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Hello, thank you for reading this post, I hope that you are able to offer advice. We have a large (300m2) house and from the end of June, are considering renting it on a long term basis. We have never done this before and are keen not to be out of pocket, or stuck with people who abuse it. Can anyone suggest ways we can best protect ourselves? Have read that we should get insurance, should our tenants have their own insurance as well and what kind of insurance will both of us need? Should we have a contract of a set duration, we understand that long term means 3 years at a go, can we have a one year contract?- do we need a notaire to drew this up? If we did have a three year contract are we able to give notice to finish it early, say after a year and if we did how much notice would be required. Even if we find people who wish to rent it, should we then go to an agent and get them to sort out the contract, etc? What kind of security deposit should we be requesting We have a dog and two cats and will be asking the tenants to look after these until mid October as part of the arrangement, we have a couple who are willing to do this, which means that we will not have to arrange kennels, though we will request that they do not bring any pets of their own until we have collected ours, is there any further issues we should consider here? We will take reading on our utilities, etc and change the names over for the duration, do we need to give advance notice to telephone companies, ADSL, etc Are we liable to pay taxes on the rental income, etc Thank you to everyone who is able to offer helpful advive Our house is in Poitou Charente, halfway between Surgeres and St Jean d'Angely. Post edited by the moderators: Please do not advertise or post your products or services on the message boards. Any advertising without permission will be removed.

I have registered as an occupational therapist here in France and have managed to pick up only temporary contracts to cover holiday periods - it really is difficult to get a long term contract or CDI, for me anyway.   I converse well in French and was able to treat my 'patients', communicate with them and colleagues to convey all the necessary information on the ward, in the rehab unit or at the weekly multi-disiciplinary meetings, etc.  I am sure that you will as well, especially if you manage to have a placement or two beforehand. One of the biggest difficulties that I found, initially, was using the different information systems, a placement or two should prepare you for this.  If you registered as a 'jobseeker' with the unemployment office (ANPE) you could then request a placement from any clinic/hospital/carehome, then the setting, and you, will be covered by the the insurance of the ANPE.  The placement can be up to two weeks long and is known as the 'evaluation en millieu de travail' or EMT.  Perhaps instead of going straight into an hospital or emergency setting you could find work at a 'nursing home' or perhaps better still for your particular profession, in a rehabilitation unit (the nursing staff seem less pressured in the rehab).  Clair was spot on about contacting the DDASS to register your qualifications here in France, you will not be able to practice without it.  Contact them and get them to give you a print out of all the neccessary steps required to achieve French state registeration.  This will involve some expense to have all your information translated by a 'traducteur assermente' - count on 300-500euros depending on the amount of quaifications and papers involved.  Otherwise it is relatively straighforward. I have found most French health professionals to be friendly and helpful, have you had any informal visits to speak with your French colleagues? I think that they may be able to offer you advice and insights into the work, who to speak to where to apply, etc. Obviously continue to work on your French Best wishes    

I think that the micro-enterprise setup has got easier and social charges (cotisations) are now supposed to be pro-rota rather than up front, but are all the charges treated in this way? I think that it would be worth double checking so you do not to get caught out. (perhaps someone else will clarify the reality of this) There are plenty of umbrella or portage companies, which for a percentage, in France mostly at 10%, will deal with all your social charges/invoices.etc.   If you have no money coming in, you have nothing to pay. Some portage companies that will also promote you to their other clients if you have a service of interest. Good luck with your enterprise, I wish you every success

There are options for classroom support assistants (AVS) in France and  multi-disiciplinary  team input on a regularly basis to draw up/modify statement of special educational needs. etc.  Generally, medically and socially there should be no problems in meeting the needs of your son using the statutory,voluntary and parent led services.  You may have to do the initial legwork to ensure that you are able to obtain the best outcomes, meet up with other parents, check out if the services offered are acceptable to you, what alternatives there are.  Apart from a visit to the local school(s), I would advise you to contact the 'maison departmentale des personnes handicapees' in the area you are considering, all disability related issues in France now pass through them (a kind of one stop shop).  I assume that your son is  relatively high functioning intectually but would caution you that there will be difficulties in moving up to the next year if he has not met the 'academic' standard of the current year, (each and every year) there appears to be much less flexibility than might be found within the UK  educational system. I have been in recent contact with a family who moved to France with a boy of the same age and condition some years ago, if you would like to see if they would be prepared to talk to you about their experiences, pm me and I will ask them to contact you.  Best wishes

Hi Loulou71 As with Panda I am not sure why the reluctance to set up as a micro-bic, perhaps because you will earn more than the limits, or not sure if it will be viable business (though if you are a decent IT consultant, I do not think that this will be a problem here in France).  If you were to register as a job seeker with the ANPE, you could use their 'couveuse d'enterprise' to test out how well your business would work, and establish the best company setup for you.  The Couveuse initiative works in the same way as the portage/unbrella system but you will not have to pay the additional costs as you would to a private company. If at the end of the trial period (six months) you decide not to go ahead, you can just abandon the project. If after six months you do decide to go ahead, you will likely qualify for a number of   tax and cotisation breaks for the first two years of you start up. Good luck and best wishes whatever you decide to do John

Thank you for your prompt replies. I did reply from my email programme and will now reply via the forum. Best wishes

I tried to reply 4 times to a pm I received yesterday and each time my email is returned with the following message envelope;   To:      France Forum - Automated Email   Subject: Re: (France Forum) Private Message: Disability   Sent:    Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:56:49 -0000 did not reach the following recipient(s): France Forum - Automated Email on Tue, 20 Mar 2007 17:57:02 -0000     The recipient name is not recognized The MTS-ID of the original message is: c=gb;a= ;p=ecng;l=SNNOEX020703201757HB7MJYWH     MSEXCH:IMS:ECNG:Norwich:SNNOEX02 0 (000C05A6) Unknown Recipient Would you (France Forum) be able to identify the problem so that I am able to reply, or send an email to the person who sent me the email to explain the problem.  I am concerned that they will think I do not respond to requests for information.  Thank you. 

I previously posted this information to RumziGal but thought it might be useful to other forum users.  I recently came across an organisation called 'Maladies Rares Info Service' which, for the cost of a local call will give information on rare conditions.  It offers to put you in contact with the relevant associations or individuals/families touched by the same condition as well as find out the contact details of specialists within that domain.  Their telephone number is 0 810 63 19 20.  To access on the web, in various languages,  www.orpha.net If people do use this service, I would appreciate it they would let me know how they got on with it. Best wishes

I am not in the gite business and am unable to answer your specific question regarding the number of gites.  In and around St Jean d'y it is popular for holidays as it is close enough to various attractions, places of interests, airport, beaches. etc  It is possible to make any of the gites suitable for disabled people and their families (this would not need to exclude people without a disability) as a way of marketing to other client groups and perhaps generating income outside of the main holiday season.   The Conseil General de la Charente Maritime do offer upto 30% of the costs, materials and/or labour, for developing gites (financial assistance for a maximum of two gites).  Obviously, as with any use of the public purse, there are conditions to be met.  You would be able to get the relevant information from the conseil general, or you could PM me if you wanted further specific details on this or on the norms for French disability regulations.  Best wishes

Hello Rumzigal.  Not sure how relevant this is to you, may be a starting point?  I found it by doing a quick Google 1) B Cortet, RM Flipo, P Coquerelle, B Duquesnoy, B Delcambre. Treatment of severe, recalcitrant reflex sympathetic dystrophy: Assessment of efficacy and safety of the second generation bisphosphonate pamidronate. Clinical Rheumatology 16: 1 (JAN 1997):51-56. APD was administred intravenously (perfusion) to a dose of 1 mg/kg/day during 3, 2 or one day. Adverse events were noted in 14 patients: transient fever (n=6), venous inflammation (n=2), transient symptomless hypocalcaemia (n=3), nausea (n=1), lymphopenia (n=1), transient hypertension (n=1). Address B Cortet, Ctr Hosp Reg & Univ Lille, Dept Rheumatol, 2 Ave Oscar Lambret, F- 59037 Lille, France. It gave a brief overview of the condition then went on to say Now we have a cure. A recent report from France shows that 86 percent of patients were cured by injecting a drug to strengthen bones, called pamidronate, into the veins. The pamidronate is injected one mg per Kg intravenously for two straight days or daily alindronate or calcitonin (3). A study from Italy shows that RSD can be cured with intravenous clodronate 300 mg daily for 10 consecutive days. There are a number of studies cited within the same article, perhaps if you have a look at the page, http://www.drmirkin.com/morehealth/G160.htm  it will add to your armoury.  If you do not get anywhere with this, or other posting, I would be happy to look at some of the other published studies (had a quick look - mainly concerned with diagnosis criteria. etc). Best wishes

Our six year old does quite a lot on the CBBC and Cbeebies websites, a lot of the content is designed to learn whilst having fun.  We also go through her school homework with her in French and English - that is to say if it is on months of the year/days of the week. etc.  we do both languages written and spoken.  It also helps that we have four children and thus far only two are speaking French on a regular basis, although No 3 has recently started mornings at school.  When we get DVD's in France they have language options and depending on who is in charge at the time, they are sometimes in English, sometimes in French.   Often we allow our daughter to answer the phone and she switches between languages.  We do not really have to motivate her to keep up with the English but it helps to know that friends/cousins are coming for holidays or we will be going to them.  Most of our bedtime stories are in English (sometime the school library books, but it seems to take too long as she is alway correcting my French pronounciation), we also have a selection of the English 'start reading' books  We do encourage her to write (short) letters to her friends/family as a way of staying in touch, which also helps with her written English.  Best wishes 

As you are probably aware any employment in France is VERY tightly regulated.  As a student you may be able to get more slack than most, but....    The following link may give an idea of what the possibilities are, it is set up for students.  http://www.egide.asso.fr/ Otherwise, during the summer there is usually plenty of seasonal work about,  if you have transferable skills you may even have more than one option.   Divento has a clasified ads section, mostly for 'nanny' type work but it does, sometimes, have other options, always worth a look if you are in the dark! http://www.thecatseyes.com/index.aspx?l=EN Best wishes with your search  

Thank you for your responses, it'll really helps us to consider options.  Best wishes

Thank you for that link Clair, will be very useful

I am in the process of building a website and am using 'sitesell' - seems to be very good with excellent forums for help and (positive) advice related to the particular areas you are on.  They have a video demo to take you through each day,  if you want it.  Offer money back if you are unhappy with it.  I was recommended it by friends who have built several sites using it.  Costs 299 USD - what ever you decide to go for I would have a look at them, it still takes effort but it is a clear step by step process.

We are thinking to replace our aged laptop and have seen a couple of HP ones in Leclerc for 499e.  As I have previously been disappointed by the quality of some goods I have brought here in France,  thought I would ask if anyone has experience/advice. 

Our daughter has Downs Syndrome, we came to France when she was five, was not walking more than a few metres independently, and got frequent chest infection.  Now she is older (almost nine) she has almost no chest infections or other particular 'health' concerns.    We found it easy to register with a GP- although it was several months before we found out that she could be 'prise en charge' 100%.   Once we left from our rented house, we re-registered with another GP where we now  live, he advised us of this, then he took care of all the paper work for that. (He really is a fab GP) I do not know how old your daughter is or if she presents with any particular needs outside of what may be usual for a child with this syndrome, as a starting point I think being part of an association is an excellent idea. You will hopefully be able to use this for guidance/support for specific issues if and when they arise. (I wish I had belonged to one earlier) From my experience, statutory services can be quite rigid in their approach and will expect you to comply with their way of doing things (even if they cannot give you good clinical reasoning for this).  We stopped taking my daughter  to speech and language therapy  (SLT) - well they (he) refused to see her unless I complied 100%.   We than contacted SESSAD and they agreed to take her on. She has two sessions a week as well as a 'circus skills' training once a week and swimming once a month.  All the sessions are prise en charge, as is the taxi which takes her these days.  In her mainstream school (fab school/teacher) she has a support worker (AVS) for 50% of the time.  SESSAD, the multi-disiciplinary edu/health team  and us are all involved in drawing up her statement of education.  If you have adequate support (and can also speak reasonable/good French)  the french system really can work well, you will hopefully be very impressed with the social and health care setup available for you and your family.  Good luck with your planning, best wishes to you and your family 

Oops Apologies, came from a relative who is usually clued up on such matters.  Perhaps the moderators could delete the post and spare anyone else the wasted nervous energy

I have copied and pasted this as it was just sent to me.  Hope no one gets caught by this as it sounds very very naughty!!   PLEASE INFORM EVERYONE >>> >>>Emails with pictures of Osama Bin-Laden hanged are being sent and the >>>moment that you open these emails your computer will crash and you will >>>not be able to fix it! >>> >>> >>>If you get an email along the lines of "Osama Bin Laden Captured" >>> >>>or "Osama Hanged"don't open the attachment.This e-mail is being >>>distributed through countries around the globe, but mainly in the US and >>>Israel . >>> >>>Be considerate & send this warning to whomever you know. >>> >>>PLEASE FORWARD THIS WARNING AMONG FRIENDS, FAMILY AND CONTACTS: >>> >>> >>>You should be alert during the next days: >>>Do not open any message with an attached filed >>>called >>> >>> >>>"Invitation" regardless of who sent it. >>> >>> >>>It is a virus that opens an Olympic Torch which "burns" the whole hard >>>disc C of your computer. >>> >>> >>>This virus will be received from someone who has your e-mail address in >>>his/her contact list, that is why you should send this e-mail to all your >>>contacts. >>> >>> >>>It is better to receive this message 25 times than to receive the virus >>>and open it. >>> >>> >>>If you receive an e-mail called "invitation", though sent by a friend, do >>>not open it and shut down your computer immediately. >>> >>> >>>This is the worst virus announced by CNN, it has been classified by >>>Microsoft as the most destructive virus ever. >>> >>> >>>This virus was discovered by McAfee yesterday, and there is no repair yet >>>for this kind of virus. >>> >>>This virus simply destroys the Zero Sector of the Hard Disc, where the >>>vital >>>information is kept.

How about voluntary work at one of the numerous 'retreat' type places that are dotted about the UK.  Often they offer board and lodging in exchange for a set number of hours a day.  Usually these would allow enough time daily to go to a local college for English classes.  You would need to research one that had things that interest her (animals/new age/children?). Church organisations may be another place to research to see if there are opportunities to 'do' voluntary work in return for board and lodging.   

Hi Dave Some excellent answers already, here is my offering. It is discretionary, but you would be able to take the mobility component of your DLA with you for the period that it has left to run.  It is likely that you would need to throw yourself on the mercy of Newcastle, if possible, try to have contact with the same individual throughout (of course this may impact on your affiliation into the french health/social security system!)  Although the circumstances were different to yours, I know of one family who have done this. Last year France (twenty regions anyway) reorganised its access to 'disabilities services' into more of a 'one stop shop'.  These operate with multi-disiciplinary teams (doctors/physio's/OT's/social workers. etc) and the re-organisation has simplified access to a range of assistance and benefits.   If you were to contact the Maison Departmentale des Personnes Handicapee (MDPH) in the locality you are considering and spoke to one of the social workers, I think that s/he would be able to look into/advise you of your entitlement to disability benefit here in France.  S/he will also assist you with arrangements for any other social and statutory services you may need to see (COTOREP. etc) .  I know of a number of 'ex-pats' who receive disability benefit here, although it is usually a much lower level that in the UK, it does enable you to access further services (home care, adaptations. etc) or financial assistance if needed. If you do go down this route and have your disability recognised here, you will be able to access all the benefits that a French person with a disability would normally be able to.  I have successfully used (the threat of) the law of '11 fevrier 2005' to access services that were being denied to a British disabled person. Good luck with your planning and your move  

OUCH.  It was the first time I had seen it! Perhaps a little more of the kittenish regard would be nicer.

Got this from one of my sisters and thought it was amusing enough to post For those of us who are old enough to remember this............     CONGRATULATIONS TO ALL THE KIDS WHO WERE BORN IN THE 1940's, 50's, 60's and 70's !! First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they carried us. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a tin, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, our baby cots were covered with bright coloured lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking As children, we would ride in cars with no seat belts or air bags.   Riding in the back of a van - loose - was always great fun. We drank water from the garden hose pipe and NOT from a bottle.   We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this.   We ate cakes, white bread and real butter and drank pop with sugar in it, but we weren't overweight because......   WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING!!   We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.   No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K. We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem . We did not have Play stations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 99 channels on cable, no video tape movies, no surround sound, no cell phones, no text messaging, no personal computers, no Internet or Internet chat rooms..........WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents .   We played with worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever.   Made up games with sticks and tennis balls and although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out any eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just yelled for them! Local teams had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!!   The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!   This generation has produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever!   The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas.   We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned   HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!   And YOU are one of them! CONGRATULATIONS!   You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated our lives for our own good.   And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave their parents were. Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?! PS -The BIG type is because your eyes are shot at your age

As your profession in within the health and social care field you will have to be 'state registered' to practice here in France, as in the UK (although you can no longer say 'state registered' there) Perhaps your best route will be to approach your regional DDASS (Direction Departmentale des Affaires Sanitaire et Sociales).  They will advise you of the particular requirements to validate your diplomas.  En gros, they will want your request, outlining personal details - your full name, address, telephone number - where you obtained your qualification and your profession.  Passport (copy) Copies of your diploma certificates Copy of your professional registration to practice in the UK (if that was where it was awarded) conforming to directives '89/48/CEE du 21.12.1998 et 92/51/CEE du 18.06.1992. Detailed breakdown of your study programmes (how many hours in each area study area, how many years and content of your placements throughout your training) References from employers Translation of these documents by a 'traducteur assermente' (not just any translater!!) In terms of finding work you will need to be able to communicate effectively, I suggest you continue learning French whilst getting state registration.  Once here you could perhaps look for care work or maybe in a nursing home whilst you get your French up to par.  Another route may be to register as unemployed via the ASSIDIC/ANPE, approach your French colleagues in your local hospitals to request they offer you a placement (usually no more than two weeks). The ANPE will provide the insurance cover you need for this! It will offer you a chance to try out/improve your French and see how things work here.  I hope others will be able to provide further information within the forum, if you run into any particular issues you could PM me.  Good luck with your move. Best wishes  

Have sent you an email