Malnoueans

Thanks all for your help - and Angela particularly for referring me back to a long thread that gave me chapter and verse on the rules, ably condensed by Pickles into a few bullet points which said it all. Husband has been in France this week and has bought the "capervan", so at least we now have the wheels. The French insurance broker claimed to have never heard of the law regarding re-registering of foreign vehicles by UK residents and tried to tell husband that he was wrong  - after all she had many British clients insured to drive their French registered vehicle on British roads! She took some convincing that just because she could insure a vehicle wouldn't actually make it legal on UK roads. In fact, I think she still thinks we are talking rubbish! We have decided that we can't risk bringing the van across the channel, so will work around it. Maybe one day we will bring it across and do the re-registering - OR we may actually be bona-fide French residents at some point, in which case the problem goes away. In the meantime we will be heading into other European countries during the Summer, all perfectly legally. How bizarre that we can do that, but are not legal, even for an hour, if we were to bring the vehicle into the UK!!

We have owned a maison secondaire in France for over ten years, and in fact have owned a French registered car for much of that time which we just use while in France. No problems there - we have been stopped by french police a couple of times on routine checks and no issues, produce paperwork, our UK passports and on our way. Now we are hoping to take life a bit easier, and have a "silver gap year" which may well turn into full blown retirement. We will base in France for that time and are planning to buy a mobile home and do some travelling around Europe. We were planning to buy a LHD vehicle in France, and drive it across to UK to bring back what we need. However, it seems from reading various posts here that our plan has a flaw..... as UK residents we can't drive a French registered vehicle in UK?!!! I have seen this in various posts, but want it to not be true as we are about to sally forth to France to purchase said mobile home.  Aggghhhh! Assuming these rules still apply, we may now have to buy a UK registered van, and re-register it in France, then possibly re-register it in Uk at some point in the future? Additionally, we have never been resident in France. How long can we base in France before registering as resident? Any help gratefully received!        

Yes we are on Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7. We have Norton 360 as the virus protection and I do suspect that something in the daily 'mise a jour' has something somewhere..  I am sure the problem lies somewhere in one of the Internet settings, I just can't find where it is though. Albert the InfoGipsy : Good idea to do a copy/paste on the passwords as a short term fix, I shall do that to save me tearing my hair out.  

I am having problems logging into several of my internet accounts as when I enter the password, instead of getting a neat little row of asterisks like I did until a day or two ago - one for each letter or number - my machine is now entering a space per entered character instead. It is therefore impossible to tell how many characters the machine has accepted - and I have got it wrong on two different bank accounts already resulting in me being 'frozen out' and having to call up for a password reset! Remember having this problem before but haven't a clue how we put it right. Can anybody help? It's driving me potty and costing me a fortune in 'phone calls to call centres!

We have just discovered that that nice Mr O'Leary has decided to fly the Stansted/Poitiers route on Mondays and Fridays thru the Winter. Hurrah! [:D] Last winter he abandoned us on that route altogether after the October half term. We think two flights a week, at reasonable hours and on days that will accommodate the commuters and facilitates long weekends here is not a bad compromise. Hope he doesn't go and change his mind now we have got all excited!

We would like to make an offer to buy a small piece of land forming a small corner of our own land. It's only about 100 sq metres, but it would be useful to us for various reasons - not least of all to resite the large gas tank which currently sits right outside our back door. The land is currently owned by an elderly widow and our nearest neighbour with whom we are on good terms. She has a small dilapidated garage on one side of the land, which is across the lane from her house. She still drives, and houses her car in the garage but she is becoming more frail and we wonder how long she will be able to continue to drive. There are also a handful of fruit trees and a massive Walnut tree on the land. I have read elsewhere here that often the Notaire's fees and associated taxes can be well in excessive of the value of the land, but can anybody give me any ballpark idea of what the cost of those might be? We thought we might offer 5 euros per square metre for the land and wonder if we could have an arrangement for Mme B to continue to have rights to the fruit and to keep her garage until such time as she no longer owned her own property across the lane. We then wondered what would happen if we ever wanted to sell our own property and she still had some rights to use this pocket handkerchief of land with the gas tank on it? Could be complicated? We don't want to broach the subject with her until we have thought it through, particularly as our spoken French isn't marvellous and we don't want to offend or have any misunderstanding. Neither do we want to set her asprirations by saying we are interested in buying only to find the other costs to be prohibitive. Any advice and/or thoughts welcome. Malnoueans        

I am a fully qualified accountant - qualified in the UK that is, with a lot of experience. My French is OK; I am working on it but I could hardly say I am fluent quite yet. At the moment we are living a few months in France then going back to the UK to do some work to pay for our next French leave. People always seem to be looking for an English speaking accoutant here to look after their tax returns etc.  I would dearly love to be able to work over here, but inevitably the French way of doing things isn't the same as the UK. Would it be feasible and legal to attach myself to a French accountants office, if anybody will have me, perhaps offering a couple of days a week work without pay (I can crunch numbers in any language and learn fast!) in return for learning the French accounting ropes, or would I need to get really fluent in French and then struggle thru the French accountancy exams before anybody would consider me?

I successfully froze a load of our Bramley apples in the UK last Autumn. Sliced them, dropped them into boiling water for two minutes, then dumped them into iced water with a few slices of lemon, fished them out after five minutes or so and dried them as best I could on kitchen paper, then laid them out on trays and open froze them. Then the next day we bagged them up and put them back in the freezer - no problem at all and we used them for all sorts of things right thru the winter.

We haven't noticed it at dusk yet Chris, but will keep an ear out for it at dusk from now on. Will research Little Owls and see if it sounds right. Thanks.

Thanks Russethouse, but I don't think that's it. I am going to sleep tonight with the digital recorder alongside the bed, so if it is about tonight I can leap out of bed and record it. I have been around our hamlet describing the sound to our French neighbours, but the only outcome is that they now appear confirmed in their view that les Anglais are everso slightly cracked!

In the last couple of weeks we have noticed a most bizarre birdcall in the middle of the night. My husband has christened it 'the bedspring bird' as part of the call is indeed a sort of twanging sound a bit like how a bedspring would be portrayed in a cartoon! The first part of the call is rather like the call made by what we used to call 'peewits' when I was a girl growing up in the countryside in England, not sure if that is the correct name for that bird. So we get two or three 'peewit' cries followed by two or three 'bedspring twangs'. This bird seems to be about just as it is first coming light. Admittedly we had had a couple of brandies before we went to bed last night, but we have both heard this calling several times now so don't think we are hallucinating! Any ideas Chris pp or anybody else please?  

Thanks for that J.R. I will give it a go and report back. Sorry for going a bit off topic folks!

[quote user="jc"]SAGA credit cards are also commission free in the EU and have an excellent exchange rate but you have to be 50+.[/quote] That's interesting jc. We are in the right age bracket too! We are 'getting along' with the Nationwide card, and as I say, are learning where it will work OK and where it doesn't. It's just a tad embarrassing the first time you try it in a new shop or restaurant only to have in handed back to you - people tend to stare as if you were trying to commit a fraudulent transaction. The exchange rate is just so good though! Is SAGA rate close to current HIfx interbank rate too?

On a related note, we have taken out Nationwide credit cards following advice picked up from the various forums, but are finding curiously that they 'work' perfectly well in some shops but not in others. Does anybody else have this problem? I have to say that when we are able to use them the exchange rate going thru the statement is really good, and no commission charges. Their web site is really clear and user-friendly too. They get a definite thumbs up from us, and we are gradually establishing a list of where they work and where they don't.

Perfect - thanks Suze! Have a production line underway right now and so far so good - 1 lemon drizzle cake out of the oven, 1 coffee and walnut in the oven and a cherry and almond in the weighing stage. Better get back to them. If anybody is in the area, they are for the 'water-mills open day' in the Moncoutant area tomorrow!

We had an English decorator (legal artisan, registered, devis, factures, TVA etc) paint all the new hard wood doors, windows and shutters of our house in 2005. Two years later the whole lot has come off at the front of the house - which usually gets loads of hot sun in the Summer months. At the back of the house - less sun - it is OK, as are the two windows we have in reserve awaiting fitting at a later date post renovations. We have approached the painter, a little delicately as he is a friend too, said we are not happy, and asked what he thinks has caused this. It transpires he used a well known UK DIY store's 'own brand' of exterior wood paint. He says that in 30 years in the UK he never had any problem with this product, and that the paint must have reacted with something in the base coat on the raw wood as applied by the manufacturer. The implication is that he considers he is in no way responsible for the peeling finish. We think that the product he used must lack adequate UV protection - OK for English Summers, not OK for prolonged blistering heat such as we had in the last couple of years, and may even get this year if this rain ever stops! We have had the manufacturer of the windows around wnd he too says that it is sun damage. Question is - would we be fair in expecting him to re-do the job free of charge, or at materials only, due to likely unsuitability of his original materials - or do we bite the very expensive bullet (no favours here - we pay him the going rate, friend or no friend!) and pay full whack to have it done again with a French product? What do you think?    

I have offered to make English cakes for a local event in our French village this weekend. In England I use the recipes involving soft margarine (I use Stork in the tubs), where you throw everything in together and mix it up. I have good success with those. However, what is the French equivalent to Stork soft margarine? Any ideas gratefully received!

Thankyou BJSLIV, that is very clear. We part furnished Maison 'A' earlier this year - a bed, a chest of drawers, swiftly followed by a table and chairs. We are adding to the furnishings bit by bit now. Maison B is several years away from being furnished - if ever at this rate! Does that mean that for Maison 'A' we are liable for taxe d'habitation from next Jan 1? Taxe Fonciere is not that onerous as you say - as we are in a tiny hamlet it can hardly be classed as a major conurbation. :-)  We did just wonder if we could get some reduction, but if not then it won't break the bank! Thanks again for your swift and knowledgeable response.      

We have owned a pair of rural cottages in France for nearly four years. We bought to renovate as maisons secondaires and are still at it. We have been paying tax foncieres on both, even tho one is still so delapidated that no-one in their right mind would inhabite it - so it is uninhabited and uninhabitable. The other one is taking shape now and we are able to stay here when we visit - this time for the whole of the Summer - yippee! We have never had a taxe d'habitation request, although I have read the threads on forum that indicate that as we have no taxable income in France that is perhaps not surprising. Several queries then: 1. My husband is now 60. Does that exempt us from taxe d'habitation, even tho I am the legal owner of the property? 2. Is there are any exemption from taxe fonciere for a non inhabited/un-inhabitable property. Also presumably that would not attract d'habitation anyway? Please does anyone have any answers, or know where I can find out definitively? Thanks.