Daft Doctor
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Posts posted by Daft Doctor
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Hi, will make a long story a bit shorter. We are currently letting a large apartment in France as our main residence. We have a standard 'off the shelf' furnished rental contract. Our Landlord has an alcohol problem and is not terribly pleasant. Thing is on 2 separate occasions booze has gone missing from our drinks cabinet, once in the summer when we were away on holiday in the UK, and again sometime in the last 3 weeks. Each occasion no sign of forced entry and no-one but the landlord and his wife (who live in an apartment on the ground floor of the building) have keys and access apart from us.
Aside from the issue of what is essentially theft of the booze (approx 120 euros worth over the 2 episodes), there is the issue of unauthorised entry into our home. Interestingly however, when I looked at the conditions on our rental contract and in particular the responsibilities of the landlord, there is no specific mention of a prohibition from entering the apartment without permission. Remember this is an unaltered standard rental contract, so the terms are likely to be the norm.
The question is whether there is no mention of a clause prohibiting entry for the landlord because it is enshrined in more general french law regarding one's home and possessions, e.g a law of tresspass, etc? We don't want to escalate things unecessarily and of course would have difficulty proving wrongdoing in a court, but if it comes to pointing out some common truths to our landlord about our rights I would need to be sure of my facts. Any insight would therefore be gratefully received. Thanks in advance.
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Thanks to you both. That is entirely in context. We were emailing about some work to the common driveway that Mrs DD & I are responsible for. My neighbour knows we have been let down by our terrassier on several occasions, and she was obviously telling us that she knows it's not our fault that the work hasn't been done. That's pleasing to know! [:D]
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In an email discussion with a neighbour about us getting some work done on our communal road, she used this phrase: 'Je sais que vous n'y êtes pour rien'. I can easily directly translate the words, but I assume it is more of a colloquialism/saying. Could anyone please tell me what it means? Thanks in advance
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Hi, by way of giving some information back to fellow forum users, I thought I would update you on this thread.
Regarding the supply to the boundary, I have been told by ERDF that all mains network supply is now triphase, so no upgrading was required to the boundary. There was however a need to upgrade the inbound wiring from the coffret and the distribution board itself, but that was all.
On the subject of délésteurs, I was advised that the spec for our new house included one, but even they can only do so much. If there is a large shortfall in available kW vs demand, the non-prioritised circuits constantly compete with each other for available power, so none works effectively.
After taking independant electrical advice we have opted for triphase as recommended. Our house is being built to current BBC standards, so hopefully it will prove reasonably efficient. [:D]
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Hi, our new build is nearing completion and of course in France the turn-key specification excludes any interior decoration. In order therefore to save on artisans' outrageous rates, we want to paint the interior ourselves. We are thinking of straightforward matt white for the ceilings and fairly neutral, readily available creamy colours for the walls, so no designer stuff. A quick look in our local Mr Bric and Leroy Merlin has told me that paint is hideously expensive in france, and I have been told that most French emulsion is pretty cr*p. I just wondered if anyone has a view from experience of what readily available emulsions are reasonable value for money and give reasonable performance. I could order from the UK at a push, but its a problem if you find yourself 5L short to finish the job. Thanks in advance for any guidance. [:)]
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Thank you soupagirl, that is most helpful. I can get everything ready then just as you did I can toddle along to Harmonie Mutuelle on 2nd January. [:)]
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Hi
My early retiree UK S1 expires in January 2014, so my entitlement to health cover for myself and my 11 year old through CPAM will come to an end. My wife is however an autoentrepreneur, so gets her health cover in France through RSI (now Harmonie Mutuelle). Both my son and I will qualify as ayants droit under my wifes cover with RSI from January, but I wondered how far in advance we can start the registration process, in order that we won't have a gap in cover. I think from researching online there are a couple of forms to fill in and no doubt there will be the usual translated certification to produce, but am I right in thinking that as long as everything goes through eventually, if we don't get piggy-backed before the January deadline, it is simply a case of saving up the feuilles de soins and submitting them retrospectively? I have a carte vitale and permanent social security number now, so is the same card useable once it has been updated with RSI as the new organisation administering the payments, or will I have to go through the process to apply for a new one? Any advice or accounts of previous experience on becoming covered as an ayant droit would be most useful, thank you. [:)]
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The point idun is that the NHS, by having the medical staff on fairly fixed remuneration, independant of how many people they see, tests they do, etc, nails down a significant cost for the service. There is no perverse incentive in the NHS to do what is not necessary, and the patients by and large appreciate this. In France, it is by contrast in some ways a license to spend, spend, spend. There is a direct financial incentive (or need) to bring patients back unnecessarily, to have open-ended ordinances for multiple e.g. physiotherapy sessions, to investigate everything to the hilt, to prescribe multiple items which the pharmacist must dispense only in full packs, etc, etc.
The standard of care in France overall is no better or worse than in the NHS I'm sure, though having said that some of the medical practices and customs here seem a bit archaeic, almost as if the service is a bit insular in certain areas. I know someone here for instance who has a child with definite Attention Defecit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), a well recognised illness in the UK and for which regular treatment can be a godsend for both child and the parents. Not only did the parents have great difficulty getting the French to even acknowledge that the condition exists, but even then they'd only allow the poor child (and therefore poor parents) to take medication for it on schooldays, because 'that's the only days he/she needs to concentrate'. Oh really??
Whatever the rates are here in France for a consultation, if it means that to earn a crust the GP or specialist must bring people back multiple times is plain wrong. That behaviour becomes entrenched in expectation and 'the norm'. It creates a medical dependance culture which is very difficult I would argue to change, something that will IMHO haunt the French in the decades to come.
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I agree yccmb, I am astonished at the 'waste' in the system here in France, dressed up as 'good care'. My wife had a knee op, she had 2 appointments with the surgeon before the op, a separate appointment with the anaesthetist before the op (even though she's a completely healthy 43 year old), and since the op she's already been twice to see the surgeon and needs to go again in 2 months. Fact is she's doing fine, she's in and out in 5 minutes (after a one hour drive to the appointment) and each time she's relieved of 45 euros. That she gets it back doesn't matter, its being paid for somewhere along the line. Our local Pharmacist asked me if in England Pharmacists were allowed to split packs of drugs to give the exact amounts for a course while giving me almost twice the amount of medication that my son needed because he wasn't allowed to do that. Can you imaging how much money the French health service could save if they just allowed pharmacists to do what is for many reasons the logical thing? If you need 56 tablets, give 56, not 100 because they only come in packs of 50 so you have to give 2 packs! Having a service free at the point of delivery like the NHS may mean the system is abused in terms of GP time in some circumstances, I should know that, but on the other hand it means the doctor is under no moral pressure to prescribe just to make it worthwhile for the patient. I once read that the average French GP consultation ends with a prescription for 3 items, that compares with 1 in the UK (and bear in mind UK GPs are often being criticised for overprescribing). Point is, yes, the funding issues for all modern health services are huge, but unlike the NHS in the UK, the French don't seem to have accepted the need to cut costs and prevent their service being a bottomless pit.
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I think AnOther is right. All EU citizens legally resident in the UK have entitlement to free and full NHS care from the day they arrive. A passport and proof of address would be all that is needed to get immediate care and then NHS registration. I think it is only the UK and Austria which base entitlement solely on residency. The only reason I can think of for the S1 that idun has to submit would be for the NHS somewhere down the line to bill the French, but with or without it idun is entitled to free NHS care for as long as she needs it.
Aside from the (perhaps) unnecessary generosity of the UK government in respect of NHS care based on residency, and even though I have benefitted from a residual S1 since moving to France, it does seem in itself to be overgenerous. What should happen is that any EU citizen taking up residence in another EU country should have immediate access to the state health system and immediately begin paying towards it. That seems intuitively right to me.
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Hi and thanks to everyone, by the sounds of it I think it must have been Pineau de Charente. I'll try to get some and give it a go!
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Last year we were at a neighbour's for aperos and I took up his offer of a few nips of fortified drink from what I thought was Charente. It was really good and I'd love to get a hold of some if I could. Problem is I can't remember what it was called. Does this ring any bells with anyone, especially those located in them there parts? Thanks in advice for any info.
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Hi BJSLIV, no, not really. Another management company is going to take over and will be offering new leases, but we have decided not to renew that arrangement. We now live in the same town as the apartment, so we can do all the meeting and greeting, cleaning, linen changes, etc, as well as making the apartment a little more personalised and less corporate. I think approx 85% of the owners will however take up the new lease offer.
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Hi Nomoss, sorry I was a bit vague, perhaps it's because I don't fully understand the nuiances of it myself. Our apartment is in a Residence de Tourisme, which must provide other services to guests rather than just accommodation, such as cleaning, linen provision, reception services, etc. This 'RdT'status I think means that rental payments must ordnarily be subject to TVA. As you say however, this can only be so if those receiving the payments are registered for TVA. How exactly this affected the management company financially I'm not so sure, but that was the way it was.
My worry is that even though we no longer have a lease in place and our guests do not have access to all the RdT services, if we are still TVA registered we may have to deduct and pay over TVA from the private rentals we receive, even though we are nowhere near the threshold for doing so. Hope that is a little clearer, thing is does anyone know if or how you go about deregistering for TVA in France?
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Hi, when we bought our apartment it was leased back commercially to a holiday company, and in order that they could reclaim the TVA compulsorally levied on their rental payments to us, as a condition of the lease we had to voluntarily register for TVA, even though the income we received was way below the turnover threshold for such registration. The management company have since hit financial difficulties and the leases have been cancelled. As such we are now self-managing our apartment for holiday lets.
As I said above, our income from lettings will be nowhere near the french TVA threshold, so I wondered if anyone out there knew anything about the procedure for de-registering for TVA? We know that this cannot happen in 2013 but we are thinking of 2014 onwards. If anyone has any sage knowledge, advice or experience I'd be most grateful. [:D]
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Thank you Val_2, that is all very pertinent advice, and I realise they will want insurance to cover the value of the loan (even though it is hidiously expensive in France, probably because very little is done online, all through agents who need paying commission). l think we need to cobble together some devis for work to be done, then go down to see the local conseiller and discuss with them what we could reasonable expect in terms of help.
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A point well made EuroTrash. The reason I mentioned the RFR and other evidence however is that although 2012 was our first fiscal year in France, we didn't move over until May, so our 2012 RFR is based on 7 months rather than 12. [:)]
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Hi, we are coming to the end of a house build and will be several thousand euros short by the time all the various extras and finishing touches inside and out are added up. We don't want to commit to long term finance for the shortfall, since we are selling an apartment which will (eventually) release enough capital to balance the books, and we already have a mortgage in place on that property. Our aim is to be mortgage free on the new house.
Our french bank are currently offering relatively low rate unsecured finance to account holders for a variety of projects, including building works and renovations, and this is therefore of interest to us to help plug the gap. I don't however have any experience of obtaining such finance in France, so have a few questions which some of you may be able to answer either from knowledge or experience.
Firstly, am I right in assuming that any such loans are subject to the global loan payments cap of 33% of taxed income, or are the requirements a little more relaxed? Do they tend to refer to the RFR figure from your avis d'impôt for the income figure or will they take other evidence into account.
Secondly, are you normally required to produce a devis for any works you intend to finance with the loan? Thirdly, do you have to show that the work has been done as per the devis at some point, either before the loan will be released, or at some point afterwards?
Finally, if you apply for such a loan but ask for more than the bank are willing to lend, would as a general rule it be the case of an outright refusal, or would it more likely be a case of 'we can't give you x euros but we can offer you y euros instead'?
As always, any insight much appreciated, including any other ideas of how to lay hands on the money (legally of course!) [;-)].
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Just a quick update. Heard nothing from the tax office so emailed them this morning asking if my avis had been corrected and how much I should pay either by cheque (today) or online (by Saturday). Had a reply within 15 minutes saying that the Avis was on its way and that they concurred with my accountants figure. Social charges on property income removed, impot on pension income (less 10%) added. The avis arrived in the post at lunchtime, so good result all round. Will pay online later in the week. [:D]
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I use taxcalc to prepare and submit my UK tax returns, so can generate copy pages and tax summaries very easily. I don't however get anything directly from HMRC, but can generate statements from my HMRC online account. The problem in this particular case is that the UK income in question arose from our move to France in May 2012 until the end of 2012, so it fell wholly within the 2012-13 UK tax year. Although as with most people taxed under self assessment we've made payments on account for our 2012-13 UK tax liability, we haven't yet submitted our returns and the final reckoning up hasn't taken place. Hence the sending of the past 2 years (10-11 & 11-12) UK property pages and tax summaries. Hopefully going to war will not prove necessary. The stupid thing is that by giving us the French income tax credit against that income on the Avis, they have already accepted that it is liable for UK tax, so they're contradicting themselves by asking for more evidence vis a vis waiving the social charges on that income. Hopefully this week will see a sensible resolution.........
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Hi, just to return to the original subject of the thread, an update on my situation. Our French accountant contacted the Impots to point out the error in levying social charges on our UK property income. Even though they had already given the income tax credit on this income, the Impots' response was to promise to remove the social charges, but only when they had seen proof that this income had been already taxed in the UK! This is of course not possible to provide, since the tax years in France and the UK are different, the declaration dates are different and the final reckoning up for 2012-13 tax in the UK won't take place til January. The accountant thought they were playing funny b**gers and were completely unjustified in asking for this as a condition to revising their social charges assessment, but we have emailed them the evidence from our previous 2 UK tax years to show that we do earn such sums from UK property and have been taxed on it in the past. Lets see what happens next.......As an aside, the Impots also failed to include in our assessment over 20k euros of pension income, properly declared on our French tax forms and wholly taxable in France. Seems to suggest they haven't a clue what they're doing!
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I just want to be treated correctly as the rules stand at present and not fall victim of inconsistency and the misguided whim of a tax official. It isn't a case of whether the rules are right or wrong or fair or unfair, at an individual level it is simply a need to see that the rules have been correctly applied.
I chose to live in France because it is a fantastic place to live and so far I don't regret it one bit. If the rules changed tomorrow and I had to pay social charges on all my income it wouldn't change my view, I'd just have to pull my belt in a bit more and get on with it.
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Hi, I received my Avis today and although our UK property income in 2012 was way above UK tax threshold and even though a full tax credit was given against this income in the Avis, full social charges of 15.5% were levied against the income, in our case an overcharge of over 4,000 euros!I have emailed our french accountant about this and it seems from what has been said earlier in the thread that we have indeed been wrongly levied social charges on the income. Can anyone advise? How does one go about challenging this mistake? Is there a definitive statement which I can refer to if I go down to the impôts and challenge this directly? Any help gratefully offered, it is 4,000 euros I'd rather not have to pay up first then fight the Impôts for it back. against
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Hi, I must have received over 20 virements in euros from the UK in the past 18 months (pension payments, savings transfers, etc), always without charge by my French bank. This time however a 10 euro charge appeared, so I contacted them to complain. They told me the charge had been made as it was a Swift transfer not a SEPA (Single European Payment Area) transfer, which would have been 'gratuit'.It is true that the paperwork from the FX company mentions a Swift code for the bank as well as the IBAN, but as Swift and BIC codes are identical and as the transfer was indeed made in euros between 2 countries in SEPA it I am sure should have been free, as it has always been. Does anyone think I'm mistaken? I've sent the bank an email response telling them (nicely of course) that its b**locks and I want my 10 euros back, but like most things like this in France I'm likely to need to send a letter of complaint 'recommandé avec AR', so spending half the 10 euros again for very uncertain return! Any insight gratefully received.
Does Landlord have right of entry?
in French Legal Issues
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