davcolDavid<br><a target=_blank href="http:www.francopats.com">www.francopats.com<a><br><a target=_blank href="http:www.flogit.ws">www.flogit.ws<a>

[quote]Hiya - hope somebody can help us! We hope to be moving shortly to another house ... sadly without a pool We have a liner in our current pool and are really happy with it, but a couple of people ha...[/quote] Don't forget you are limited on size with a 'shell' pool. 10m x 5m max; I think. Having run a company that maintained pools in France (over 50 at one time) I can assure you that there isn't a real problem with liner pools. Well looked after; 12 years lifetime is achievable. If you are renting and money is not a major concern ask about 'armoured liners'. Email if I can help any more.

Firstly you must check all facts with a Notaire. The following applies to Europeans (non French) who own a property in France but are not French citizens. If you are a home owner in France, on your death your survivors will be liable to tax. There is no way of avoiding tax being paid by children but there is a way of the surviving spouse avoiding all tax on all worldwide assets. There is a complication if there are any children from earlier marriages. Basically you and your spouse need to enter into a new marriage agreement - Commaunité Universalle - under the Haig Convention. It is a simple process and does not require the disclosure of property value, assets etc. Make sure, when you speak to a Notaire, that they are aware that you are not a French national. When my wife and I did this recently we has two quotes from Notaires. The first was aware of the convention but not the special part for non French. He would have required details of all assets and was quoting E1500. The other Notaire in St Foy le Grand was fully aware of the situation, spoke perfect English and charged less than E600. No publicity on this forum but if you have problems send me an email and I'll let you have the Notaires name.

[quote]I'm trying to find out if gite owners find it worthwhile to have their websites available in languages other than English. With a random search I can't find many English hosting sites that offer othe...[/quote] I ran a holiday rental company in France for 15 years and we had our website (and Brochure) in English and French. In the early days we had over 40% French clients but this had been declining over the past 3 or 4 years with the increase in 'direct' marketing. I think the ownly enquiries you would get from France in particular would be for the summer period when no doubt you have near 100% occupancy anyway. However I must say they loved renting from an English agency and they were no trouble at all. Good luck with the season.

[quote]Well I am relived to learn it is not just me, or a difficult insurance agent – thankyou for your responses. As a first step I too sh[/quote] Only just spotted this thread. I ran a holiday rental company in France for 15 years and you have come up with the correct solution. To recap (presuming I'm correct) Your insurance company should allow a clause in the contract - 'Renonciation de Recours'. There should be little or no charge for this. Theoretically this should stop them persuing the client against claims to the policy. However it's nowhere near water tight and a firm 'MUST' have adequate personnal cover needs to be requested from clients together with their insurance policy N° and name of the company. If you look at any of the large rental company's conditions you will see that there is no question about it. Stangely therefore the best clients would be the French who once again have a different approach to the problem of renting property. Whatever they have rented (in France) their own home insurance cover travels with them. Anyway enjoy the rentals. Don't panic ...in 15 years, and with over 80 properties the worst we had was an American who sat on a valuable marble table and broke it in half. He paid up on the spot.