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Babbles

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Posts posted by Babbles

  1. Does anyone know how to change the language settings when you send an invoice via Paypal , as its a French bank account it is automatically sent with French instructions even though I have my account settings in English which does confuse some of our clients, if they have a Paypal account already it reverts to there chosen language and no problem. Has anyone else experienced this?
  2. Did the people who offered the asking price make a cash offer?, because my understanding is that if they need a mortgage you do not have to "accept" the offer, I know of a case similar to this and the full offer didn't stand because they needed a mortgage and it was the second immo trying it on, it all settled down without paying lawyers but I think a phone call from the Notaire to the Immo calmed it down.
  3. www.liberon.fr/fer-et-ferronnerie/creme-ferronnerie-fonte,183,192.html?

    Creme Feronnerie or Pate de Feronnerie is like Black lead and is widely available at places like Castorama or a decent Droguerie I've used Liberon which is also available in the UK called Iron Paste on our wood burner and it came up a treat
  4. I don't know if its available for your phone but I got the collins app for my iphone about £15, also have a translator app but you need to be on wifi which is not always possible but from memory that was free, certainly I would recommend the collins dictionary
  5. As said the running cost of a house 1.5 million would huge, not that it would by a chateau round here so I would probably a small property in an exclusive area, but would still need an income so that wouldn't really work so its back to having a property that creates an income and we do that already! But what it would enable us to do as we'd be mortgage free would be to sell our business interest in the UK and spend more time together
  6. The bridge is well worth a trip we're near Pezenas , if you like a bit of history its lovely place to look round, some good wines in the vicinity too . Our guests love going to St Guillam le Desert as its not too far from the bridge also the cheese caves at Roquefort. From there you can head off to taste oysters in Bouzigues , Montpellier if you have time and go on to Pont Du Gard, Arles Nimes etc for the Roman ruins. Can give you loads more details if you're interested.
  7. We had a top of the range Chappee boiler at our old house, they installed 3 before it worked "properly" we found it to very unreliable in a second home as it would often just cut out and even on full pelt it didn't seem to heat the house. In our new old house we have a 30 year old oil boiler that can just be kept going with regular maintenance and changing the odd part, but to get one to heat the size of our house its close to 20K and thats an awful lot of oil and maintenance bills. I'm sure in time it will need replacing but not sure wether to change to town gas or stick with oil but it won't be a chappee boiler.
  8. Having got stuck in the snow in Paris last week for 10 hours driving back to the Ribble Valley, the latest incident in the Babbles household with snow was to be woken at 3.30 this morning with a 4 wheel drive having taken down the stone gatepost and fence bounced off the corner of our house, good job the victorians new how to build stone houses at least no one was hurt. the consensus of opinion is that people think they're invincible in a 4 wheel drive so can drive without any care on snow. think I 'll stay indoors today
  9. we have a french mortgage and taking the exchange rate out of the equation one of things that I do really like about it is that you agree to a monthly amount and if the interest rate fluctuates the length of the mortgage either increases or decreases so although we agreed to a 20 year mortgage 2 years ago before all the big reduction in interest rates it now be paid off in 14 years.

    We're currently looking at refinancing and are keen to get a capped rate for 7 years as there are questions about what will happen to the Euro.

    One thing I am surprised at that the OP can get an 85% mortgage normally on a second home its the maximum of 80% and more often 70%
  10. In Castorama we bought a special preparation for cleaning plaster off tiles ( with all the other cleaning products)it worked was expensive and not sure of its any better than hydrochloric acid but when you're desperate and your fingers are worn to the bone its worth a go :-)

    Now found it. Its in a bright pink plastic bottle or as the link shows a larger carton

    Starwax- Decapant laitance de ciment

    www.castorama.fr/store/Decapant-Laitance-de-ciment-carrelage-terre-cuite-2-L-P
  11. I'll second that for Paypal we take the deposit in that method and before they stay I send an email saying we don't take cards on site and if they want to pay by that method I'll send another invoice or they can bring cash or french cheque. We've had very few problems which are normally user error apart from we had a phase of Russians staying and they can't use paypal and I'm not comfortable taking a booking without a deposit.
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