Ysatis

Thanks BJSLIV and pads (pads, I've sent you a PM) for your replies. I can't get that link to work, might be my PC or me that's the problem. Just under 4 weeks ago the DDE asked for a couple more cross-sections of our house, which we did and 3 days after they received them they sent the Maire that reply. I'm totally bemussed by it all.I had a sleepless night last night, seeing me as one of the horror stories on No Going Back type programs. It was horrible. Regards (sorry for short reply, got to go to work...yuk!)  

Another update. Our dreams of having a house in France are all but shattered. We had a letter from the Maire yesturday informing us this " decision de sursis à statuer ". This is the answer to our Permis de Construire application. I believe this means that 'they' could not reach a decision and have left it as a " stay of preceedings ". I phoned the Mairie and spoke to the secretary and asked her if we could build a house, as the document niether said yes or no, and she replied 'non', and 'when you're next in France, call in and we will explain'.  What now! 12 months ago we bought a plot of land with a Certificat d' Urbanisme and now we have a plot of land with niether a CU or a Permis de Construire.What will the land be good for now? I have a feeling it will be devalued by 75%. Has anyone been in this situation as we have no idea as what to do, apart from contacting the relevant authorities. Regards,

We have a standpipe, with an ordinary garden hose pipe clipped to the tap and attached to our static caravan, works very well.We leave the tap on when we are there, but if we go out for the day we turn it off as one day it had come off and water was everywhere.Since then, husband has given the screw an extra turn!!The water pressure is fine.We haven't got the fosse connected yet so just use the porta-potti and when it needs emptying we take it to the nearest public loo (which happens to be a small one in a quiet location), taking care not to choke it up. Only need to do this every three/four days and there's 6 of us.We are not there permantly, only a couple of weeks at a time. I would have the fosse connected if I was there full time. We haven't prepared the ground at all or put the 'van on blocks, the ground is so stoney I don't think it will sink, but the grass will need cutting every so often under the 'van.

   It made me wonder that there may be a hidden charge if you were in a different country, not that it should make a difference, but banks seem to be quite ruthless and will see any opportunity to make money at the customers expense. Hopefully this isn't the case. It does seem a pointless question to ask on a cheque.If there was a hidden charge, one would write France, how would they know. Regards, 

As I mentioned earlier, I have a French bank (Banque Populaire) account and have a Euro cheque book for paying the few bills that we get, just out of interest, on the cheque you have to write where you are when writing out the cheque...why? Does anyone know. Regards,

   We opened a french bank account when on holiday 12 months ago so we could get a euro cheque book and debit ( I think) card so that it was easy to pay bills when were are in England. When we go to France we withdraw some cash (from the British bank) via the cash point by the front door of our french bank and walk in and pay it in. We only keep enough in the account for the few bills that we need to pay. I too was fed up with British banks charging between £15 and £20 to tranfer/send money to France, not so painful on large amounts but when it's on the smaller bills it mounts up. I'm not sure if it's the most economical way of banking ie: withdrawing from the cashpoint in France from an English bank, but it's easy and we only do it twice a year. We haven't used the card yet. Regards,

    For me no, I stumbled upon this list looking for something else. When I did my GCSE French 2 years ago, my french teacher told me about the ones Sue56 mentioned and for some reason they have stuck in my head but the list is so long,and has many exceptions to the rule, unless you have a really good memory it's hard to master. For me, I think the longer the ending, -age, the easier it is to remember. I hardly refer to the list because it's so long and tedious to just sit down and learn them.     Sometimes, to me, a word just sounds more correct using le or la, of course this can be a bit hit and miss, and there are many words that are the same but different genders so mean something different, like le livre: book and la livre: pound; le voile: veil and la voile: sail or sailing; excluding when the gender changes when you are talking about, for example, a person: le comédien: actor and la comédienne: actress. I'm not sure how much it matters when actually speaking, apart from asking to borrow someones book and them giving you a pound instead! I'm sure the French must get genders wrong, so surely we can be forgiven in our endeavours of learning this wonderful language. Regards,

   I don't know anything about starting a business in France, assuming that you are in France but I would have thought that any supplier of pizza ovens would be able to supply the accessories or give you information as to where you can get it. I too am a chef and I often pick the brains of rep's that call, even if it's not quite their field, it's surprising what information you can gather. You could just type into your computer a few key words and see what it comes up with. Maybe be a bit cheeky and call in at a Pizzaria and get talking to the staff or if you're lucky enough, the chef, and make dicreet and casual inquires. Or go along to a catering exhibition, I know they don't come around too often and are quite spread out geographically, or at least they are in England. I wish you good luck in your venture. Regards, 

It became apparent that we did not have the time to master how to 'draw' plans using the computer so we also drew ours with a pencil and so far, so good, apart from recently having a letter from the DDE that we had left a few pieces of information out of the dossier. Which we have now completed and due to pop in the post tomorrow.

Thanks everyone for your replies, it gives my husband something to think about.

For us it was 3 months almost to the day. It was a straightforward and an uncomplicated sale.

I spoke to my husband about the kerb and it's not a drop kerb as I assumed, and we haven't planned a driveway as such, just a large double gate into the plot. Thanks for the reply.

Thanks for your reply. We have already had the water connected to the site by means of a metre in the ground and a stand pipe, quite normal. Also we have a kerb with a sloping effect (husband not here to ask the proper terms) down onto the road, the full lenght of the front of our land, approximately 40m. There is an electricity pole opposite, on the other side of a single track road. So is it a case of contacting EDF explaining our intentions and they will reply with the relevant information. Any more advice will be gratefully received. Regards,

We just had our first correspondence from the DDE informing us that our Permis de Construire is incomplete. Can anyone help with what they are asking of us. " la localisation schématique des équipements publics existants desservant le terrain ( voirie, accés, eau, électricité,...) et les modalités de raccordement." I think this translates to: "diagrammatic localization of the existing public equipment serving the ground ( roadway system, access, water, electricity,...) and the methods of connection" It's the ' methods of connection'  that's making us scratch our heads. Regards,

I have absolutely loads saved on my computer. If I knew how to get from 'My Documents' to here, I would, but I'm not sure if that can be done. If someone knows, please explain, extremely simply as I'm a complete idiot as far as computers. I'm going away for a few days but if I have the time when I return, I will write them out, it's quite a long list. To list a few: Masculine endings -b, -d, -ing, -k, -l, -one, -ble ( except: une cible, une étable, une fable, une table ) -c ( except la fac ( faculté) ) -cle ( except une boucle) -f ( except la soif ) -i ( la foi, la fourmi, la loi, la paroi )  Feminine endings -ade ( except le grade, le jade, le stade ) -ale ( except un châle, un pétale, un scandale) -cé (except un crustacé ) -ee ( un pedigree ) -ée ( except un apogée, un lycée, un musée, un périgée, un trophée ) -nne -tié Those were a few of the simpler ones, the ones with none or the least exceptions!! If anyone wants me to continue on my return, please say, my typing then won't be in vain!!

Also:  devenir and repartir.

That may be it, 'drawing a line' at some point. If re-zoning is in process in certain area's,  perhaps there has to be a cut-off point, where 'they' might say, 'enough is enough'. Re-zoning would be impossible to instigate over night, it has to be over several years, I would have thought, to give those who have on-going applications a chance of realising them. Otherwise, it would seem quite unfair to be 'allowed' or 'led' to purchase land or property with a C d' U that's valid for 12 months and then it be totally worthless after 12 months, if you wanted to extend it or put in for planning permission before it expired. I would be extremely angry if I bought our land with a C d' U and then be informed that planning permission could/would be refused. There is no point granting a C d' U in the first place if you are not going to have the time to acheive anything with it. Surely re-zoning would take into account this. Fair enough if you took your chances a bought land without a C d' U and then applied and got refused because of re-zoning.     

How strange?  Not to give you an extention on your then current CU and then grant you a new one!  Had you let the 'current' one expire and had to re-apply? Did they give you a reason why the original one was refused an extention. Are you building a house from scratch or renovating? What major issues were identified? Did you draw the plans yourself? We did all our plans and put the dossiers together ourselves and we hope that they are of a suitable standard for French planning departments. If there is a 'problem' with them, how soon do they notify you, in order to alter them. As I think I said in my earlier posting, we submitted ours at the Mairie's on 26th July, would something be noticed by now. The date on our receipt is the 26th October '06, is this the latest will should have an answer.Or we will we hear before. I apologise for being so nosey in the first half of this post, I'm just curious and any information will be useful from someone who is going through the same/similar process as us, at the same time, all be it a different department. I hope all goes well with your planning.

Thank-you for your reply Anton. We are in Civray (86) so a trip to Bordeaux might be too far and our French isn't up to the standard of the in's and out's of block's.

Thanks everyone for your replies so far. They have been useful. 

What does AVF stand for?

My husband is a builder and we are going to build our house ourselves. We have noticed in our area, Civray, that houses are constructed using both terracotta blocks or concrete blocks. With the terracotta blocks you seem to be able to get the terracotta lintels, but we have yet to see any concrete ones.Are they available or do you have to cast them yourself? We were wondering if anybody is knowledgable about these two blocks. What are the advantages /disadvantages, price differences, insulation values, durability and strength, availabilty etc. We would be interested in any information anyone might have, good or bad, with the comparison of these two blocks. Regards,

My husband is a builder and we are going to build our house ourselves. We have noticed in our area, south Vienne, that houses are constructed using both terracotta blocks or concrete blocks. With the terracotta, you seem to be able to get terracotta lintels, but we have yet to see any concrete ones. Are they available or do you have to cast them yourself? We were wondering if anybody is knowledgable about these two blocks. What are the advantages/disadvantages, difference in price, insulation values, durability and strength, availabilty etc. We would be interested in any information anyone might have, good or bad, with the comparison of these two blocks.  Regards,

We've stayed a couple of times at the Hotel Ibis in Roscoff. Many rooms have sea views, it's right on the waters edge near the Church. Very reasonable too. I found the family room very good value. Breakfast is extra on top of room, again reasonable price and quality. When we've eaten out, we gone to Pizzeria du Port, doesn't only do pizza's, steaks etc and caters for children aswell. The bar is downstairs and you are called upstairs to the restaurant when a table becomes vacant. Not sure how the bar 'works', we had a drink downstairs before we went upstairs for our meal and when we finished we went downstairs to have another drink and the bar was closed, the lady had the chairs on the tables and was sweeping through and it was just after 9.00pm! I guess we should have stayed upstairs and had another drink, we weren't asked to leave, I think we could have stayed as long as we wanted. It's not posh at all, but not 'greasy Jo's cafe either.It's closed every Sunday night. We tried another similar priced restaurant a couple of doors away, it was ok, not much atmosphere, but staff were pleasant.Both are a short walk from the hotel. You can book rooms via the internet but if you want the family room you have to phone. I hope this has been of some help.  

That's interesting. I know nothing about blue parking areas but have seen them and thought they were similar to our permit holders parking where you have to purchase 'your' allotted parking. So I have avoided using them, obviously I would have been penalised if I had without the relevant disc.