beris

Thanks for that, we are confused because our accountant says that if we take a wage we will have to pay 40% cotisation. We were under the impression that cotisaion was for French medical expenses and pension. As these are already being paid for us from the UK, can this be right. Beris

Advise please. My wife(67) and myself(69) run a Gite, along with our daughter. Our son in law is a self employed estate agent. We work seven days a week on the grounds, swimming pool, maintinance, washing, cleaning and the needs of the guests.(We have 24 weeks already booked for this year) We do not take any wages from the business. My question is, if we decided to take a wage (my Wife & I) would we have to pay cotisation? We receive our old age pension from the UK, all our medical expenses are covered from there, except for our top up which we pay €200 a month for, from our uk pension. Many thanks. Beris

Thanks to all who replied,The Paypal seems a good idea. We will try it out. To Pierre ZFP the answer is one toilet at our gite! and we have three of those. Beris

Hi all Advise please. In our booking terms & Conditions we ask for a security of €500 for the rental period is required on arrival in case of damage to the property or its contents or for additional cleaning expenses, etc, etc we finish The owner will account to the client for the security deposit and refund the balance by cheque, less any deductions, within 14 days of the end of the holiday period. I understand that this is normal proceedure, but my question is, when we take the deposit it will be in euro's, most of our clients are from England and require an English cheque returned. We are a French SARL and do not have an English Bank account. Any ideas would be very welcome. Best Wishes Beris.

Hi Clair, thank you for the information, sorry it has taken so long to get back to you but I did pass on the information at once. Many thanks Beris

Hi all A little bit of help and advise please, my son in law has been employed in France for nearly two years. He did his three months trial peiod and signed a contract after that, He is a very qualified sales person, having been a sales manager in the UK with ten persons working for him, he worked for that company since leaving university for almost twenty years, on a very high salary. He was talked into giving it all up by my daughter to provide a better life for their daughter and to releave the stress of London bussiness. So with my wife and myself we all sold up our properties in the UK and purchased a farm for conversion, after a couple of years our money was running out and my son in law  got his job to help with the day to day expenses, although things were fine at the start his sales director took a dislike to him and has constantly been on his back. Today he has been told that he is being made redundant and that they are going to employ a more aggressive person in his place. My question is can they do this? in the UK I thought that if a job was redundant then the job was finished. Any advise would be appresiated. Beris

Hi all, We are about to finish our pool and need to look into the purchase of a pool alarm, can you good people give us some information on alarms you have purchased and their effectivness. Is there a 'which' type of report on alarms that we can obtain. Many Thanks Beris

Susie, Can you give me the telephone number for the English line. please. Many thanks Beris

Hi all, Just completed a two year barn conversion, a new gite on our site. We have a telephone connection to the house which was installed a couple of years ago. My question is we now need a telephone in the gite, can you give us some advise on what system to have, ie its own connection and number, a payphone, a party line with ours ....... also when we had the phone connected to the house I had a number to contact with an english speaking operator who organized the connection, can anyone give me that number please. Many thanks Beris 

Hi, thanks for the rely to my question, firstly we did not put a dpm under the floors, because the stone walls are 600mm thick and no dpc, the current thinking is that a dpm would retain and push moisture to the walls and rise up. Leaving it to disapate naturally is what we have done. The idea of the packers will be taken on board. To the second question, the room size is 5m x 5m. Many thanks Beris

Hi all, In our Barn conversion we have dug out and replaced all the floors with 150mm reinforced concrete. The ground floor Kitchen and Dining Room has been tiled, the Lounge we are installing an oak floor 25m2. We intend to use 75x50 joists at 400 cnts with the oak boards fixed to them.We have run some vent pipes through the concrete base of the outside canopy into the lounge area to vent the floor. My question is, because the joists are going directly onto the concrete floor, ( we do not have any height to do otherwise) should we put a membrane under each joist, and should the joists be anchored to the base floor. We have only ever installed ground floors in the tradional way on sleeper walls, in the UK, this floor was also to be tiled, but "the powers that be" have decided otherwise. many thanks Beris

Hi all just wanted to say thank you to all who contributed to my question on chimney construction. The information has been great, (yes our walls are 60cm thickness) and we have a horizontal hole through at the moment, looks like we will have to make it a lot larger for the 45degree angle. Many thanks again Beris

Hi all, We are installing a new wood burning stove in our Barn renovation, ( we do not have a chimney) the flue pipe will be taken through the external wall, could anyone please inform us of the regs in this case. Can we have just a pipe with a cowl at the top? Do we have to construct an external chimney? If so, does it have to have a liner? Any advise would be much appreciated Beris  

Hi all, In the June addition of Living France, Luke Bowen wrote an excellent article on building your own Swimming pool. He used a kit made up from hollow high-density polystyrene blocks for the pool walls. We intend to build a pool using this system, but cannot find a supplier of this system,can anyone advise us of a company or companies that supply this type of kit many thanks Beris (Aveyron)

Thanks all, just got back on line, visit to the local garden centre for chicken food today and saw what I was looking for, ground cover sheeting for covering with gravel as Russethouse wrote. for information 1€ perM2 cut from roll 0.85€ perM2 per roll. 100m long, 2m ,3m and 5m wide beris

Hi all Thanks for the information, yes we do need to by it by the roll as we have a lot of land to cover, I just thought that someone may know of a manufacture in France we could contact. The local towns seem to use it in large quantities for weed supression in the parks, and garden centres in poly tunnels, etc. Many thanks Beris

Hi all We intend to make some drought resistant flower beds, gravel gardens, and require some Phormisol to cover the area. There are lots of places in the UK  where we can purchase this from, but can anyone help with location in France. We are in dept 12. Many thanks Beris

Hi Sandy, Where in the Aveyron are you to be based? it is a very large department! Beris

Thank you for your very sound advice, I will certainly take it all on board, our soil (Clay) is very heavy so the addition of sand in the bed is a good tip, I also  like the idea of buying green and not dryed crowns, I will also look at the site you have given. many thanks once again Beris

Hi Im looking to purchase a number of Asparagus crowns, approx 20+, can you good people tell me of a mail order supplier in France of these, also the best time to plant, and any other information on the cultivation. We are in Dept 12. Many thanks. Beris

Hi I have also beeen looking at natural swimming ponds for a long time, I left a post on the forum months ago without sucsess,I would also like the name of the gentelman from .Germany, we are in department 12 and are in the process of installing a natural pond. We obtained a English book on the subject that is very informative, giving details of plants etc. I will mail you the details if you give me your mail address. beris

Thank you all for your comments, legs_akimbo got the point that i was afraid of, of the moisture being trapped and pushed out to the walls.I have decided not to use a dpm. Thanks again Beris

Hi all a bit of advice please, we are renovating an old barn, with walls approx 500mm thick, no dpc .we have removed all the old concrete from the animal pens etc and dug down to place hard core and sand blind. I have installed many concrete floors in England, always with a dpm that joins to the dpc. I have read recently that incorporating a dpm may cause more proplems than it solves in this situation. comments would be appreaciated. Many thanks Beris