somme man
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Posts posted by somme man
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Hi Quillan.Thankyou very much, i think you have made my weekend.If i understand you correctly, i can convert my barn (700 sq metres) imto a 5 bedroom B&B and have 4 gites at the other end with a seperate entrance?Is this correct?Many thanks.Sommeman
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Thanks catalpa.Great information.Excuse me for being thick, you say 5 letting rooms in your main residence, if i were to convert a part of my barn into gites would this be in addition to the 5 or inclusive?
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Hi Crossy67.Do you have the same challenge?
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Whilst i believe that over 5 bedrooms turns a B&B into a hotel, is this the case if you have 5 bedrooms and a number of self contained rooms/gites?
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Not sure about Aude, Hexagone are a uk based agency that specialise in the complete buying process in Northern France and may be able to help with contacts, with regards to banking, HSBC in France offer an English speaking bank manager for us Brits in certain branches which takes a lot of the mysteries of banking away.
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Thanks to you all, I like the idea of just offering my hand irrespective of the state of the tradesmans hands.
Tim.
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Can anyone help me please.
On a number of occaisions now tradesmen working on our house have in a very pleasant way refused to shake my hand as theirs have been dirty, they proceed to bend their right hand towards them and offer me their wrist.
What should my response be?
To date I have tried shaking the wrist, holding out my wrist and also proclaiming that i am not concerned by their dirty hands all of which appear incorrect.
Advise would be greatly appreciated.
Tim.
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Charente.
I used Moneycorp for the deposit, purchase balance and all subsequent transfers for the ongoing renovations and have not experienced any problems.
They have always acted quickly and effeciently and now only require a phone call if my money is going to the previous account.
Tim.
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I have used Moneycorp for the purchase and the ongoing transfer of funds and have found them to be excellent.
I bank with HSBC who offer an English speaking service at certain branches.
I used an English speaking Paris based lawyer to liaise with the notaire on my behalf and brief me prior to signing the compromis and the final purchase documents however I believe that the notaire must supply a translator at your expense if you language skills are not great.
Be aware that the Immo may ask you to sign a document prior to letting you see the house, this is to ensure that they get the commission if you purchase.
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Thanks everyone for your help and advice, our neighbours came to us on Saturday evening at 6.30 and we had a great time.
We had an array of nibbles as advised on the forum and added a few other bits and pieces, our neighbour had mentioned in the past that he liked small tomatoes stuffed with tuna and they went down a storm.
Although we have limited French language skills and our neighbours speak little English we chatted, laughed and gesticulated until 10pm, the evening was a great success and my jaws were sore with laughing at our attempts to make each other understand.
Many thanks once again.
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Thanks Zeb, do not want to look like we are not trying to embrace the local culture.
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After many more unbelievable acts of kindness on the part of our neighbours and following the advise on this forum we have taken Whiskey, chutney and shortbread for them, all of which were very well received.
We have now managed to get our neighbours to agree to come to us for the first time for drinks and nibbles, we know what they drink but are a bit clueless as too the concept of nibbles in France?
Are we talking nuts and crisps or pate, cheeses and bread, advise would be appreciated.
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Hi Gail.
Congratulations on making the decision to purchase a property in France.
I can fully understand your wish to speed the process along, however my experience of people who rush into a purchase abroad is that they do not obtain every item on their wish list and will ultimately be asking "what if" and not fully enjoying the wonderful experience that they have invested in.
It took us 4 years of searching and numerous visits to get our perfect property which ticked all of the boxes we had agreed.
Because of the vast array of properties available you can afford to be prescriptive within reason about location and type of property but you must be 100% sure before you start the process.
I wish you all the very best in your search.
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I have used Moneycorp for the purchase of my house and to get funds into the French bank account to pay tradesmen.
Always found them helpful with reasonable rates.
Just bought a few more and would be interested to see what rates other forum members are getting from different companies.
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An architect has done the plans for my barn, i thought it was either works over a certain size or where the public would be involved, housed.
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Thankyou all for your great stories and advice, it is fantastic to see that we have all had similar experiences with our neighbours in France.
I am back again next weekend and will take some good whisky, shortbread and chutney.
Pagnol, we are also planning to spend the summer in the Somme and cannot wait for the time that we can settle permanently.
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We bought our house in November 2006 and it had no heating, a multi-coloured bathroom and windows that had seen better days.
We are not currently living in France whilst the work is being done however when the work was arranged our neighbours took the spare set of keys from us and let the builders in and lock up after them.
They have prepared a vegetable patch for us including planting some carrots, lettuce and turnip as we mentioned we would like to introduce one.
They cut our grass and are just the most amazing people.
We have taken them gifts of chocolates and flowers and have expressed in our very poor French our gratitude.
Our dilema is that we do not understand how to repay them in the French way, there are only so many times that we can say merci.
Advice would be really appreciated.
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Bought some tiles at our local branch (Albert) yesterday, everything looked normal and no big discount signs.
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I bought in November 06 from a notaire (no Immo involved) and paid 7.5% with the likelyhood of a small refund after 6 months if I have overpaid.
It is not the notaires that should wear a mask but the Immo who charge an additional 6-8% to the buyer for doing very little.
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Hoddy, my 6 months are now up and my solicitor has said that the notaire will send the deeds and the balance of fees any time now.
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It is a difficult time to get work done with most artisans having full diaries, some of my contractors are spending a couple of days on my house and then returning the following week.
I am however quite lucky, I have no practicle skills at all and on the recco of the surveyor used the architect as a project manager.
All work is being completed on time and I have paid no advance payments however I am required to make staged payments in line with the % of work completed as per the schedule of works.
The 5 bedroom rule for B&B
in French Legal Issues
Posted