Stan Streason
-
Posts
399 -
Joined
-
Last visited
Never
Posts posted by Stan Streason
-
-
Life without a bit of risk wouldnt be half as much fun!
New Life. I am making a big assumption. I would never advise anyone to buy a second home if it totally extends their financial resources and they cannot afford to take any knocks. As long as you are not totally stretched then a little bit of active management can reduce costs.
You seem to have got a decent idea of the risks involved. You used 1.17 as an exchange rate and worked out your repayments. How bad could it get? What would your repayments be if it were parity for 3 years? I cant be bothered to do the sums but thats about the worst it could reasonably get. Of course if it gets "better" and goes up to 1.40 again you could always pay off the French Mortgage with a sterling one (at a lot less cost than now.). If you are lucky enough to have say a years repayments available in savings at any one time there is no reason why you could not put in buy orders and stock up with euros on the occasions you can get better than 1.17, this would cut down monthly transaction costs and get you marginally better rates. I dont have a mortgage but over the last 2 years my average rate of buying for my renovations is about 1.175 and the rates have been much lower than that for most of the time.
Just one more thing to think about. Would your new house be bought by a Frenchman? If worst comes to worst you have an appreciating asset (in sterling terms). I have realised that my house would be significantly more attractive to someone as a second home and therefore probably is more accurately valued in Sterling than Euros. If your new property would be purchased by a Frenchman then if worst comes to worst you probably could at least sell and realise a sterling profit.
EDIT --of course I am a glass half full man
-
I'm not even sure where I am going with this. About 8 months ago I was at a conference - approximately 300 delegates split about 40% female/60% male.
Even within the smaller group I was with there were a number of females who clearly intended to "do the business" that night. At a guess they were all successful. There were probably lots of males in a similar mood, but given the groups of young men still in the bar in the early hours of the morning their percentage success rate was nowhere near as good.
I wonder if the differing views irrationaly ingraned in many of us are based on the fact that if a woman wants to she probably can whereas a man who suceeds is counted as lucky.
Difference in feelings summed up in the Jimmy Carr joke. "one of my friends has the nickname sh*gger.............................she does'nt like it."
-
I had always assumed that as the inheritance tax position was so prohibitive, dying owning a french property was very bad tax planning. We are en-tontine and I believe any survivor will be better placed to sell up and repatriate the cash. Alternatively (in my position its the kids not the godson), why not loan them the money to buy the property from you. (The cash just goes round in circles with some fees leaving but a lot less than inheretance tax).
-
SueJ.
No need at all to be jumpy. 99.9% of these are junk. You can (and should) delete them with a completely clear concience.
You will never get a really important contact from your bank by email so even if you miss the genuine 1 in 1,000 it wont matter - it will be marketing guff.
Good reminder to increase confidence however is to contact all of your banks and make sure they have got your preferred method of contact noted. Mine is by mobile phone. I occasionally get a phone call querying a transaction (which I dont mind in the slightest) but I get a name and then ring them back on a number already programmed into my phone memory. It sometimes takes a while to get through the automated systems back to the person who wants to speak to me but I feel completely secure.
-
[quote user="Théière"]
Stan if the motor is ok and it's just bearings then a service repair is all that is needed. They are not much different to any other pump and after 8 years the bearing gets noisy, what's to complain about.
Can your engineer repair it?
[/quote]
Its just that the pump is currently winterised in Deux Servres and the engineer is in Suffolk, (and I am much closer to the engineer than I am to the pump.) If it is just bearings it may be worth the hassle but if its more than that I may end up needing a new pump anyway.
Its just that I had never heard of Calpeda before investigating my noisy pump.
-
My Calpeda pool pump is running very noisy and losing suction. Engineer says it sounds like bearings are going. The pump was there when I bought the property and could be about 8 years old.
Calpeda are a worldwide pump company and their pumps seem to be sold by engineering firms rather than pool suppliers. Their pool pumps are only a small part of their range. The best UK price I can get for a direct replacement is just over £500.
Does anyone have any views on Calpeda quality? Where do they stand compared to other makers?
Thanks in advance
-
In the UK there are at least 2 types of liquidation. A Members voluntary liquidation and an insolvent liquidation. A members voluntary is normally a solvent company which needs to be closed down for admin or good housekeeping reasons. All creditors get paid, the owners issue a certificate of solvency then any residual is paid back to the shareholders.
An insolvent liquidation is when a company cannot pay its creditors who end up getting only very little if anything of what they are owed.
In any case you need to register your debt with the liquidator so he is aware you are owed something.
-
Tax revenues have to come from somewhere and they spread it around so you dont know how much you pay each year. On avarage the bigger the property the more ability to pay. What gets me are the taxes that look specific but which just go into the general pot. A road fund licence that doesnt fund the roads, Natonal insurance which isnt etc etc.
One day I will try to keep records of the tax I pay in a year. Income tax, national insurance, VAT, car tax, road fund licence, stamp duty, local taxes, TV licence and so on and on.
-
I have participated in tax avoidance for years. I am the only income tax payer in our household. Our savings are wholly in my wifes name so she uses her otherwise unused personal allowance against that income. If it were in my name I would pay tax, in hers we dont. I have set up my affairs to legally avoid paying tax under the law. I would be stupid to do otherwise.
Everyone who buys something before the new year to avoid the increase in VAT is a tax avoider. As is everyone with a tax free ISA. Its either legal or its not - you cant draw false lines.
-
[quote user="NormanH"]I believe that I did, but as I cited sources in French (surprise surprise those funny little Disneyland people who inhabit the landscape to be figures of fun ) I am not too astonished that you didn't bother to read it.
http://www.completefrance.com/cs/forums/3/2295337/ShowPost.aspx#2295337
[/quote]Norman. You are so proud of your French that you are getting your English muddled. You didnt cite a "source", your first link was merely to someone elses opinion. Worth no more nor less than yours or mine.
Comments about "the French have always done it this way" are just as bad and pointless as "its not like the UK". There is clearly a problem so something has got to change. Arguing for the status quo is the one answer it cannot be because it clearly isnt working.
-
[quote user="cooperlola"][quote user="Frenchie"]
Sincerely, I think these may be the last days for me on the forum, it s all getting nonsense and most peole wear blinkers, you can't have an interesting chat.
[/quote]And without those like you the forum will become more nonsensical. Don't let these people drive you away, Frenchie, we are not all the same and would miss your insight - we need those with a first hand view of what is going on to inform us and maybe, just maybe,you will change somebody's view, or make them see things differently.[/quote]
I feel a little aggrieved if I am considered to be one of "these people". I thought I put up a descent argument based upon my own position as to why I feel less than sympathetic to someone who expects to retire at 60 and be provided for at state expense for the rest of their life. For my point of view no one has put up a reasoned, costed justification of keeping the status quo. I totally refute that that is a right wing rant or that I am wearing blinkers.
And from the spending review just announced it looks like I wont be getting my state pension till 66 now. 62 = untold luxury.
-
Frenchie, please believe me, this is not a personal attack. It comes from someone who is self employed and who's pension pot is solely what I have put away myself. When starting my pension planning 40 years ago I thought I would have enough put away to retire by 60. Trouble is (the good thing is) I am in good health and I dont know when I will die and in order to provide myself a decent living for my revised life expectancy together with the fall in the value of my pot, my estimated retirement age has gradually increased and I now estimate this to be about 66 if I am lucky.
When people died at 70 then retiring at 60 to have a few relaxing years after working all your life was no bad thing. But now if you get to 60 the chances are you will live to 80 or more. Perhaps to keep the same rights it should be worked the other way and taken back to when this was all introduced.
Your right is 10 years (on average) post retirement pension. Therefore perhaps you should not get this till aged 70. Your rights will not have changed.
There you go - all sorted.
-
Just because this is "the french way" or its always been like this does not make it right. In todays global economy there must be more left to the free market. I am an accountant in UK dealing with owner managed businesses and truly believe that these are the lifeblood of our economy.
It is only anecdotal from this site but the taxes levvied on setting up your own business in France seem to be punative.
One French builder I know is being constantly harried to take on an apprentice and is being offered a tidy sum to do so as an incentive. He needs an assistant and has the work for them and there are plenty of unemployed youngsters who need a job but if he takes someone on and they turn out to be poor he cannot get rid of them and it will cost him an arm and a leg for evermore. There are quite clear statistics (I just cant put my hands on them now), the greater the freedom of labour movement ultimately the greater the number of people employed.
I have been working in the labour market in the same profession for over 40 years and have only been with 3 firms. Of my 3 sons, 2 have already changed job tack completely and all 3 have already worked for more firms than me and expect many more. (And they are doing very will in "proper" graduate standard jobs not just non or semi-skilled work.). Times are changing.
The only groups of people actually protected by high levels of employee rights are the lazy and inefficient. There will always be individual sob stories and a proper welfare state shoud catch these but on the whole creating a situation where employee movement is much more fluid ultimately creates more jobs and keeps more people in work than effectively preventing small potential employers from expanding by making taking on employees prohibitive.
-
The exchange rate has fluctuated by nearly 20% either way over the last 18 months or so and will do so again given time. I would keep it in sterling but set a rate in your mind at which to translate it. If todays rate is 1.135, if you translated at 1.22 that is a 7.5% increase (tax free). You will be unlucky if it doesnt touch that again at some point in the next 2 years. Meanwhile you are still earning interest on your sterling deposit.
-
Dont bother with an English "french specialist" solicitor. Will cost you about £1,500 for not much. I did a lot or research and pretty much understood the whole process but did have a second notaire who's english was better than mine just to ensure nothing was left to chance in understanding the language in the documents. And for no extra cost as the fee was shared its about the best bargain I have had for years.
-
Best thing they did when son and one of his friends were out relaying the patio around my swimming pool. They went to the village Bastille Day party, introduced themselves to everyone and said who they were and what they were doing.Timing was of course fortunate but is sorted any problems before they started.My son always introduces himself as the future owner of my house and refers to it as "the inheretance".
-
Have you tried offering the contents to the buyer. I agreed £4k to buy all the contents and it was a great deal for me. Not having to furnish from new, was a great saving even if over time we will gradually replace stuff.
-
I have always taken the view that if someone wants to break in they will. At home I have 3 large loud dogs and a safe but even then if they want to take their chances!!!In France I have nothing too valuable (probably the lawn mower is the most valuable single item). I certainly have nothing of sentimental value or something which cannot easily be replaced. I am properly and copiously insured and lock up properly when I leave the property empty. The gates are chained and bolted but thats no deterrant really.My insurance agent has seen the property, the locks we have and the shutters. They are happy. If I am unlucky after that then I fully expect a big insurance payout to cover my losses.
-
Been to my two nearest in a variety of vans and cars (all with English plates) - never a problem
-
[quote user="Dog"]
I have never based my judgement of business on the crooks that abuse honest people.
It is not necessary to produce wealth or create employment legally without limited liability.
Only those that believe they may fail use this route.
I trust you have seen how much money is outstanding on PAYE?
The UK government are even concidering that businesses pay them nett for the weekly wages and the government deduct PAYE and pay the employee!!!
How many times did you go bust Stan?
[/quote]I use this site to glean helpful information and sometimes if possible, I even try to give it.I am too old to get into an internet argument with someone I don't know who clearly either does not know what he is talking about or is being deliberately obtuse. -
There are over 2m incorporated businesses registered at companies house plus thousands of unincorporated ones. There are 1.7m registered for VAT and 1.4m with PAYE schemes.The latest estimate is that about 26,500 businesses went into insolvent liquidation in 2009 (leaving 98.72% of the 2m registered still trading) My 99.9 guess was actually not that far out.There are undoubtedly some crooks out there but to base ones judgement of business in general on these is wildly incorrect and unhelpful to those out there with enough balls to take a risk and actually produce wealth.
-
Sorry I thought my post made it clear.Lebara Ltd and Lebara France Ltd are different companies, so technically France could be left to go bust but your views on it depend upon your attitude.99.9% of businesses dont go bust and leave creditors in the lurch but of course some people want to believe the worst the whole time.
-
I certainly hope I was not condescending but its not just my generation I was talking about.My 28 year old nephew lives in a derelict West Midlands town and left school at 16 with no qualifications a couple of years before his mother, my sister in law died of cancer.He is pretty much unemployable in a normal type of job but in the last dozen or so years he has collected scrap metal, stacked Asda shelves overnight, been a milkman and any number of other jobs sometimes two or three at a time.He now works on the canals. He has never claimed unemployment and has never felt sorry for himself.He currently lives in a housing association house and provides for his partner and baby twin girls. My help is always there as a backstop and I would give it without hesitation but other than decent presents for the kids and a free holiday in France he has always refused anything else.Other than his health which has always been good he has worked through every other bit of dung that life has thrown at him. I have nothing but admiration and believe if he can do it there is no reason others cannot.
-
Lebara ltd had 2009 turnover of over £170m with profit before tax of about £12m. They are owned by a Dutch company. They currently trade in Holland Denmark Spain Switzerland UK and Australia.France and Germany are new markets for them. They clearly seem to know what they are doing but Lebara France could be left to go bust if it is not successful. Get it whilst you can but dont risk too much until it is up and running and successful.
Long Wave reception
in French Satellite TV, French Internet and Telephone
Posted