Uffcat

Can anyone give me any advice on a problem we seem to be having with Saur please? We have a water meter at the back of our property, which presumably routes in from a small lane there (in a reasonably remote little hamlet) and normally have no problems with water supply etc. About 6 weeks ago we received a visit from some Saur workmen who said they wanted to make a new supply for two new houses being built across the lane from us, at the front of the property.  They suggested could involve either digging all around out property from the meter to the end of the drive to reroute the supply (probably about 100 metres in total), or to move our water meter to the garage at the front of the property and tap into it from there with a much shorter trench to provide water and meters to the new houses.  They preferred to relocate the meter as it meant less work and said it would not involve us in any expense either way.  We agreed verbally to this. Having heard nothing from them we wrote asking when they planned to do the work and pointed out that we did not particularly want to leave a key with neighbours and wanted to be there when the work was done.  They replied about 10 days ago that they had no immediate plans to do the work but that they would contact us when they did (they have both the French address and our UK address).  On that basis we decided to make a trip back to the UK and arrived here a week ago.  We received a call from our neighbour tonight to tell us that there is now a five metre long and metre wide open trench dug alongside our drive, ie on our land, plus a further filled in trench at the back of the property, presumably from the water meter.  She assumes they have been there all this week although no workmen were present today.  Can anyone tell us 1) whether Saur have any authority to do this without knowledge or any further agreement despite them assuring us they would contact us first and also that they had no immediate plans to do the work. 2) the position regarding our water supply as they have presumably now disconnected it but cannot reconnect without access to the garage.  3) The position regarding any damage done. We are not looking forward to getting back and finding we have no water connected PLUS what sounds as if it will be a totally wrecked garden. I will try calling them next week but with Easter about to begin we are obviously worried about this and would like some idea of how to proceed anyway.   Thanks

EDF and Saur Can someone please let me have any ideas on these two companies and the bills I now have please?  I'm hoping I've done all possible to sort things out but some extra input would be great. We bought our house in late October and other than two weeks here in November we have not been here since (until arriving last Sunday night).  We will only be here very briefly and I don't think this pattern will change for quite some months. The estate agent fixed up a DD to EDF and they are, it appears, happily taking €88 per month.  This was news to us until we arrived this week.  I have calculated that we have so far used the equivalent of €10 of electricity.  I do understand there are standing charges as wellthough.  I phoned them today and was told the amount would be reduced to €40 but this is still going to be way too high and they had rung off before I had had chance to say so.  I have registered online now and had planned on changing the account so that we can notify them of actual usage with meter readings every two months.  However it seems I can't do that as we are registered to pay by DD!  I can't see anywhere to un-register for this "privilege" so does anyone know how to do that?  Or should I just go to the bank and cancel it and wait for them to get around to realising they are not getting their payments?  I think we plan on cancelling the DD arrangement anyway as we don't like the idea of companies grabbing just what they like and we have read comments on the difficulties with French banks and their operation of the DD system/getting overpayments back etc. With the Saur account they are estimated enormous usage of water and so far we have only used 5 m3.  I have two bills to pay, apparently one for 2007 (part) plus the first six months of 2008.  I have notified them online of the meter reading and they acknowledged this but did not say whether they would send new bills etc.  Does anyone have any experience as to what they will do? Also I notice we are paying for water AND drainage although we only have a fosse septique.  Again I've looked through the FAQs on their site and it seems this is "Selon la loi, les usagers disposent, pour effectuer les travaux de raccordement, d'un délai de 2 ans au maximum, à partir du moment où le réseau public d'assainissement est opérationnel. Toute collectivité peut décider qu'elle percevra auprès des propriétaires des immeubles raccordables une somme équivalente à la redevance instituée pour le service de l'assainissement".  I basically understand what this is saying but I'm not sure whether they are suggesting we don't actually need to be using the fosse as we could be on mains drainage or that they are likely to be putting in a facility at some point.  Can anyone enlighten me please?