davlin<P>Davlin<P><P><SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 12pt; FONT-FAMILY: Times New Roman; mso-fareast-font-family: Times New Roman; mso-ansi-language: EN-GB; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA"><a target=_blank href="h

Can't answer your question, sorry, but I'd like to know if it's possible to put in a tax return before May. If you havn't put in a tax return before and don't earn anything in France how will the authorities know to send you a pre-completed form? We went to the local Centre des Impots to get a form but they said they will be sent out  precompleted in May.  Will blank forms be available for collection from the C des I or the Mairie at the same time as the precompleted ones?

Yes, as I understand it, if you sell a property within 2 years and the profit you make is more than 7 twelths of the original price you have to pay the previous owner a percentage of that profit (?50%?). We heard of a case via a local immobilier where he had to advise the sellers of a house to wait a few months before putting their house on the market so as to avoid paying out to the previous owner. Apparently they made quite a profit on the house so were liable.

What about installation by a registered artisan of a fosse septique where previously none existed? Would that attract TVA at 5.5% ?  

We are in the process of selling our house in France and moving to another. If a buyer from the UK is willing to pay in pounds sterling would there be any drawbacks? Has anyone done it this way and if so how, did they use a solicitor in the UK to receive funds etc. We are resident in France but our bank is in the UK so we could avoid any loss in the exchange rate this way. Any help appreciated.

Removing trees can also cause problems with ground heave since you are removing the means by which the water has been extracted from the ground for many years, thus upsetting the natural balance.  The ground can swell with all that excess water causing the building to move and crack. It all depends on what type of soil you have so if you are worried about it seek professional advice before removing the tree.   Dave

Has anyone recently moved to the Creuse and doesn't know what to do with all those empty packing boxes? We are moving house within France soon and would be grateful for any that you may have. Will collect.   Thanks Dave

Thanks for your reply. As far as I know we havn't had any trouble with the phones. I'll try shutting down etc when we're not using the computer as you suggest. Just another query, the red diodes on the box indicate the state of connection etc I presume. The @ light is on as well as the wi-fi indicator although the box is connected via a USB cable not wi-fi. Is this correct?

We recently managed to extricate ourselves from Tiscali (Alice) and have signed up with Wanadoo. All info plus box arrived promptly and I've set it up and all seems well. However, every now and then when we try to connect an error message appears saying network problem, try again later. This happens at least once a day and access is not available for anything from 5 minutes to over an hour. I hope this is not normal with Wanadoo, having abandoned Tiscali because of similar problems. Has anyone else experienced this over the past couple of days or do you think I've not got it set up right? Any help much appreciated

Has anyone else had problems with logging on to Tiscali.fr lately? It all started about a month ago. When we try to log on via a dial up connection it fails and we get the message "Invalid user name or password" although we havn't changed our log-on name or password. After trying several times we are eventually connected, although yesterday we couldn't log on at all. we kept getting "Line busy" messages. I thought maybe they were trying to sort out the problem yesterday but the problem still persists today. A friend of ours in the next village is having the same problems. I can connect to the internet via another ISP (Free.fr) with no problems at all so I don't think the fault is at our end. Anyone had similar problems lately and got any ideas what's causing it? Dave

[quote]hi davlin I was interested in your experience with gdf as we are in the process of buying an old farm property in lower Normandy which is on the edge of a small town, it has a nice stable, another...[/quote] No we didn't get involved with the grants. Mainly because I did all the work myself and I believe you need builders/plumbers etc factures and warranties to obtain grants. I may be wrong here and if anyone knows differently let me know. We decided to go with GdF as it was fairly reasonable at 174 euros for the first years signup plus 159 for the annual cotisation. They let me off the 159 euros as we joined too late in the year for the brochure. You can't buy a lot of advertising for 174 euros these days so we thought it good value. Particularly as our local Office de Tourisme will take our brochures now we are GdF registered. Fees do vary from one departement to another I am told so perhaps others will pay more than we did. Good luck with your project

Cheers for that, I'll give it a try. Also the Merlot in a box.

Hi, we only waited about 10 days for a visit but I guess it depends where you are and how busy they are. At the first contact at their offices we were given a pack containing the criteria for 3 and 4 epis ratings amongst other things, which went into detail about the house, rooms, equipment, environment, geniality of the hosts etc etc. Our inspectors looked at and photographed the breakfast! We did offer them a pain au raisin but they gracefully declined. Out of courtesy I suspect, as one of them looked like she was salivating during furtive glances at the fair on offer. They enjoyed the coffee though. I would think the inspections vary from one region/department to another. For example here in the Creuse the tourist season is a lot shorter than, say, the Dordoigne or Brittany and so the number of B&B's is fewer so GdF seem keen to promote the area more and may be a bit more relaxed about some things. I could be wrong, I'm a new boy and no expert. I think joining some organisation or other is worthwhile as it opens up other oportunities like advertising at the local tourist office etc. Anyway good luck with your inspection.

Not being wine buffs ourselves, we're having difficulty finding a decent wine for our guests. We obviously don't want to spend a fortune but also don't want to "poison" the diners with a rough bottle. Can anyone suggest a make/supplier for a reasonable red at a reasonable price? We are in the Creuse if anyone knows of a supplier in the area. Many thanks

Thanks for all your replies. I'm going to try a strong dose of Eparcyl, hopefully that will kickstart it before it's too late.

Not sure whether this should be under House Renovations or not, apologies if not. We had to have our fosse emptied and cleaned the other week and before we started using it again I chucked a sachet of Eparcyl down the loo in the hope of getting it going again. Two weeks later we have a smell from the fosse again. We are careful what we put down it and only use products with the "Sans danger pour fosse septiques" labels. It is not blocked or overflowing, the water level remains the same. We have the kind which runs off into a communal drain through the village rather than a soakaway. I'm beginning to wonder if I should have put something stronger into the fosse to get it going again before we used it. Should there be a hard crust formed on the top before the smell abates? Any advice from someone with similar experience would be appreciated as the pong on a hot day is not pleasant!

Just thought I'd post a line or two about signing up with Gites de France. We had our inspection today, following a week of frantically tracking down the little bits and pieces needed to fulfill their criteria and double cleaning the house top to bottom. Two very nice ladies from the GdF bureau arrived, 45 minutes early, so we slipped into panic mode and tried to lay out a typical breakfast like we knew what we were doing. I'd already filled the coffee machine with water but my wife, thinking I hadn't, filled it again. I could see out of the corner of my eye, while trying to make small talk with the nice ladies, that the machine was about to overflow onto the floor and managed to sidle over and switch it off just in time. Also as they turned up early, I hadn't time to change and was in my "cleaning" clothes which includes a tee shirt with a rather risque slogan on the back. Fortunately it's in english and I don't think the nice ladies understood it. Still, I kept my back to them as much as possible just in case. After the grand tour of the house the nice ladies said pas problem, tres joli maison etc and graded us with 3 epis. We were over the moon as we thought we'd only get two. Anyway, the point of this post is to say if anyone is thinking of doing it, if our experience is anything to go by, the process is pretty painless. Despite the nerve racking experience of the inspection being conducted entirely in french. (Our french is not that good but we understood them and vice versa without resorting to the dictionary so it can't be all that bad). The good news also is that because we have joined late in the year, they will only charge us the one-off joining fee this year and not the cotisation annuel. The bad news of course is we won't be in the brochure until 2006, but we will be on the GdF website and have the 3 epis rating which we can use on our advertising material.

750 euros for Renault Scenic, comp incl breakdown. This is with 24% discount with AGF. Dave

Now that's interesting. GdF Creuse have told me the annual cotisations will be 159 euros for up to 3 chambres plus 21 euros for Table d'Hote making 180 in total. Your subs seem to be a lot more than that. Am I being misled? The nice lady at GdF said it included entry into the regional guide book. Do different departments have their own pricing structure? Dave

Thanks for your replies. You mention "big outlay" with GdF. As I understand it, you pay around 350 euros in the first year and about 180 in subsequent years. It doesn't seem a lot to me when you consider the cost of advertising in magazines, or am I missing something? Also, I think there may come a time when all B&B's will have to have a rating from some recognised organisation or another, as I understand is the case in some departments, so going with GdF may not be a bad thing. Dave

A few weeks ago, we went along to the Cambre de Commerce in Gueret to ask if we needed to register our 2 bed chambre d'hote as a business and was directed to the GdF office across the road. Gites de France kindly gave me their info pack but it didn't contain anything in it about registering a CdH as a business. I thought at the time, perhaps in the Creuse you have to register with GdF first but didn't persue it. Today we went along to the DDE to ask about Chambres d'Hote signs for the road only to be told by two departments that official signs were no longer available and we were directed once again to the offices of GdF. When I asked at the GdF office they said the same thing and only their (GdF) signs were available. This means registering and getting a rating etc. I've no problem with GdF as such but it does seem they are taking over a bit or is this just a way the department can try and stem the flow of b&b's opening up in the area? Anyone with any help/knowledge of this please reply as we seem to be hitting a brickwall each time. We have decided to contact GdF and seek a rating anyway as I think this is the way to go (the rating I mean). Thanks

I recently bought a fishing licence with the Taxe Piscicole vignette and paid 55 euros for it in the Creuse dept and thought that was all I needed to enjoy some fishing. I've now read on another site that I cannot fish in another dept until I pay another 16 euros for Halieutic tax and even then I'm only allowed to fish in 37 departments. Another site mentions municipal lakes and EDF barrages can only be fished with this extra card. It all seems a bit expensive to me and a little confusing. Can someone put me right. Can I fish anywhere in France, except of course on private lakes etc, or do I need an extra licence?      

I've recently decided to have a go at fly fishing. I havn't fished since I was a boy and never been fly fishing. I took early retirement last year and getting a bit bored now the house is finished or thereabouts. Anyone know of any lakes etc around the Aubusson area where I could practice without too many people watching me make a p*** of myself

I read somewhere that caravans owned by residents in France have to be "registered" for use in France but I can't seem to find the info now. We are thinking of buying a small caravan for the occasional trip and wondered what was involved. Does anyone have any info which would point us in the right direction? We are in the Creuse if that makes any difference. Thanks in advance.

Yes we got something similar from our Mairie. We tried to get a Titre de Sejour and asked at the Mairie and the Prefecture but both said we didn't need one despite me asking for one to make it easier for ID purposes. My french isn't good enough to argue my case so we left it at that! They said to use a passport until it expires. Whether that means something will be issued at a later date or not I don't know. As a previous poster said, it varies from one department to another and here in the Creuse it seems they won't issue them. Unless anyone on the Forum knows different?

Try the Limousin. The winters tend to be cold and crisp rather than cold and damp as in the UK. We were still sitting in the garden enjoying the sun on some days in December last year. Winter came in with a bang in January and we had a lot of snow but the neighbours say it's unusual to have that much snow. A bit wet in May but the summers tend to be hot but not too oppresive as in the south. The soil is good here if my veg patch is anything to go by Property prices still seem reasonable although it's getting quite popular so that might change in time.