Snowey

Thank you all for your thoughts, advice and sympathies, but we are putting it in perspective, one of my daughters best friends is burying her husband today, in England leaving her with two young children, so have we got any real worries, No. And you cannot realise how annoyed I am with myself for not phoning and pestering, I  am usually told off by my family for going over the top, they told me this time, 'thats why we are paying professionals to do it for us', and if I had been told, when I took documents for the pool a few days after the 7th day, that it is 'going well I have had some of the documents back already', but we haven't received the deposit, I would have kept phoning!  

In answer to P-D de Rouffignac, we do accept a lot of maddening things in life that happen through no fault of anybody's, but to us there have been serious mistakes by people who are out of our control, when we bought our house we were told that we had to and we did pay the full 10 per cent deposit by French cheque on the day of the first signing! We understood from the Notaires in this case that this had been done and that the purchaser was going to put the whole amount in straight away as well. Do you not think that the Agents should have followed up at least once a week to make sure that every thing was progressing in the right way, the only time after the signing that we heard from the Agent was to try and push us for an earlier date! They after all do receive a huge amount of money for their troubles. It is easy to talk a good and sensible way of handling a move, but how on earth is one supposed to move everything lock, stock and barrel in just a few days before the last signing and also make plans to what you are doing in the future, 'have you ever moved house'? In your last paragraph, are you assuming that we are blaming the French in any way, that is certainly not the case, we have had our share of dealing with a few British, so we know there can be problems with that, and the French builders we have used at numerous times have been absolutely marvellous. But we are led to believe that the French way of selling/buying houses is one of the best in the world and probably is in most cases, but when it goes wrong it seems pretty bad to us.

Can anybody please give us some advice, we are suffering from a series of really bad mistakes by Notaires and Immobiliers. We thought we had sold our house in the Gironde, and all went to the Notaires office on the 27th July to sign the first documents, a lady from a large immobilier, the buyers Notaire, our Notaire, the buyer, myself, wife, daughter and son-in-law were present. The buyer said he would only be giving a 5 per cent deposit, our Notaire said this was normal, but if after the seven day cooling off period he pulled out, he would be liable for the full 10 per cent. We had everything explained to us and duly signed all the documents, the buyer was a man of late fifties and on reflection was a real charmer where nothing was a problem and amid much giggling by the three French ladies present, who could not believe it was possible to be dealing with a man where problems didn’t exist, we were told that he was going to not only get the deposit to the Notaire that week but the whole amount. He also really wanted to make the final signing by the 15th September, the Notaire said it was not possible and we said it would be very difficult for us anyway but we would try and make the date as soon as possible, it was agreed that the final date of the 31st October would be put on the documents. Over a week went by and we had to go to the Notaires with the guarantee documents for the Piscine, and were told everything was fine and she had a lot of the paper work back already, so we started to organise the move, packing boxes selling a lot of our furniture, and my daughter has had half of her belongings taken back to England already, my wife and I were going to rent for six months to decide what and where we wanted to buy another property. Just before six weeks were up, the immobilier phoned to say the buyer had been pushing for the 15th September date, I said it was not possible, but we were doing well but had some more furniture to sell, the immobilier actually sent a friend to see if they wanted to buy some. I phoned the immobilier after the weekend to say we would be able to set a date for the 1st October, but the lady who was dealing with the sale was on holiday, she hadn't told me that on the Friday, I spoke to another lady who (that day anyway) only spoke in broken English, but I caught something about deposit. For some reason the next morning I awoke with alarm bells ringing thinking about this deposit, so phoned the Notaire who was on a days leave, so it went on another day, she then told me that the deposit had not been paid, ( I wonder when I would have been told if I had not have rang her), and they were having difficulty in contacting the purchaser and when they did he just kept saying it would be there the next day. The Notaire also told us that she thought the buyers Notaire had the deposit, and the buyers Notaire thought that our Notaire had it!! We now know through various sources that this man is known to be very suspicious, and have been advised to cut the contract. Can anybody advise us about this matter please, i.e. have we a claim against the Notaires for the lost deposit, as it has put us in an awkward situation (if they had let us know after seven days, we could have just put the house back on the market again. Also if we cut the contract will we not be able to claim anyway. Should the immobiliers have let us know as soon as the seven days were up, (they sound now as though they are wiping there hands of the matter). I am sorry that this has gone on a bit, but thought the whole story needs to be told to hopefully be able to get some advise. And also warn other sellers not to leave it completely in the hands of these professional bodies!!!

Please see my reply under desjoyax pool above Snowey

Hi I spoke to the manufacturers in the end, a really helpful guy, either American or Canadian. If you have the filter bag system 'Do not use Floc', the white stuff is coming from that! We took a third of the water out, refilled, then filter, filter, filter, he ordered us a Mega-bag, but it has come clear before we have tried it, I think the agents are the problem, they only sell the stuff to get the turnover. Our pool is wonderful, has been and is again now, in 3 years it has been easy to look after, I just put the winter cover on too early last year, got it green and then tried to rush it this year and didn't know not to use flocculent. Snowey [:)]

I wonder if somebody can help, we are filtering our Desjoyeaux pool 24 hours a day to get rid of a white cloud, under light at night you can see tiny particles white in colour, I think we have done the usual things, we shocked at first because it was green, owing to the fact I thought that the cover was put on a bit early ie it got very warm last November after we had returned to England, and there were some leaves that had managed to blow through at the diving-board end, the Ph is ok now, but was well down at first, and we have put numerous floculant bags in, there is improvement but a very slow one, I think it is ok to swim, looks good, but just cannot see the bottom as clearly as normal. I noticed that Poolguy asked a question of somebody as to what tree was nearby, there is a large fir tree near which has a lot of pollen could this be the problem or is there any other suggestions please. [+o(]

Does anybody out there have the instructions or can give me some help to understand the programme settings on my Riello Insieme 29 G BF Boiler it is working well and seems a really good boiler but I do not have any instructions, I would really appreciate some help.          Snowey

Life Insurance is needed for a two year term while a French friend of mine is changing houses, and I would very much like to help him, so any information would be much appreciated. Cheers Snowey

  Thankyou very much for the info everybody, excellent, but I think I am going out to look for the old fashioned Matron that would just suit me I think!!!! Snowey

  Thankyou very much for the info everybody, excellent, but I think I am going out to look for the old fashioned Matron that would just suit me I think!!!! Snowey

Can anybody give some ideas of the best way to enhance and seal the Oak beams in the loft area we are going to make into a bedroom, we are in the process of cleaning them using elbow grease mainly, what do we do next please. Snowey in the Gironde.

Can anybody tell me if it is illegal for the Notaire to have a clause in the contract to the effect that the Buyer has no redress on the Seller if there have been problems with the Maison that have been covered up by the Seller,