 3 foot drop down from the road to the sand filter bed, then a horizontal terrace on which the filter bed sits, then the land drops away v steeply with about a 9 foot almost vertical drop down to some more gently sloping land.   The outlet from the filter bed has not become covered in water - but  I keep emptying the end chamber. I am beginning to think it is a filter bed problem and not a septic tank problem.  Fortunately the septic tank is v accessible as it sits in a concrete terrace and I can remove a cover and see it.  I know it's big enough for 6 people and there are only 2 of us.  I can see its not cracked or anything untoward.  Since my first post I have had some fine wire netting placed in the manhole where the septic tank effluent joins up with the grey water from the grease trap, prior to them both flowing into the sand filter.  I am sure the netting would have caught any untoward solids - and it's entirely clear.  Could colour/particles/chemicals be leaching out of the sand filter because of all the rain we've had and therefore waterlogging of the filter?  Perhaps it's not septic tank semi -solids that I am seeing but a sludgy sandy mixture that is coagulating together!  Thanks for any suggestions

Thanks - it's had regular Eparcyl and some extra.  It's not tous eaux - the Marie Assainisement chap is supposed to be knowledgeable about Septic tanks as in our area it's his full time job to advise all households what needs doing to bring their systems in line with current regs and then provide a Cert of Conformity.  He said ours was not big enough for tous eaux but we could keep it as long as we has a grease trap put in for the remaining grey water.  It's a mystery!

Does anyone have any idea what might be wrong here - I thought Fosses were a great idea and v efficient.  We had to have a sand filter bed installed along with a new grease trap - but the chap from the Mairie  Assainissement dept that came to advise on what was needed said we did not need a new septic tank, just to have the old one emptied, which we did in May 2005.  He then re-visited after sand filter and grease trap was installed and gave us a Cert of Conformity. However, all last summer we noticed a build up of liquid in the Inspection chamber situated at the far end of the sand filter pipes - we know that this was really supposed to remain empty as the water /waste is supposed to drain away through the sand filter before reaching there. To our horror we now find that the chamber is repeatedly filling with water and what look like brown sludgy lumps (like partially treated sewage!). ( Fortunatley it does not smell particularly unpleasant so it must have undergone some decomposition.) However, how can this be so, as the liquid that leaves the septic tank should be a completely clear fluid - shouldn't it????  There are only the 2 of us using that septic tank so it's not overloaded. If anyone has any ideas then please pass them on.  Thanks in advance. 

Chuck and Betty - we thought it odd that they wanted 2004 figures too but it did make sense when explained to us.  The fig they need to compute is your inc from 1st Jan to 31st Dec 2004.  French nationals also put this figure in for computation of their payments as their tax return for 2005 is not due in yet.  You can't have proof of your income for 2005 without UK or French tax returns to validate everything you say and they are simply not available.  Good luck with it - Jhc

Hi again - further to the above entry from me, I received yesterday a written confirmation from Holiday-Rentals.com that I will receive a full refund if not satisfied with the inquiries after my 1 year period.  They also made suggestions abvout how to improve my entry.  So, I think that a very fair response to a currently dissatisfied customer!  Lets hope inquiries pick up so that I do not need to take them up on it.

I was delayed about 10 hours at Bergerac for a Flybe flight (engine problems which necessitated fetching an engineer from Toulouse) and, after writing a letter of complaint that more help was not offered to me, particularly when arriving in Birmingham around midnight), I got a free subsequent flight (to be taken within 12 months)  and the offer of re-imbursement of my taxi fare to Leicester (if I still had the receipt).  I was pleased with that - so its always worth writing to complain - I suspect that many passangers on my flight did not bother to do so.

Sad to say that we joined then in mid Nov 2005 and have not had a single inquiry.  This has totally amazed us as they are highly recommended by other owners on the Lay My Hat site, and it seems from comments above that others are satisfied on this site. Fortunately we have a steady stream of inquiries from 2 other sites  and our bookings are good - but we do not like to be complacent and wanted a third site in case one of the other 2 deteriorated (as happened for us when everyone seemed to pile into advertising on French Connections and we saw the numbers of inquiries rapidly diminish). The Holiday Rentals experience has made me vow never to pay over any money until I am satisfied that a site will work for us - I think any site confident of its efficacy should allow me a couple of months free before I pay over a substantial sum for a 12 month ad.

Hi - Good luck!  You are not near me so I don't regard you as competition ! so here are my thoughts.  I found it hard to understand how many gites you have available and how many they sleep.  Sometimes you refer to 'gites' and at others to there just being 1 gite.  It was only when going to the 'rates' page that I realised you have 1 gite available for this year and then 2 more due in 2007 or later.  There was nothing to say how many people the 1 current gite will sleep - I assume it is 6 as there are 3 bedrooms but if I was a customer with a party of 8 I would not know whether you could accommodate me or not.  I think this needs to be clear on the home page. If the pool is for exclusive use of the 1 gite and the 1 bed and breakfast room for this year then I would make sure people understood they are going to have virtually exclusive use of the pool for 2006 bookings as that is a big bonus.  If I was a customer then and I understood that you have 2 more gites being built/renovated then I would want re-assurance that there will not be any building/renovation noise during the time of my holiday booking - not sure how you could word it but I am sure there is a way that would re-assure me.

Hi - as the lawyer is practising in UK then you also have the right to ask for a copy of the entire file he has opened for you (as it happens this is likely to be v small in the matter you describe as he has not done much work).  it would be interesting to get a copy of the file, however big or small, so that you can see exactly how much he has done.  You don't need to give any reason for asking for a copy (it's your right to have it), but if asked for a reason then you could say that you need to see it as you may wish to make a complaint about his work to the Law Soc and need to make a decision after seeing the file. We made a complaint about the solicitor that acted for us in UK for our purchase of property in France - I asked for a copy of the entire file, which made fascinating reading and assisted in wording our complaint.

Hi - we got our 2004 one in mid October last year.  Today we called in to the taxe d'habitation office to ask why ours had not come this year as we heard that lots of other people got theirs already.  We were told not to worry, it simply had not been sent yet and that in any event it was not due until 15/12.  I checked our 2004 bill and indeed the final date for payment of that was 15/12 - so the person in the earlier reply who said it is due by 15/11 may be wrong, unless the departments differ.