Frederick

Ron     I pay tax in the UK ....and on  my OAP as well  ....as thats where I live... and the only income I get is from there ..... The house in France is a holiday home ... and  I am happy to pay any taxes required  in  connected with that holiday home .  as and when I am required to pay them . 

Got it !  they calculate the tax on the assumption of what you would get if it were rented ....too bad if its not.....you still pay the tax.....It does not look unreasonable ...and  amenieties have to be paid for  so I  can expect the bill in a couple of months ......Thanks  tenniswitch .

Hi Jon...........You are not far from me .........and I have looked at the TGV...La  Rochelle ...Paris...Eurostar ...Waterloo.....as an alternative ...its fast and not too expensive ...have you looked at that route ?  

With two holiday homes I assume you have a rental income from them during the summer months  and are subject to tax. But as  windowman wrote ....How does it work for holiday homes ? .....my holiday home is not rented out ....just used by my wife and I ..... and our grown up children with the grandchildren ...  .As I am now  retired do not pay any tax in France....what sort of level for Habitation Tax can I expect?  I have paid the Taxes Foncieres and am still waiting to hear about the Habitation and I have had the place a year now .  

Thats cheaper than the staff travel rate !!!!

Thanks Opas....we guessed that was it......quaint !  

When we bought the house we produced our marriage certificate to the Notaire...fine ...he sorted out last years portion of the Taxes Foncieres ...fine ...I have just got this years tax demand  My name above the address on the front ....and my wifes name before we married  under it .......why ? ....do they suspect I have a few more Mme  Fredericks   out there ......chance would be a fine thing !

I believe they have to pay into a compensation fund which pays out to the victims of accidental wounding and the families of  fatalities. Maybe it takes the personal responsibility  / duty of care out of the sport a bit. knowing there is a huge pot of money sitting there to be claimed from ....Perhaps  if people had to pay compensation out of their own resorces for their negligence when handling a firearm they would not drink so much or fool around with a gun.......its only a couple of years since an old man was killed  shot off his moped on his way home .The number one rule I was taught  is never point the thing at anybody even unloaded .... and certainly only  load up when pointing  at the ground ...but then I was in uniform and were  taught how to handle guns ..safely .

All you need now is a good size key fob...........suggest half a house brick ! you wont lose them again .......

I have just read of the huge problem in the Canary Islands with  the loads of boat people from West Africa who are landing on their shores.  Many of the boats .... if they make it....  are filled with  small children who have been put in them by their parents . It seems the Canary Islands authorities  now have to raise and educate these  abandoned children and are now appealing for help from Brussels to handle the growing problem . and  of course  fund it ...The parents who do this must be desperate ....West Africa is where the money needs  to be spent on the povety in order to stop this now .......or ...we are in for a very troubled future when Africa moves North ..

 My above post should read ....   "80cm  "dish ....  you may need a bigger one .

Hi   I am not as far south as you .but I get perfect free view reception in La Rochelle area . I got a  SKY box off Ebay for £19  a sat finder also there for about a fiver. .....the instructions how to find the satalite off the web ... and a white  8cm dish from by local  "recycle  it all  " tip for a fiver complete with wall bracket ....The cable I bought in Mr Bricolage  as the stuff used in France is differemt from the brown stuff in the UK I had with SKY .  took about an hour to get OH watching Eastenders ...so you can do it yourself.....it wont be long before you get detailed instructions posted  ...its fun to do it yourself .....and if you can for next to nothing then even better !!

Last month we sat on our local  beach watching a golden labrador in the sea trying to go after a ball that a couple of lads were throwing to each other. It was not their dog so they were not bothered by this fast exhausting animal  swimming back and forth between them . The dog owners  a French family seemed quite happy to watch this dog knacker itself and get  chucked about by the waves ...totally irresponsible ....I have had dogs but never taken them on beaches during the summer hols.....would you want  some wet animal shaking  itself alongside you while you tan .. I say dogs off beaches in the summer  ....in the winter OK

Is there anybody who has installed a wet room ? and do you think it was a better idea than a shower cubicle re condensation etc ? are you glad you have one or wish you had never done it ?.  I have a narrow  6 foot wide room like a changeing room  Its off  and the depth of  a bedroom that I need to  put a loo  a basin and shower in ...(The house is all on one level...bungalow type " Maison Vendeen " ).... I can see the advantage of a wetroom  down the far end as  people with mobility problems ( could  be me one day ) would find it easier not having to get in and out of a cubicle .slide doors etc . I have thought an extractor ducted to a shower cubicle the best way of dealing with damp . no window ...yet  ?.    but now  dont know ...They seem to be the way to go these days wet rooms  but I just have no experience of one ...never see one other than on TV and  they seem to chuck a lot of water about . from more than one jet in some of them .  

Asp Vipers !!!  we are not talking Cleopatra here and a need for funeral parlours are we Chris ? .....and..... do they know the way to the Vendee ?

You make a point Val it must be  about anti British feeling in some areas...This is the sort of thing that is showing  on the many TV shows we seem to get on every channel these days... Brits having places done up in France or where ever.... and showing lots of tears and frustration  and cash spent in the process of dealing with artisans ..... who .....are portrayed as shoulder shruggers and palm raisers .... When  the TV crew  returns to show an open sided barn that was promised to have been  turned into a four bedroom house complete with wood burner going in 9 months ...and askes why its not finished .... up goes the shoulders of the builder and he walks off .  . My point is these forums   and TV shows are full of stories about an attitude ...one that comes over as  "The Brits are rich...lets take them for what we can get out of them  ...and do it  when we want to do it  "  I know there are lots of rubbish Brit builders in  France  there are lots at home .....but I would have thought  before  you pay out huge sums of money you would want to visit where he has  worked in the past and checked out his work .....Any good builder  would be happy for you to talk to his past clients  .....I am happy with the English  guy I used . and he is local ..we fixed a price we shook on it and he was paid when the  good job he did  was finished ..My local plumber (French ) I am delighted with...  a nice guy ....and he has never let me down so  I have no complaints .......But  when are we going to read about  on these forums and see on TV  stories about   great artisans ...who turn up on time. produce fantastc work and  finish  on  time and who do not come over as  thinking  British house buyers are some cash cow that is just there to be milked .  Untill we do you cant blame some house buying Brits from thinking it will be less grief to take a builder over with them  than hire local ones .  

  "Let nature take its course ....this is France "      I am now  so glad I got  an  English guy  living in France to do the work on my place Val ....and any more big jobs I need doing   (and I  want a bathroom put in off a bedroom  for next year) ..  I shall be going back to him . as it will be done when I want it done .When you read of the way that some artisans  treat their clients on forums like this then  can you wonder why new arrivals wont touch them. If they get upset about it.... tough ......who works for who.....  have they not heard that "he who pays the piper calls the tune " When they get a load of artisans from East Europe move into their area of work  as they will one day and they see them doing a  good job for less ....then customer relations may start to mean somthing ...Proman does not deserve to be treated the way he is ..... who do they think they are .

This is all news to me .........I had no idea that if a guy went  off to work in another EU country..he could claim allowances for the family he left behind at the rate paid by the country he was working in .....It .seems a strange thing when his  country has a means tested system in place and the family may be too well off  and not quallify ...he can  then claim the allowance in another EU country .. its madness the system wants levelling off .

I read that thousands of East European migrants can and do claim child benefit at the rate of £907.40 a year for a single child and £608.40 for each additional one left at home  while  they work in the UK . This is permitted  under EU rules and over 50,000 Poles who do not automatically get child benefit in Poland as its means tested there . for them .... have applied for child benefit for their children left in Poland .applications already this year...over £45 million............Does France pay these benefits to their migrant workers who leave their children in their country of origin and come to France to work  ?   Already 230.000 ...Poles are  registered to live and  work in the UK  but thats not the true figure ......probably thousands more . Southampton council cannot say the  number they have.....they think between 10 and 30 .000 .thats just one town . Do French people working in the UK claim for their  kids .....I suppose they do ? so what do English  workers get from France for the kids they leave at home ?

.I once had occasion to visit a Police Station on the Costa del sol.....parked in  a road alongside their building were lots of British registered cars they had rounded up . One was a Jag another  a Range Rover and all were decent cars  covered in dust and  with soft tyres ....The problem  must exist where ever Brits decide to buy ....Perhaps the authorities who control the car park for BF  should round these motors  up  after putting as sticker on to say they have 7 days to get them out  after which they would be siezed and moved off the carpark  then crushed if not claimed  from a compound within a month or two ... They could also give the owners who claim them a nice bill for storage . like 20  or 30 euros a day ....What happens when the car park gets filled up with these cars ..where do people park . its taking the micky

The bottom line is there was a lot of indesision that day..trying to get conformation they were following the right guy....the whole thing was a cock up.....if there was any suspision that a device was being carried then to let the guy enter a confined space of a tube station where a  blast would do much more damage was a monumental mistake . He should have been taken out in the street if that was the order...he was permitted to place a lot more people in danger if he had been a bomber....and..... the communications are useless in the tube network so by letting him go in the station there would be no constant update report of the situation as it was developing .....As I said .  a cock up...  I hope lessons have been learned and some re training is going on .a suspected bomber should never ever be permitted to walk into a crowded building from the street again.....Its a tradgedy that a wrong  identification was made in this case  and we all feel  for the family ....but we have to rely on the Police to keep us safe and the other agencies fighting this battle for us ....unfortunatly mistakes do get made .

I understand.... it is taught that it is wrong for a muslim to act in a way that will put a fellow muslim into the hands of a non muslim for punishment.    So can sombody tell me how we get round the passing on of  information to the police from this community if they feel it is some sort of sin .... and they will be shunned.... if they inform on those  among them they  suspect are up to no good ... and it results in them being  put before a christian judge and sent to jail by him ? I once asked a muslim who was worried about being burgled  why he did not get himself a big dog.....he told me he was not allowed a dog.....I asked why and he told me it was "In the book...dogs are evil ".........if .this is the sort of thing they live their lives by ...I dont  know how we are going to get round it .

 Hi Esperanza     Can you please post here if you manage to get cover.....I would love know who will do it ......I may want to use my van to visit other parts of  France and  it would be nice to know the van and importantly the contents can be covered ..

I gave up trying to insure my tourer...its now in the garden of the house in the Vendee un covered....Generalis  who covers the house would not touch it as its a UK  built van and the " door is on the wrong side ." as they said ...A  French broker could not find me cover and the UK brokers would only cover me out of the UK for  no longer than 30 days........my van has been in France a year now with no problem....  I now accept that no Frenchman would be daft enough to want to pinch a UK built caravan  .  

A constant supply of mussels are shipped from Poole to Brittany......how do you know when you see them on the plate or taste them they are not Poole ones ......and you are eating Dorsets finest .