Tancrède

Hear, hear!  What an excellent idea, and I entirely agree.  I would also favour the suppression of the present absurd tendency to diarrhoea in the question mark department.

[quote user="alittlebitfrench"]Nevertheless, the worst fear of Brexit was always going to be Scotland thinking of breaking away from the UK.[/quote]I cast my vote guided solely by my principles as a libertarian and democrat.  But I have to admit that the possibility of the secession of Scotland from the Union did cross my mind as an unintended but beneficial consequence.

Yes;  the passing of time has evidently helped those with convenient and weather-vane amnesia to forget that the BBC, far from being rather jumpy about pædophilia (as is the fashionable and politically correct stance at the moment), was once rather gung-ho about it. So much so that in the early '70s there was at least one programme in which a notable exponent of this 'form of expression' was allowed to give a serious thirty minute exposition of why the law should be changed so as to allow adults to enter into sexual relations with a child.  (I believe I remember correctly that a starting age of four was preferred.) The person who gave the talk was later to become well-known as a mover and shaker on the Pædophile Information Exchange. There was no 'balance';  there was no alternative view;  there was no answering back;  there was no 'right to reply'.  The talk was lucid, well-expressed, and forcefully put, and clearly implied that 'this is what we think now' and that those who did not go along with the views expressed were backward, reactionary and illiberal. No, I do not have a 'link' for it (Oh, what silly, babyish, schoolmarmish twaddle)  -  but I am, if pushed, prepared to spend a day in the British Library digging through back copies of the Radio Times to demonstrate that I am correct, and will happily take a thousand pound bet from anyone who wishes to contradict.  I remember it extremely clearly because I was, if not exactly a child, at least still at school, and I found it extremely disturbing.  It was a Wednesday (half day) afternoon, at about four o'clock on Radio 4. Yes, it seems incredible enough now, and I am sure that the shrills will not be backward in coming forward to denounce.  However tempora mutantur.  Shortly after the BBC broadcast to which I refer, 'Dany' Cohn-Bendit (and even those who suffer from advanced oblivion-of-convenience will surely remember how this character was fêted and slabbered over by the bien-pensant) would write in the clearest terms of his engagement in sexual encounters with children in the kindergarten in which he worked.  Oh, Brave New World.  As regards 'links' for Ebaynut's comments about the BBC's collusion and evasive silence, here are two good ones: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/europe/keep-your-mouth-shut-hes-a-vip-jimmy-savile-report-reveals-culture-of-fear-at-bbc-34484838.html When a junior female employee at Television Centre complained to her supervisor that she had been sexually assaulted by Savile, she was told "keep your mouth shut, he is a VIP", the report found. http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-manchester-35658025 Members of BBC management in Manchester were aware of paedophile Stuart Hall's "inappropriate sexual conduct " in his dressing room, a report has found. Post edited by Moderator       

[quote user="andyh4"] If the Bramley were discovered/first grown today, I really do think it would be consigned to the bonfire. But as you say each to his own tastes.[/quote]I couldn't agree more.  Crisp, acidic and without flavour.  I don't believe that anyone who experienced the range of quality (and non-commercial) British apples would ever wish to cook again with a Bramley, or to sink their teeth into a 'Golden Delicious'. When I first began my French orchard (in the previous millennium) I was determined to have a decent and aromatic cooking apple so  -  knowing that nothing of this kind would be available in France  -  brought over some scions of the ancient and entirely hollow Newton Wonder in the corner of my garden. French people, unsurprisingly, have been uniformly amazed at its flavour, and one in parrticular had the greatest of difficulty believing that it was anything as workaday as an apple that he was eating.

[quote user="ebaynut"]Surely staying in with what we already have, is in itself, enough reason to leave.[/quote]Hear, hear !   Excellently put.

They will arrive around Eastertime 2017 to cover the the calendar year 2016.  Or, in your case, from the date of your arrival in France until the 31st December 2016.

[quote user="Happyh"] I have been told that as the offers were signed the inheritors are bound by this?[/quote]Yes, this is correct.  The contract is binding, and its effect is transmitted to the inheritors, unless there is a clause to the contrary. The chief article of the Code Civil bearing on this is 1122.

[quote user="mint"]For opinions, doubts, etc, you use the subjunctive. Now have I understood? [/quote]Yes, perfectly. But, I have to admit to being slightly scandalized (despite being a committed libertarian) by your not knowing that eu is the pp of avoir.  This is an essential bit of knowledge.  Irregular verbs are everywhere, and there is no escaping them. I make my English class learn them all.  In one go.  A little suffering is demanded, naturally enough   -   but that is nothing compared with the advantages of having them under one's belt.  

[quote user="mint"]Les huiles que tu m'a envoyées sont de grande qualité; c'est incroyable que tu les aies eues à ce prix dérisoire. So the eues must then be something like the past tense in the subjunctive?  Have I guessed correctly? Do you have a simpler explanation?[/quote]Well, I certainly have a simpler explanation of that bit. No, eu is not subjunctive, it is nothing more exotic than the past participle of avoir.  It has +es because it is agreeing with the PDO, which is huiles. Tu les as eues means simply you have had them. incroyable que is an expression which demands the subjunctive in French, which turns tu les as eues into tu les aies eues. ≈  …incredible that you (should) have had them…

[quote user="mint"]I want to know if you can class it as hard wood and would a piece of furniture made of it likely to be good looking?[/quote]It is a hard wood;  and notably strong, durable and resistant.  And its colour, grain and appearance are very attractive. If the timber is coming from one of your own trees that you are felling, I would add that riven it is almost as good as chestnut for fence-posts, and it burns well too  -  though is inclined to spit.  

[quote user="mint"]I am sure that you need to choose a good, chipping potato, then cook it in a medium heat until cooked, drain and then whack it into really hot fat to crisp and brown them up. [/quote]Oh, Mint, you are so right. On those occasions in the distant past when people used to say,  But what do you really miss about England ?  it was so hard to suppress the laughter. Nowadays, more diplomatically, I simply say (with a slight nod at the truth)  Fish and Chips.

Congratulations on your purchase. The demands for the two local taxes will arrive automatically, as WB says  -  you do not have to do anything about this.  They generally appear (at least here) in the autumn of the year to which they relate.  Occupation/ownership on the 1st January (2016 in your case, if you have only just completed the purchase) will render you liable for Taxe d'Habitation for the whole of the year following that date, and the vendor for the whole of the year preceding.  The notaire will usually (if so arranged) apportion the Taxe Foncière between the vendor and purchaser according to the date of the transaction, so all you have to do is await the next demand. If the property is ruinous, then you may find  -  as I did in my previous property  -  that Taxe d'Habitation is not immediately demanded because they do not conceive that the property is in fact habitable.  I had two or three years grace, but that was in the last millennium and I do not imagine they are so happy-go-lucky nowadays. The Attestation can be an important and useful document for demonstrating your legal interest in that address before you have more workaday documentation like electricity bills, etc.  

[quote user="mint"]Tancrède, where have you been, you old fox?[/quote]Sorry, Mint  -  I missed your post.  I am still here in my earth.  But since my removal life has been very rich and strange, and I have been absolutely overwhelmed with work.   No sooner had I arrived here than a complete stranger presented himself at the door to ask if I would undertake to teach an EFL course under the aegis of the pôle d'emploi  -  so I had to intersperse this unexpected commitment with trying to sort out the house  -  shuffling up and down the salon floor with laine d'acier tied to my feet, and all that sort of thing. And then several months later, in a bizarre and entertaining sequel, I found myself being appointed by the Mairie to another, different job  -  which I didn't know about and hadn't remotely applied for.  I was sitting there thinking that they had called me in to give me a row for having painting my garden door a Scandalous Colour, when they suddenly disconcertingly started asking things like, When would you be able to start ? So one way and another I have been pretty busy. [quote user="mint"]How I remember you for Rockingham and indeed I have just tinkled it on the piano, in fond memory of our "meeting" on the forum.[/quote]Alas, I had forgotten Rockingham;  but your words have spurred me on.  After months of neglect, I have just tuned up and bashed through a bit of Rameau.  I have just discovered the extraordinary detail that his brother Claude  -  a very respectable musician in his own right  -  was in fact buried in my garden.  Not a word was said about this at the time of the sale, despite being much more interesting than the existence of a disused asbestos pipe in the garage.

[quote user="mint"]certainly a farewell of sorts.[/quote]Don't be ridiculous, you can't possibly go.  Your posts have been amongst the best and most memorable. I still remember, with pleasurable horror, that one  -  a million years ago  -  about the Guests Who Wouldn't Go Out.  And the problems of having a Soggy Bottom. We've all been there… [quote user="mint"]barnacle on the keel[/quote]I haven't been able to tune in since my parameters went wonky, but I sent off for the special drivel, in order to be able to log in and say,  I hope that you cling on like a barnacle.

[quote user="Spyder"]but sometimes have to read them for continuity.[/quote] Hahahahaha…    [:D]  I hate 'emeticons'  -  but this has to be one of the Great Posts of 2014.

[quote user="idun"]IF they are having tantrums at that age, then everything must have gone wrong when they were small. I know, teenagers do go all huffy, but they don't scream places down and throw themselves around either..... at least, I 've never seen that.[/quote] You never saw John Patrick McEnroe ?

[quote user="mint"]What you 'd take the toilet AND the kitchen sink?[/quote] Hahaha.  My sellers were charming people, and extremely obliging and punctilious in every way about the change-over.  Full lists of tradesmen who had intervened in the house;  copies of recent utility bills;  colour references of various paints that had been used;  a note of dentists, doctors, that they considered reputable and reliable;  a very amicable arrangement about a couple of bits of furniture which they wished to leave behind.  And so on and so forth. I moved and what turned out to be, literally, the coldest day of an otherwise mild winter, the mercury nudging -10° whilst the removers brought things into the house through a variety of wide-open windows and doors.  And discovered late in the evening, with only rudimentary lighting, and no access to my tool-box, and in fairly bitter cold, that they had (à la française) removed the lavatory seats.  Mercifully this is a room that I only visit once a day, but I found it very bizarre and entertaining  -  given that it was the only unexpected element which went missing.  Everything else, including some very nice and useful things, was present and correct. But as a friend remarked, they have only recently become accustomed to such sophistications, and doubtless grow to be very attached to them.

[quote user="mint"]How observant of you to have picked up on that point…[/quote] Well, I can't claim too much credit.  It's as Idun said, really  -  the rules of the game are printed on the back, and the very same rubric which specifies that the operative date is 1er janvier de l'année d'imposition, also specifies that burden falls upon lôgements meublés. And the excellent removal man, actually made a point of saying, as he gave me the bill,  'Don't lose it  -  you may find it useful for claiming your exoneration from taxe d'habitation…' 

[quote user="M"] Can anyone confirm that we don't owe for this tax bill?[/quote] I am in precisely the same position, having sold my previous house in March 2014.  As Mint rightly says the liability for the whole year is generated on the preceding 1st of January. However, the tax is only imposable on locaux habitables  -  and you may be able to obtain an exoneration if the house was uninhabitable on 1st January by virtue of a complete absence of furniture. In my case I emptied the house on 5th December 2013, and indicated this fact at the time to the garde champêtre and to the mairie.  (This was not entirely necessary as the mairie was only a few yards away, and my removal provided the chief entertainment in the town that day.) In due course, when the bill for the taxe d'habitation arrived, I simply asked for an exoneration, providing a copy of removal bill as evidence. There is a little discussion of the matter  -  including what minimal amount of furniture is considered to render a place 'habitable' (viz. not much), and what kind of documentary evidence may be required  -  here :  http://www.linternaute.com/argent/maquestion/impots/taxe-habitation-avocat.shtml

[quote user="Thibault"]the undercover 'sheikh' who acted as an agent provocateur? This case would seem the same type of thing.[/quote] Exactly. [quote user="Thibault"]I have just listened to a barrister on PM discussing the possibility of the Sunday Mirror and its journalist being prosecuted - I hope they are.[/quote] Hear !  hear ! The whole self-righteous shenanigans stinks of  -  and I shrink from mentioning the ludicrous word  -  sexism. If the said undercover hack journalist had enticed some D-list political harridan from amongst the strident Guardian-toting sisterhood to send, under false pretences, a pic of her saggy tits, there would by now be hell to pay, Questions in the House, and a general vociferous brandishing of castrating irons against the journalist. I do not see this case as being in any way different.

Exactly what Chancer says. The site of the cadastre is here : http://www.cadastre.gouv.fr/scpc/changeLangue.do?lang=en&cty=EN Find out who the owners are, and make them an offer.  (It worked for me.) 

[quote user="PaulT"]those that cannot afford health care insurance do they just suffer whatever malady they may have without clinical help and in serious cases crawl in to a corner and die?[/quote] Yes  -  I wonder that, too. And yet they all seem to have ready dosh for the Genital Mutilation of their male children.  Where does that come from ?

[quote user="Jonzjob"]Can anyone tell me what lead flashing for roofs is called in French please? [/quote] Bande de recouvrement  /  solin I recently had to have some done, and didn't know either.  (And 'Word Reference Forum' only offered exhibitionisme, for flashing.)  As I am sure you will be aware, they quite often seem to use zinc rather than lead.

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]My point - ill made, perhaps…[/quote] Hear, hear, to all your post.  And not at all ill-made. [quote user="You can call me Betty"] interpreted with the almost inevitable knee-jerk reaction I would have expected…[/quote] You are very restrained.  'Sanctimonious' was the word which sprang to my mind. The case of genuine victims is now being clouded by the attention-seeking manœuvres of D-list 'celebrities' such as [and I have never heard of the creature] 'Diana Feltz' who  -  anxious to get on the band-wagon  -  is accusing  Rolf Harris of putting his hand up her drawers.  She is built like a buffalo.  Why on earth didn't she just slap him ?  However, she has decided that this is the moment that she should tell the police about this ancient and trivial outrage.

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]I think I'm suffering from paedo fatigue.[/quote] Hear, hear !