Daft Doctor

Yes, I went through the France Individual forms thing last year without difficulty. I'm afraid Louise Gary the other posters are correct. The dual taxation treaty applies to all and sundry, end of story. France Individual is as has been said designed to establish your french tax residency and avoid you being subject to dual taxation. Certain income, such as UK property income and UK government pensions are always taxed in the UK, there is no choice in the matter. In my case I have an NHS pension which is a non-government pension (don't be confused between a government pension and a public sector pension, they are not the same thing) and it is taxed in France. I have UK property income and that is taxed in the UK, but it is declared in France and goes to establish our marginal tax rates in France. There is no choice over this arrangement, France Individual signed or not.

Interestingly enough, whereas I was fully informed regarding the tenancy that I'd signed and my rights as a tenant in France, my Landlords didn't know about the need for them to give us 3 months notice in advance of the end of the tenancy not to continue with it, nor that without that notice the tenancy was automatically renewed for a further year. idun, I'm no different or less thorough than you, just use different methods.  For the most part my French is good enough to understand and interpret the information available online through reliable French websites, e.g. vos-droits.fr, etc, so usually no need to go banging on people's doors.  The information freely given by forum members is of course invaluable, but I would never take it for granted to be true, as I always point out when asking for such advice.  It does help however not to have to recreate the wheel every time something new comes up, as others have often recently been through the same thing, process, whatever.  I always cross check information given, but it gives me a good clue where to start.  We have been here 2 years now, and I've steered our family through the administrative maze, bought cars, changed insurers, moved house, had a house built, changed health care arrangements, tackled the quirks of the education system, dealt with tax, VAT, etc, etc, the lot.  There's no doubt you have to do it right, and thankfully I've managed so far to do just that.  Could be just luck, but actually it isn't, its down to efficient research, thoroughness, anticipating problems ahead, and applying what intelligence I have to problem solving, something I did all of my professional life.  [:D]

Thanks Sue, your template will be very useful.  As many on the forum already know, our landlords live downstairs, but they've still told me to send the letter by recommandé & AR!  

Hi, for all the information available through using google, I cannot find the answer to 2 questions about tenants ending their furnished principal residence tenancy in France.  I wonder if anyone out there has knowledge of such matters, and I apologise in advance if the answers seem blatantly obvious, I simply cannot find confirmation and things in France aren't always as intuitive as they seem! 1.  As tenants we must give one month's notice to quit, but the information I've seen online suggests that this month of notice starts when the landlord receives the letter of notice (sent by lettre recommandé with AR).  This implies that the end date is rigidly one month later, and the specific date would solely depend on when the landlord gets your letter.  Is it not possible to specify a particular date in advance for the end of the tenancy (e.g. the last day of a particular month), as long as that date is AT LEAST one month after the landlord gets your letter of notice?  In other words, can you not give greater than one month's notice to quit? 2.  If you decide to end your tenancy mid-month and you pay monthly rent, must you pay a full month's rent for the last month, or are you only obliged to pay a proportion depending on your quit date? As always, any guidance much appreciated and taken at face value.  [:)]

Thanks, the article is interesting if (for me at least) a bit technical.  Will upgrade to an 80cm dish when we move, but was only interested in getting the optimum LNB as it will be a brand new installation.  Signal might also be compromised as the house will have a Sedea Miniswitch in a communications box, taking all 4 inputs from the LNB then sending all of them out to each of 5 TV/Sat sockets around the house.  The signal loss at each output from this unit is meant to be only -2dB, but not sure how much of an impact that will mean in practice.  

Hi, Firstly must add my thanks to Martin963 and Jako for their input to this thread, absolutely invaluable.  We had heavy rain for a couple of hours yesterday evening and lost signal temporarily on one of our two feeds (input 1), the one bringing in BBC2HD, reading 0% strength and quality.  Input 2 showed strength of 80% and quality of 70%, so I was confused at such a huge difference, would that be explained by the recent changes?  When we lost signal last Saturday night during snow it was input 2 which went to 0%/0%, so don't think it is poor/loose connections on the roof. As I was writing this, the same has just happened this morning (it's snowing).  Again we lost BBC2HD but can get BBC2SD no problem.  Now it is back to decent strength and quality again! Seems we are now very weather dependant on certain channels, unless there is some other problem I'm missing?  Will have to cope until the move to new house, but will definitely get an 80cm dish and a top LNB.  On that subject, are these Inverto Black Ultra universal significantly better, and do they need any different set up to a standard quad LNB?

Hi and thanks for all the useful contributions and opinions. I used Hola via chrome last night and managed to watch episode 9 of Bridge 2 on iplayer. There was no stalling and the picture was in very clear HD quality, but with the fast moving sequences there was just the merest hint of 'stutter'. All in all perfectly acceptable as I wasn't needing to download.

Thanks Jako, I'll get the bigger dish installed anyway, the marginal cost will be peanuts.

Hi, can either Martin or Jako help me with my question earlier in the thread.  If I have decent signal strength and quality on all channels with a 60cm dish, would an 80cm dish make the signal significantly more stable in bad weather or adverse atmospheric conditions?  Instinct says yes it would, but my instinct isn't always right!  Many thanks  [:)]

We are in the Alps just south of Geneva.  All channels available with 60cm dish.  Signal strength seems to be at least 70% on both inputs and 70-90% quality.  We did however have a loss of signal on Saturday evening but it was snowing hard.  Moving to new house soon, would an upgrade to an 80cm dish make the signal more weather or atmospheric conditions proof?   

Hi, we have a relatively slow connection here in the Alps, so it probably setting up a proxy server wouldn't work Hopefully another solution will do what we need, but thanks anyway for the advice.

Hi, I know this topic appears fairly frequently but as new software (and new problems!) come up all the time, just wondered what forum members current opinions are with regard to the best and cheapest way to access services such as BBC iplayer, etc from France.  Reading around I see that some software can slow down your PC/laptop, some have had security problems, etc.  I don't need regular access as I have satellite TV with recording capability, but when we lost signal because of snow on Saturday night we also lost the last 2 episodes of The Bridge II!  I know some of you use Expatshield and I've seen Hola and SmartDNS mentioned, so any up to date thoughts or advice most welcomed.  [:D]   

Hi PaulT, interestingly my mother too was an alcoholic, desparately difficult to deal with, she only improved when she went into 24 hour residential care and couldn't get access to alcohol herself.  Even with the strong emotional attachment you have to your family members, you will know from your own experience how horribly difficult and destructive alcoholics can be to all around them.  You will also understand why I've got no desire to be affected by the alcoholic problems of complete strangers, its for them to sort their own problems out.  Hopefully they'll manage to keep the wheels on until we've disappeared, the chances of them being dry long-term after all are very low.  

Hi Teapot/All.  Thanks for your interest, happy to give an update.  We had a very stressful and worrying 10 days or so after the initial insult, during which time our car's rear windscreen wiper was inexplicably wrenched off on the driveway, and we had a series of deranged and incoherent emails coming from Mrs Landlord, not one with an apology, some quite nasty and of a jealous nature.  Mr Landlord then went into a clinic for rehab soon afterwards, remaining there 3 weeks.  We considered all options, including to move out, if only for peace of mind's sake.  Mrs Landlord continued to be plastered most of the time, but she eventually went into rehab a couple of hundred km away just before Xmas.  By this time we had family staying with us, so felt much better supported and able to cope. When Mr Landlord came back I had a long chat with him, during which he told me all about the hell he'd been through with Mrs LL in the recent past.  Some of what he told me was quite shocking and I felt quite sorry for him.  He gave reassurances about a forthcoming apology from Mrs LL and regarding the rest of our tenancy, so we felt more settled afterwards.  During a weekend home leave Mrs LL did indeed come up to apologise, but claimed she had no recollection of what she'd done, the emails she'd sent, etc.  She still stopped short of accepting responsibility for her actions, merely citing the alcohol as the culprit.  We were ambivalent about the apology, but pointed out that we would be content if we could just leave a peaceful and unhindered life until we could move out to our new place. Our new house is thankfully progressing well to timescale, and we will certainly be in at the end of March.  With less than 2 months to go therefore, the immediate crisis has passed and we will see it out.  We will not however forget it in a hurry and forgiveness is certainly not on the agenda.  We had Mrs LL lodge a cheque for the return of our damage deposit with a 3rd party agent, and having formed a better relationship with Mr LL decided to pay our rent for Feb and March as per the contract.  We of course retain all the evidence of Mrs LL's intrusions, emails, etc and know that we are in our rights to bring a complaint against her at the Gendarmerie at any stage should any untoward events occur between now and our departure.  Here's hoping......  [:)]

Hi We started to rent out our apartment in France in 2013 and are currently gathering together our income and expenditure figures for the accountant to compile our 2013 French tax return.  We usually take a 25% deposit on reservation, with the balance payable 6 weeks before the holiday starts.  Many of our peak 2014 winter season weeks were reserved and/or paid for in the autumn of 2013, so I wondered if someone with experience would be able to tell me if payments received in 2013 in respect of holidays taking place in 2014 are taxable in 2013 (i.e. on an actual basis) or in 2014 (i.e. on an accruals basis).  Many thanks as always.     

Or even prudent...........  [:D]

Thanks to all.  I bank with Axabanque, which makes it more complicated as they have no branches as such, probably a bit like First Direct in the UK.  If I pay cheques in I have to send them to Paris for instance.  I've noticed however that if I use a BNP Paribas ATM I can withdraw close to 1000 euros per day, so I will probably be ok just making a few trips to do that.

Hi, I need to get an amount of cash which is well above my carte bancaire limits.  In the UK it would simply mean writing a cheque out for Cash and presenting oneself with the cheque and some ID to a branch of your bank.  Could anyone please tell me how one goes about it in France?  Thanks in advance.  [:)]

Thank you Norman, all of this seems to be going completely over the landlords' heads. As a point of interest do you lodge a porter plainte with the gendarmerie or if not who? Need to be prepared, might have to pen a summary document of all that has happened in French, and that will take a little time!

Dead right Chancer but do you know what, without giving it all away, her first language is English! [;-)]

About an hour ago the doorbell rang.  When I answered the husband was there.  He just said he knew about the emails we'd sent to his wife and said 'it's sad but one day you will leave and that will be the best thing'.  No apology, no Sir!  Have sent copies of the video clips in case he thinks we are kidding. Good idea Chancer.  I'm usually a 'play it straight by the book' man and I too am a landlord in the UK (where deposits must be protected and returned within 10 days of the end of the tenancy), so to withold rent doesn't seem natural.  That being said we've got until beginning of February to decide whether to do that or not.  If I'm in doubt about the security of our deposit at that stage we'll have to seriously consider playing that card and bluffing it out until they'd be due to pay our deposit back anyway.  We'll see, but I'm still keen to avoid full blown formal action simply for the sake of avoiding the stress and potential fallout that may bring. [:)]   

Thanks for the witty comments, it has helped in what has been quite a stressful 24 hours.  We received an email reply of sorts from the landlord's wife this afternoon after she'd left 3 bottles of miscellaneous spirits on our doorstep this morning, and just after I'd changed the cylinder of the door lock (what an easy job that was, 2 minutes tops!).  Anyway, she goes on about how she has developed a booze problem and how we should 'understand' that her taking our drink is part of the disease.  There is no apology or remorse, just attempts to justify her behaviour, something which all addicts are very capable of, hiding behind their addiction rather than taking responsibility for their actions. There is a small storage room within the demise of our apartment which we don't rent from them, but they allowed us to use the room to store some of our spare furniture along with some of their own things when we moved in.  As they can only access this storage room by crossing our hallway and by using a door directly from their garage into our hallway (which then would give access to our whole apartment), I said that we wanted to disable the lock on that door from the garage to only allow them access to their storage room with our permission and when we were present.  The final insult was that far from wanting to do all things reasonable to head off a more formal approach via ANIL, gendarmes or whatever, her parting shot in the email was that we were to get all of our stuff out of the storage room and if we wouldn't allow them free access to it they would give us 3 months notice to quit.  The latter is is an empty threat as our contract has already been tacitly renewed as from this coming January 1st for a further year.  It is only we who can quit, not them.  Point is, she seems intent on inflaming things rather than getting her head down and behaving herself, unbelievable.  Have had to draft another email pointing out a few home truths, not sure it will make a scrap of difference, if not it may well have to be to the authorities with the evidence, something which I'm sure you'll understand I would rather not feel obliged to do!  [:(]    

Hi idun, thanks for that. We will be out by end of March as new house will be finished by then. Will check out ADIL and think on next move. Will definitely change the lock and will look into the treve hivernale. Just want to have a reasonably secure and peaceable time over the next few months.

Thanks, I have to say that it was the wonderful Mrs DD who came up with the idea of using an app to convert the ipad and laptop to a spycam, she's not just a pretty face! [:D]

Well what a turn of events there's been!  Thank you firstly for your helpful and at times amusing comments.  After reading Clair's postings last night, I sent a non-accusatory email simply reporting what had happened and asking if she (the landlord's wife) knew anything about it.  We also downloaded some software onto the laptop, converting it into a motion sensing spy camera, which records 30 seconds of video footage when it is triggered.  We took the dog out for a walk this afternoon and bingo!  Within half an hour the landlord's wife came in, went into the drinks cabinet, poured herself what she thought was Gin (it was water as it happens - wish I'd added something nasty, like an emetic!).  She came back in 4 minutes later, back in the cabinet and took some cheap Genepi.  She poured herself a huge measure then disappeared again.  I have it all on video, and have sent the clips to three other people for safe keeping.  Its only a shame I can't post the video on here and amuse you all! Anyway, I'm compiling a more confrontational email with a list of (reasonable) conditions she must fulfill if we are to 'overlook' the current issues.  These include a full admission and apology, funding the cost of changing the locks, replacing all the booze either directly or by reimbursement, etc ,etc.  We must of course be careful to stay reasonable and avoid accusations of blackmail.  One thing which worries us is the deposit of 2 months rent we paid when we signed our contract.  Legally I can't withold rent payments in lieu, but I'm worried it has already been spent on booze, either by her, him or them both.  I am making a suggestion therefore either that they agree to place it in a client account at a Notaire of our choice for safekeeping or that they agree in writing to us not paying our last 2 months rent and accept in writing that it would not be a breach of our tenancy agreement to do so.  If you've any other comments or thoughts I'm all ears, this has been quite a day!