Beaufort

Monika How about showing them a picture.

I have just read throuugh the new rules and I realise that I didn't understand them fully.

I was under the impression that current regulations meant that if you paid the CGT in France then you shouldn't be expected to pay the UK CGT. Something to do with the Dual Tax Treaties.

I am not an expert but have been through the insurance and car import process and have a little knowledge about this. If you are not moving here until April then the best thing is to keep your UK insurers informed of your trips and at then at least you will be covered as per your UK policy and any green card coverage. If you are sort of living here now then I would suggest that you speak to a French agent about insuring the vehicle for third party. I don't believe it is possible to insure a British registered vehicle for fully comp here in France until it is fully compliant with France. ie It has been imported and plated for France. I know a lot of people may say that you can get fully comp cover for a non French registered vehicle but be very carefull. You will only find out if the cover is any good after you need to claim. I hope this helps you.

Di You're right. I should have rephrased it thus. There are definitely no c's in the English spelling of negotiate. Levington

Half the fun of buying a house in France is NOT to know too much about the property you're about to buy. It's never going to be perfect anyway. Think of the hours of entertainment of going to the bricolage and not knowing much French. Finding out how eveerything works etc... Just imagine knowing beforehand what you are going to be in for when you buy a particular house. No thanks! 

There is definitely a "t" in negotiate.

Have just gone back to the GDF site and found the page for Reading the bill. It now makes sense. Panic over.

[quote user="Teamedup"] Just had my annual bill for gas (and electricity) from the GDF. We used 1651 'units' of gas. And the price  was 38.855 cents per unit ttc.  The abonnement was 124 euros ttc pa. The abonnement will be more next year as I imagine the gas will be. We have used more gas this last year, but 2003/2004 was milder. [/quote] I am renting a property and have agreed to pay the gas consumption. I can read the units consumed from the meter but I don't receive the bill so cannot read the cost per unit. I have, as someone suggested, gone to the GDF website and entered my post code to see the tarrifs for my area. However I am confused by what my landlord is saying I owe and the amounts that "Teamedup" has quoted. The GDF site states 6.94 centimes TTC per kWh. Does one kWh equate to one unit on my meter? If it doesn't can someone explain the way to calculate the units shown on my gas meter.  

Les That's much as I suspected I would be very interested in becoming qualified/registered to work in France. Is there an easy way to do this. Does one have to attend a college or is it possible to sit exams? I am from an electronics/electrical background. Trevor  

[quote user="La Guerriere"] Yep, both on my desk as I speak. The PROMOTELEC book can be ordered on-line. Jim [/quote] Jim I have today received the Red Book "Locaux D'Habitation Installation Electric". I obviously haven't had time to read it much yet but wonder if you could answer this. I have seen several instances of thick black three core cable being used directly, without the normal gaine, in runs through masonry and or plaster and brickwork. Is this practice legal? Shouldn't gaine be used in all embedded runs of cabling of whatever sort? Trevor

You must use a universal LNB to enable the correct range of signals to be received. The existing one might be an analogue one and won't be any use for BBC. etc... Secure the dish to a vertical pole, on the ground. BEFORE you do anything. It is much safer like this and will avoid any accidents like falling off a roof. The pole doesn't have to be vertical but it makes it easier to rotate to the correct direction. The other thing that will help you set it up is to have the television set, used to tune it, next to the dish. It is better to make a short coax (LNB to Skybox) lead for this purpose. You need to point the dish to 28.2 degrees East of South for BBC etc... You can use a simple plastic walking compass for this. Remeber that it is sometime difficult to tune for all channels because there are a cluster of satellites at the Sky location and you have to point in a direction that will include all of them. It isn't a big difference in position but it will explain why you may receive one channel better than another. Make absolutely sure there are no trees or greenery anywhere in the path of the "dish to satellite" direction. I know it says 1.5 times the height of the object for the the distance from it but in my experience ANY trees or greenery near the dish will affect the signal. You have three adjustments to consider. Vertical angle, Horizontal direction and LNB angle. The other alternative is to get someone to install it for you. I hope this has helped ensure that you don't break any limbs.

[quote user="Agenais"] Hi Levington If you log-in, go to your main account page,  click profile (under auction tools), then in account information, 1/2 way down the list, there is the opportunity to choose you language preferences. [:)] [/quote] Agenais You are a genius. Thank you so much and at least now I get a better idea of what's going on. Thanks also to all the others who answered my post. It wasn't easy to know what to do.

Thanks Andy That's a very good point. I suppose the other thing is that I have a very good incentive to get up to speed with my French. Still a bit annoying though.

I posted this already in another part of the forum but decided to re-post here instead Does anyone have any experience of selecting your prefered language when using PayPal. Is it possible for the purposes of being able to read the "fine print" to choose what language to use for the account. I would like to be able to use English. I do try very hard with the French language and can get the gist of most things but for being able to properly understand "Terms and Conditions" etc...  I would prefer to read them in English. I have tried logging in to PayPal through a UK ISP to see if that allowed me to use English. Although the initial PayPal home page is in English. It immediately switches to French when my account opens.

Slightly off topic but... Does anyone have any experience of selecting your prefered language when using PayPal. Is it possible for the purposes of being able to read the "fine print" to choose what language to use for the account. I would like to be able to use English. I do try very hard with the French language and can get the gist of most things but for being able to properly understand "Terms and Conditions" etc...  I would prefer to read them in English.

[quote user="La Guerriere"] Try: "Locaux d'Habitation: Installation Electrique", the little red book from PROMOTELEC www.promotelec.com "L'Installation Electrique" by Thierry Gallauziaux and David Fedullo published by Edition Eyrolles. Jim   [/quote] Jim Have you ordered AND/OR read this publication yourself? Trevor

[quote user="Teamedup"]I don't know whether it is a trend, but we rented for a year initially before buying and another whilst the property was being built. I wouldn't have done otherwise when moving to a foreign country.[/quote] Had I had my time over again I would probably do what you have advised. However like a lot of people on this forum we were so excited to come to France and do some DIY on an old wreck of a property that we threw caution to the wind. Now, many years later, we don't regret a bit of it. 

[quote user="Will the Conqueror"]The agent or notaire handling the sale will tell you what is required in your region, and will probably put you in touch with professionals who can provide the documents. Because some of the certificates have a limited period of validity (e.g.termites) it is not often a good idea to get them in advance of the sale being agreed, particularly as the market is so slow at present. The requirements do vary considerably between regions.[/quote] This is probably a good reason for employing an agent. When you're selling the house yourself the agents fees can be negotiated with a trusted agent of your choice.

I hope you're feeling a bit better now. Never, ever trust a man with a beard. Dentist or not. All I can say is it's probably a good job he wasn't wearing a wig.  Make sure your solicitor doesn't have a beard.

Thanks very much for that. Most useful.

Does anyone know the approximate price per unit for domestic natural gas from EDF/GDF. Does 61 cents sound about right?

I think that the Gendarmes know a lot more about our movements through their patch than we might suspect. [;)]  

[quote user="Liz"] Thanks for that.  I have just had a look and it is there. I think it goes down on the report card as 'Alice could do better'.  It seems that in order to check that I am not going over my 20 hours outside 5h/17h I have to add up the all the times shown on page 2.  Doh!     Liz (29) [/quote] I tried to copy and paste the figures to Excel but for some reason Tiscali have put a symbol in front of all the figures in the hh:mm:ss column so that you cant use Excel to add them up :( It is possible to add up the times using Excel but you'll need to delete the invisible character at the beginning of each cell containing the hh:mm:ss data. I have written a small macro to do this and If you or anyone else would like a copy I can provide it free in text form. Trevor

Jenny I think you're right to avoid the USB port as it is problematic. I think you'll find what you need here. http://corz.org/comms/hardware/router/static.ip.address.php It explains the settings for fixed IP addresses and can be used for both of your computers. Fixed IP addressing is best for small networks because you know exactly what each computers IP address is. Hope this helps. Trevor