Jamesdee

A friend is having a problem with her Live Box. She has managed to set it up but had some problems with "Gestionnaire" not recognising the password she was given by Orange. Eventually she did get on line but she is unable to open attachments and has a problem printing documents from the internet. Can anybody advise how to rectify the problems? Thank you in advance for any help.

I will pm you with the name. We have already had a pre handover check and have listed all the points and more that I have made here but  what do you do when they insist that the bathroom tiles are fine. They say they left them like that in case we wanted to carry on with the tiling!! The railings they will fix but they say they will have to employ an artisan to make a wood surround and they will give me a devis for that.

The feed back has been really useful. Thank you so much. The "Notice Descriptive" has at the back a "Demande d'Avenant" and this just lists the " Creative d'un Conduit de Cheminee" I guess I now need to say to the builders can I have the Notice Descriptive for the Conduit de Cheminee. So far as checking the build I have to confess that my french is not good enough to understand the Notice Descripive in detail but we have gone through it as best we can but we  have looked more at the quality of the end product rather than the technical detail. I  found the comments about " ready to paint" most helpful. I guess we just need to shut up and get on with that but there are a few things like the tiles and the railings which have been installed that are so badly finished they just look awful. Nice railings but bolted into holes that have been cut in the concrete but not filled in or even tidied up. This is a set of stairs from downstairs up to the sitting room.

Thanks very much for your comments and reassurance. There is a chimney poking out of the roof. I presume we will get the "Notice Descripive" when the house is handed over but I shall ask the builder for a copy of that now. Another concern is the general standard of the finish. We wanted to paint the place ourselves so they builder agreed to hand the place over "ready to paint". We reckon we have a couple of weeks of rubbing down before we get to the "ready to paint" stage but we cannot get the builders to accept that our concerns are anything other than a culture difference between what the British expect and what the French would accept. I mean the tiles in the bathroom end with just the raw tile edges.

This is a large nationwide building company. If they have screwed up they have made a real mess of our salon in the process and even more of a mess clearing it up.

That is what the guys at Weldom suggested. There is nothing else though. This project cost us 1500Euro plus 19.6% TVA.

We are about three weeks away from having our house handed over to us but we are unhappy about a number of things that just are not quite right. One major problem is that we initially asked them to prepare the house for a wood burning stove and in the contract they have written "creation d'un conduit de cheminée". this turns out to be a pipe in the floor of the lounge near the outside wall. This pipe goes down for about half a metre and then turns at right angles and goes out of the back wall. We went to Weldom to ask them to install a stove for us and they could not understand what we had in the house. We have asked the builder to explain what we have but to this point we have not received a reply. Can anybody advise?

Do you know it? We agreed the price for the house build some time ago and we are very happy with all of that. I just got confused between the UK and French systems  when I saw the TVA on the sub contractors bills. That is the only time I have seen TVA through the whole process. Thanks to all of you who replied.

Thanks for your help. Our house is in Mirambeau just off the A10 between Bordeaux and Saintes.

Most succinct. Is that "yes" I am wrong?

We are having a house built by a large organisation in the Charente Maritim. Some of the works, for instance the ground works, are sub contracted to another company whose bills always include TVA. It was my understanding that there is no TVA on new builds. Am I wrong? We would be most grateful for any information anybody can give.

I am sorry for the delay in adding this, I have only just seen the post. You were advised that Hamlet is available in French but you will be absolutely delighted to know that the complete works of Scotland's national poet can be obtained in fifty one different languages, including French, from this link. to the Robert Burns website. [:D][:D]

My wife uses Chondromax from Healthspan, they post all over the world. It has a combination of Chondroitin and Glucosamine. Fish oils are really great for her too but the quality varies enormously, again she uses Healtspan but there is nothing like a bit of oily fish. See this article in the Daily Mail about research into Cod liver oil and how some arthiritis sufferers were able to reduce their anti inflamatories by up to 30 percent when they took two teaspoons of cod liver oil a day. We have found over the years that a number of things need to be in place to help, fish oils play their part but they are helped enormously if your diet is good and you exercise regularly. Marathons are not recommended[:)]

Thank you very much Clair. Being French challenged, a visit to the Pharmacie for us, even for an aspirin, is a major trauma. We are addressing the lack of french but it is very useful to know that we may be able to visit and browse the counter for our medication. Thank you for the information.[:D]

because he needs to know the french for sporran so that he can .........

At the risk of inviting a swift reproof, I should also like to comment on my own personal experience with my branch of the CA. I have found the staff to be friendly, personable, courteous and keen to go out of their way to deal with any problems I bring them. And there have been many. I travel a great deal and one of the Directors at my bank has given me his email so that when I check my account on line, if there are any problems or queries I can email him and pose the questions. Invariably I have a response within 48 hours. I contrast that level of service with the service at my local Nationwide Bank in UK and my National Bank here in New Zealand and by any measure it comes out on top. To get the same high quality service you might have to move to Department 17 but hey, a small price to pay and it is a lovely place to live. I apologise to the original poster for digressing from the subject.

Well Leo you have definitely jinxed us. Talking of "wellingtonw" we are set for a downpour over the weekend, down into the south Island as well. I think we might even see the temperature dip to 22 degrees....[:P] Be sad for us!![:(]

Just so happy to be here in Wellington, New Zealand which is having the best summer for years and years and years ...........[:D][:D][:D]

We are finding this thread very useful as we shall shortly be furnishing a house we are having built in Dept 17. Where on the south coast are you Kim? We live in Southsea and would be very interested to see if we could set up the same sort of arrangement that you managed to organise.

Thanks Clair and Danny, [:D]I am not confused anymore[:D]. What you have explained is how I understood the situation to be. I think we shall also keep our FT line, adopting the strategy  that it is always best to have one foot firmly on the ground. Sorry ossie if I have hijacked your post.

I am getting confused by this. I am sure I have read somewhere that FT and some other providers have a deal that includes free calls to metropolitan France, the UK and a few other countries. You will see from my location that I am not actually in France but we plan to get there in the middle of April, so all this information is grist to the proverbial mill. I thought I had sorted out the phone and  broadband package, to include a raft of free calls but from what is being posted here, it looks like I am back to square one. Help!!!![:(]

I have highlighted elsewhere on this forum an alternative to Skype which allows you to use your normal telephone handset and has call charges similar or a little cheaper than Skype. Also calls to friends on the same system are quite free. Have a look at Jajah I have no connection or relationship to Jajah.

Just saw your post. I can thoroughly recommend a man called Tony who came to me in Mirambeau. I don't remember where he lives but he is very amenable so I am sure he would be able to come to Jonzac. He installs satellite dishes etc. His phone number is xx xx xx xx Good luck.[:D] Contact details deleted by the moderators. Please do not post personal details. Contact the poster by PM or email using the buttons at the bottom of his post.

We used a company called Steeles, from Barrow in Furness, on two occasions.  They travel to France all the time and were very competitively priced for a half load, which on one occasion they picked up from Portsmouth. Very good service, pleasant staff, collected and delivered on time and to the price we had previously agreed.[:D][:D]

You may well find that your tax burden is not as great here as it was in the UK. You should take advice on that. Also we do not indulge in retail therapy as much as we used to do in the UK.  There are people in the UK living on less than your pension and having a decent life. There is no reason why you could not do the same here but as somebody before me said, it is all about budget, budget and budget. Lots of people would also advise you not to burn your bridges. There is lots of information on that subject on this forum. Good luck whatever you decide.[:)]