Grecian

I would have to say SFR myself, €31.90 a month for internet, telephone and French TV. Free phone calls to all French landlines except premium numbers, and free unlimited international calls to a lot of countries including the UK. Have been with them now for just over 12 months, after switching from FT, and have been very pleased with the service. They even organized cancelling our Orange account as well. We chose SFR because we have a SFR shop about 8 miles away, so if anything does go wrong, initially we can go into the shop to try and get the problem sorted. There that has put 'the kiss of death' on our SFR connection now with that recommendation! Link: http://www.sfr.fr/#sfrintid=P_nav_offre

Well I am now in a position to answer my own query. This morning I visited my new dentist and explained to him that I only wanted the two teeth dealt with that are giving me pain. He looked a little surprised but said no problem, it seems it was just his receptionist that took umbrage with the situation. Regarding the 200% reimbursement from my mutuelle, as I mentioned it would be €540 for each crown, CPAM reimburse about €75 and my mutuelle will reimburse me €139 for each crown, so it will bring the cost of each crown down to €326, not as bad as I first thought. I will have some of the other work carried next year. Having had the extraction this morning I must say my new dentist is excellent. I felt no pain at all, and did not know that he had extracted it until he put some gauze in my mouth and told me to bite. Having had 2 other teeth extracted, one in the UK and one in France by a butcher, this new bloke is brilliant, whatever he wishes to charge me!

Many thanks for the link idun, I will be investigating the centre in Parthenay, after I have 'done battle' with my current dentist next week. I will certainly ask for a devi from them regarding having two false teeth fitted and compare it to the one I have already received. I guess there will be a long wait for an appointment if they are cheaper than other dentists, although with the two dentists I have been to see already, I have had to wait over six weeks for any treatment from them. Must say I am disappointed with the French dental service as I have had to wait longer for treatment here than the UK. It may just be in the area where I live, and not all over France, but nevertheless still very disappointing.

Thank you all for your input. I will try and summarize all the replies you have posted. I have just left a dentist I have been with for three years as he made a mess of three root-canal fillings he attempted. Two of which now the new dentist is attempting to put right, one being the extraction of the root the old dentist left, and trying to crown another attempt at a root-canal filling my previous dentist had a go at. Regarding understanding what the receptionist was saying to me, she can speak English as she spoke to me in English on my first visit, but today after I said I only wanted treatment for two of my teeth, she reverted to French only. My wife was with me, we have been living in France for 3 years now, we both started at the same level of French, I must admit my wife has left me standing with grasping the language, and it was my wife who pointed out that the dentist will decide on the order of treatment. I am a bit stuck now with tooth-ache in two teeth one of which I have an appointment for in a fortnight's time for an extraction, but no appointment for the other as the dentist wants to do his own thing, so to speak. I guess it will be a case of telling the dentist that he is only going to be carrying out treatment on two of the teeth on the devi, and find somebody else to help fund his next holiday. Whatever happens I am only having the two teeth attended to, as none of the others are hurting at the moment, as all the nerves have been removed. So if this dentist will not carry out my wishes, then yep I will be off again in search of yet another dentist. Sacre bleu!

I am having a bit of a problem dental wise at the moment, and have posted on another thread regarding the cost of dental work in France, and how 200% cover works on my mutuelle. Coops very kindly posted how her own mutuelle works, and I have sent off my devis to my mutuelle (Swiss Life) enquiring how much they will rebate off the devi I received from my dentist. In true French fashion I have heard nothing from Swiss Life, it has been 10 days now. The above is a bit of a pain, but I need to ask a question regarding the devi I was given by my dentist. The devi comes to €4010 listing 2 extractions, 5 crowns, and a bridge work. After studying my x-ray closely, 3 of the crowns would be purely for cosmetic purposes as all 3 teeth have had the nerves removed, as would be the bridge work. I only want one extraction and one crown to be done off the devi I have for €4010, basically the two teeth that are giving me pain at the moment. I went into my dentist this morning to make an appointment for the extraction and the crown I want done. I informed the receptionist of the work I wanted carried out, she went in to see the dentist and came back informing me he would do the work in the order he chose. Not happy about that scenario, but trying to argue in French I find quite difficult. I now have an appointment for the extraction I want carried out, but not for the crown, God, sorry my dentist will decide the next move. Right after a lot of waffle, here is my question. If the dentist performs the extraction I want, will this then commit me to the entire devi for €4010? I have not signed the devi yet, I was going to ask for a new devi just for the extraction and crown, but the receptionist did not seem too receptive to this, so I think things may end up in a row, as I do want, and cannot afford all the work at the moment my dentist is proposing.

Thanks for your suggestion Coops. I have looked at my policy and cannot see a limit on it for dental work, although I know what you are talking about, as I looked at several policies before deciding on my current one. I am six months into the policy, so if there is a limit, as you suggested I will have the urgent work done first. I have sent off my devis to the mutuelle, so I will see what comes back from them, before deciding. As I mentioned I have 200% cover for dental work, and up to now all my dental work has been reimbursed 100%, via CPAM and my top-up. This includes having root-canal fillings, but nothing more complicated (or expensive) than that. I can get my head around the fact CPAM only pays 70% of the 100% cost they consider the treatment is worth, but does anybody know how my mutuelle works with 200% cover? Does it mean I will receive 2 x 30% reimbursements of the 100% CPAM figure? Boy that sounds complicated! Having looked on the Internet to find out more information about implants, I am not sure I really fancy that idea. I would think it would be great once finished, but it seems like if there is not a dense enough layer of bone to screw the pin into, a bone graph is performed by scraping bone off your jaw, sounds a bit gory to me. Plus the fact the dentist wants €7100 to carry out the operation. All in all not a very good situation to find myself in, if I sign the devis for all the work without the implants, if I understand the situation correctly, I cannot back out legally, but if the new dentist turns out to be a butcher, I will have signed up for more torture at great expense, and pain. Life is never simple.

I thought I would drag this thread back to the top rather than start a new one. It would seem that I am suffering the same fate as the OP. I have had the same dentist in France for 3 years, who is very nice, but not a very good dentist I have discovered to my cost. He has 'had a go' at three root-canal fillings, none of which have turned out successfully. After they failed his only alternative seems to be an extraction. Having already lost 2 teeth to this scenario, he was suggesting the 3rd to be extracted as well, although he cannot perform the extraction himself, and I have to wait 2 months for an appointment at a specialist. I then visited a new dentist two weeks ago, and went back this morning for his diagnosis. I have come away from his surgery rather shocked at the moment, whilst the good news is that he can save the tooth and crown it, he reckons I need a further four crowns, one bridge work and either two false teeth on the bottom or if I want three implants. If I go along with his master plan the total bill...wait for it...will be €11,400 before any rebate from CPAM, which won't be much, and any rebate from my mutuelle, I do have 200% for dental work, but I don't think the implants would be covered by my mutuelle. He is proposing to charge €540 for each ceramic crown and €7100 for the implants. Does anybody know if this is the 'going rate' for such treatment, or do prices in France vary at different dentists. Having read the thread it does seem a case of shopping around. I will have the crown carried out on the original tooth I went to see him about, and have the stump extracted that my other dentist left after his attempt at a root-canal filling. As I have no pain with any of the other teeth he is proposing to crown at the moment, I will leave well alone. Whilst I will need some sort of teeth on the bottom when my stump is extracted I am not going to pay €7100 for an implant. As suggested previously I think my health tourism may well be a visit back to the UK and get a quote from a private UK dentist, and pay for a couple a cheap flights over and back. I can only echo the OPs original message have a UK NHS dentist give you mouth the once over before retiring to France.

Well, having just logged onto my CA account, to instigate changing my statements to paperless, I noticed I have had my 83 cents reimbursed, bizarre!

Many thanks for your replies. Having looked on the CA website, if I have it correct if you go into the page that reads: Consultation documents électroniques, and then click on the button that reads: Gestion e-Relevés, this brings up the option to receive statements electronically replacing paper statements, thus stopping the 83 cents charge. Is there anybody out there who can confirm I have understood this correctly, before I go in all guns blazing and change the way I receive my statements. I am seeking advice on this after a while back somehow managing to sign myself up for Orange anti-virus software that I did not want, simply by opening an e-mail I received from them. So now I am rather cautious before I zap anything in French I do not understand!

Has anybody else noticed a new charge on their CA statement reading: prlv Frais Releve De Compte...83 cents. I can only assume this to mean they are going to charge 83 cents for each paper statement they send me in the future. As I receive a statement every fortnight, which I never asked for, but I guess I must have signed up for it when we opened our account, it will mean an extra €19.92 a year to add to their already expensive banking charges. Not a happy bunny. The first charge on my statement started from 10th September. Does anybody know If it is possible to tell CA I do not want paper statements, or is it the case in true French tradition we have no choice but to accept the will of the mighty CA?

Hello Keni Sorry to hear about your potential healthcare problems, with the advent of your S1 running out in December. There seems to be a lot of differing opnions on here as regards to the new directive, as to whether early retirees will indeed be granted access to CMU on expiry of their S1. The link to the French-Property website has already been posted in this thread, but today in the French-Property newsletter they are reiterating their stance that early retirees will be allowed into CMU on expiry of S1s, and have updated their guidelines accordingly. http://www.french-property.com/news/french_health/getting_insurance_cover_france/ I know it still leaves you as to when the directive will be implemented, but we can only hope something positive will happen soon.

Very glad to hear that news Mr C, best wishes to both of you, and hope for a speedy recovery.

Behave Benjamin!

Gosh you people out there are really clever, I bow to your superior knowledge. Yep AnOther you were spot on, keyboard set to US English as opposed to UK English, I deleted the US English option, carried out a restart, and voila £££££££ signs everywhere! Sorry Quillan forget to mention which operating system, but AnOther was quite correct in his assumption that it is XP. AnOther have already downloaded DVD burning software, but the software does not recognise my blank DVD, even though the DVDs burn perfectly well in my laptop. I have seen something on the internet about uninstalling my IDEs and letting Windows reinstall them, but after my virtual memory episode I think I will leave well alone! Many thanks for all your input.

Not wishing to hug all the attention in this section of the forum, as I have now decided to install extra RAM after receiving advice in my virtual memory thread, my computer has a couple of niggling problems that I would like to try and rectify before I carry out my upgrade. I had to reformat my hardrive a while back, and since I carried out this operation I have a problem with my DVD drive and my keyboard. The DVD drive will play and burn CDs, and play DVDs, but will not burn DVDs. My keyboard has lost some characters, and some seem to have moved! For instance the @ sign is now on the number 2 key in shift, and I have lost the pound sign altogether. I have paid to install ParetoLogic PC Health Advisor software to search for any missing drivers, and installed the ones they have come up with, but still have the problems with the DVD drive and keyboard. Any ideas from you computer whizz kids out there?

I think you are right ANO I must not be ageist when it comes to computers, and I think I will go down the road of increasing my RAM as suggested by Quillan, rather than forking out on a new tower. After a quick search on the internet, the basic ones seem to start from around 300 pounds. Looking at the Crucial website, I can purchase 2 Gb of RAM for €28.69, and having watched the video how to install the new memory it looks sooooooooooo easy! I take onboard what you say about the HD, although I have fitted a new HD before, not on this computer but on a previous one, and got things to work eventually.

Many thanks for that Quillan. I tried 3 or 4 times to boot in safe mode, but only 3 icons out of about 40 were coming up on my desktop. I then booted the computer in safe mode with the original XP disc in the drive, the computer booted up correctly in safe mode with everything booting as it should. I quickly went into control panels and switched my virtual memory back to programs. I promise not to play with my virtual memory ever again! I think you are right about needing more memory, the computer only has 512mb, and is about 5 or 6 years old, so I maybe looking into replacing it with a newer model. The DVD drive will not burn any DVDs, only play them, so maybe its time to replace it.

Oh dear, I have been playing with my virtual memory on my desktop, due to my computer running very slowly, and switched virtual memory from programs to cache I think it was called, rebooted my computer, and now I am unable to get my computer to boot-up, with it saying something like my resources are too low. Now apart from somebody telling me not to fiddle with the advanced settings on my computer, has anybody any idea how I may be able to get my computer to boot-up, so that I can switch my virtual memory usage back to programs.[8-)]

When we presented all our documents at our local CPAM office in person, we went armed with everything we could think of, as advised by others on here, only to be asked for a long version of our birth certificates, which we did not have, only the short versions. So if you do not have long versions of your birth certificates, this could be a problem. As with most things in France every office seem to have their own rules, so maybe short birth certificates may suffice.

Thank you very much for the info parsnips. I suppose if you think about it, it is obvious that unless you exceed the threshold, losses for that year cannot be carried forward, as up until now at any rate no tax/CSG would have been paid on any previous years you had made a gain, but not breached the threshold. So I guess we cannot have our cake and eat it. I have rechecked my 'turnover' for 2009 and in fact I actually breached the threshold, although not by very much, so I guess I am entitled to carry forward that loss. All very confusing stuff, and I will take your advice and get some clarification on all this. It will be interesting to see how the French deal with the new tax, as I think it said in the Sidalls newsletter I read, when this was last tried the French virtually stopped selling shares, and the government at the time had to repeal the law and go back to how things were. We can only hope they do the same again.

Thanks for the link parsnips. I have got myself confused in which year the proposd changes to capital gains come into effect. I thought everything was to have capital gains and social charges applied to for 2010 declaration, but after reading all the information I have gleaned from various websites and forums, if I have it correct in my mind now, 2010 declaration gains will be subject to are dear old friend social charges at a rate of 12.1%, and capital gains of 18% to any gain made in 2010, if there are no losses to offset the gain from previous years. Going back to my original dilema, it will now be to my advantage to make a paper declaration, and hand in all supporting contract notes to show losses for 2008 and 2009. I do not think I have done anything wrong upto now with my declarations, as in 2008 and 2009 I did not 'turnover' more than 25,830 euros, although I still managed to make a loss for the two years! Not wishing to burden you with my 'box problem', but the only problem I think I am now not sure on is what do I put in the 3VH box for 2010 declaration. Obviously I will have to declare my gain in box 3VG so those nice people at les impots can take their 12.1% social charges, but can I put all my losses for 2008 and 2009 in this years 3VH box so they will hopefully not take any capital gain from 2010? Or do I leave it blank and hope with all supporting documents I will supply them they will work it out for themselves that my gain is offset with losses from previous years?

Thanks to everybody who has taken the trouble to answer my queries. I have now got to decide which route to go down, declare online or collect the correct forms from les impots next week. The only problem I have is down to the rules changing this year regarding treatment of capital gains on share purchases. We have lived in France since September 2008, and in the years 2008 and 2009 I made losses on my share dealings, but I turned in a profit for 2010. My losses for 2008 and 2009 wipe out any gain for 2010. Again on another thread parsnips kindly advised that I can ignore declaring any capital gain in box 3VG for 2010, as my earlier losses wipe out my gain, or hand in all my contract notes since becoming a French resident, so the tax office will then have all my gains/losses on file. Either way I am not defrauding the authorities as I can genuinely prove what I have stated above, but I am not sure which road to go down, leave the box blank for 2010's gains and maybe risk an audit, or declare the gains for 2010 and hand in all my contract notes. If I do this I am not certain if this would in itself trigger an audit. Whilst I feel I have nothing to hide, I just don't fancy all the hassle an audit would cause. Maybe if I leave the decision until I have had a glass or two of red wine the decision will seem easier! Once again many thanks for all your replies.

Thanks a lot SD and coops for your replies, the mists are now clearing on the tax form front, well slightly. Just to get this straight in my head if I complete online then I do not supply any physical paperwork, in my case this year the receipt for the new boiler and contract notes for any capital gains/losses made? Although obviously file everything away for any future audit. If this is the case then I think 'having a go' completing online for the first time seems worth a shot. I think, or rather hope we have now done most of the 'firsts' in our new life here in France, and there any not many left to confront us, but I am sure something will manifest itself to throw us into confusion in the not too distant future. Also just to confirm, I take it I can key in the sentence regarding being in receipt of an E121 online as well.

Thanks a lot for your reply coops. If I fill in our return online how will I get on with any physical paperwork that the tax office may require? I will be claiming a tax credit for our new boiler we had installed in 2010, and may need to present some contract notes. Is it OK to complete online, then take any paperwork that may be required into the tax office separately? Also is it possible to key in the phase regarding being in receipt of an E121, thus stopping social charges being taken from our pensions? Lastly if I 'play around' online without hitting the submit button, and complete the form but not submit it, is it possible to print off the forms without submitting them? At least that way I will then be in possesion of the correct forms. Sorry for all the questions.

Boy, totally confused with this year's declaration, or more to the point which forms I should be filling in. Last year I have to confess to using an accountant to fill in our 2042 and 2047, this year I have decided to try and complete our return myself, but at the moment much confusion abounds. To date I have only received the 2042 (live in 79, Bressuire office) 2047 yet to appear. I have been sent a 2042SK; last year the accountant used a straight 2042, with no added letters. Unfortunately this year I will have to declare some capital gains from share dealings in 2010, parsnips very kindly advised me as to which box I am to declare the gains in on another thread, which would be box 3VG, but on my 2042SK form this is no section 3! The form runs from section 1, 2 then 6 and 7, nothing in between! Even though the pages are numbered 1-4. Questions: Is the 2042SK form the correct 2042 form I should have received, or have the authorities sent me the wrong form? If in fact the 2042SK is the correct 2042 form, then where the ****** **** is box 3VG! Or more to the point where am I expected to declare my capital gains? Should I have expected to receive my 2047 form with or without a letter by now? Or is it time to pay a visit to the tax office and request our form? Help!