Araucaria

I scrapped a diesel Berlingo (got €60 for it) with a fuel pump fault a few months ago. It might not just be a question of replacing the pump - it certainly wasn't with ours. What we were told (and I believe it) is that once the pump starts breaking up, it distributes very small metallic particles all through the fuel system: and as diesels dump any fuel that the engine doesn't use back into the fuel tank, that means you have contamination in the injectors, all the fuel pipes, and the tank too. To be sure that the repair will actually work, you have to replace all those parts - flushing out might not work - and the costs to do that start at about €1,000.  Our Berlingo just wasn't worth that much (age, RHD, high mileage, dents, etc). So depending on the problem, scrapping it might be the OP's cheapest option. Obviously strip everything off it that isn't needed for the drive to the breakers: you might be able to sell odd bits on LBC (seats, spare wheel, jack, stereo system.....)

[quote user="Debra"]Capital Gains Tax is due first to the UK on UK property.  France recently started charging it for overseas properties so they would work out the bit they want and then give you a credit for UK GCT already paid.  It used to be that the UK did not charge CGT to non-residents but there is a change in the pipeline and from April next year they will charge non-residents CGT. Here is the consultation document about it here is an article about it . I haven't read that cover to cover but as far as I know, they will still allow the normal letting relief and CGT allowances.  Don't expect that to never change though since they're now discussing not letting non-residents have the UK tax allowance against their rental income.  The discussion says it should only affect those whose main income doesn't derive from the UK (so those with UK pensions and rental income that makes up either 75 or 90 per cent of their income shouldn't be affected) but many believe that they will go ahead and do it for all non-residents regardless. It's all a pain but think of people the other way around, who sell their second homes in France and are UK resident.  They get tax relief for the French tax paid against their UK CGT bill but as the UK doesn't recognise social charges as a tax, as per the double taxation treaty, they aren't included in the credit given.  Bit of a blow.  I'm trying to sell at a loss everywhere at the moment so none of this affects me but I like to keep informed just in case some rich person comes along and wants to pay a decent price for my property :) (laughing but why aren't the smileys working??) [/quote] The planned change may happen next year, but I wouldn't bet on it. In the consultation document HMRC says that it plans only to levy CGT on the gain that you make after April 2015. Quite what they mean by that isn't at all clear, but no doubt eventually HMRC will say how it will be calculated. Incidentally, the planned CGT charge for non-residents only applies to (effectively) private houses. Other kinds of property aren't caught.

You'll need LHD headlights too, and for some vehicles these are expensive.

FE is working a bit faster today (still slow to upload posts) and some of the previous features have come back. It's still an excellent example of how not to run a website, though.

Possibly, just possibly, the French fisc might collect more in taxes if they made it just a little easier to work legally.

[quote user="Rabbie"].........One thing is certain. A Yes result will trigger a drop in the pound at least in the short term and could derail the UK recovery which will affect people on both sides of the border. .......[:D]  [/quote] I am not at all sure that what you say is certain. A Yes vote will most likely trigger a drop in the value of sterling, but that could very well stimulate the UK recovery: it would make UK goods and services cheaper in international markets, and in principle at least that would increase demand for them. There's an effect on imports too, of course, but normally devaluation improves the balance of payments.

A group of FANYs (members of the Princess Royal's Volunteer Corps) are this week doing a 638 km cycle ride through the Auvergne and points north to commemorate Nancy Wake's 1944 epic cycle ride through occupied France. Nancy was a celebrated female member of the wartime SOE. She herself died only a few years ago, aged 99, and the ride is to raise funds for FANY. Their (and Nancy's) ride started in the extreme south of the Cantal, at St Santin. Their are more details of Nancy and the Ride for Nancy here, and if anyone would like to make a donation this is the address.

I would (and do) recommend CurrencyFair, as it's possible to get them to do a regular automatic payment, without any need for you to do anything after initially setting up a bank standing order to them. I find this very convenient for getting my monthly sterling pension automatically exchanged to euros and transferred into my French euro account. My experience with other transfer companies was that they weren't prepared to do this. But perhaps Transferwise will?

I can confirm that the BricoDepot ones at €10 are exactly the same as the ones from Chausson for €40 - Aco Self, in béton polymere.

In scrabbling about for alternatives I found that Brico Depot do caniveaux much the same as the Chausson €40 jobbies, but at only €10 a metre. The Chausson one is actually the product you linked to (or at least they are both called "Self"), while the Brico Depot one looks the same - and I will find out tomorrow if it is. It's made of the same material, beton polymerique, anyway. It is only for a garage entrance, so it's what they are designed for, and it'll be well-embedded in concrete.. So thanks for all the suggestions. And I may well end up with polystyrene for the expansion joint, as I can't find fibreboard locally, and the concrete arrives on Friday.

This is surely not how European Arrest Warrants were supposed to be used, is it? There doesn't appear to be any crime that his parents are supposed to have committed. Not so much "nanny state" as "1984" - caring for your child is apparently criminal neglect.

Thanks very much - I'll probably go for the fibreboard option as my slabs are mostly quite thick (up to 20cm) and those plastic sections are only 8cm deep. Do either of you have any views on caniveaux? When I previously put some down I went for the (in my view) rather expensive option of the ones from Chausson in béton polymère - about €40 a metre (and I'll need at least ten): are their cheaper options elsewhere that won't break up when I drive a car across them?

I'm part way through putting down a concrete floor in the hangar. When finished it'll be a single concrete floor of about 100 m2, in three bays each a bit more than 3m wide and 10m deep, and so far I've poured the two outside bays. I've now got the middle section to do between the two that are already done. I feel I ought to provide for a bit of expansion between the sections. I remember seeing a hard-ish closed-cell foam strip - self adhesive I think - that the builders used around the walls of our bedroom when they were pouring in the stuff (technical term) on top of the hot-water heated floor. It was about a centimetre thick, and I'd guess probably 20cm wide - perhaps not thick enough for a big sheet of concrete? I'm not sure if that actually is what I need - but does anyone know what product I should use in concrete, and, more importantly, what it's called in French? It's not important what it looks like, and I'm not looking for a really smart finish anyway. I did consider leaving the shuttering boards in place, but it turned out I needed to re-use them (I'm putting an inspection pit in the middle section).

Vaseline .....,. I can thoroughly recommend David Kynaston's books, Austerity Britain (1945-1951) and Family Britain (1951 - 1957). From the latter, and reminding us that the 1950s weren't entirely a golden age: There was also the case of Lord Montagu of Beaulieu, his cousin Michael Pitt-Rivers and the Daily Mail’s diplomatic correspondent Peter Wildeblood, all three of whom were arrested in January 1954 for homosexual offences and conspiracy to incite acts of gross indecency (the latter charge being wheeled out for the first time since the trials of Oscar Wilde)......... Later that month, the Admiralty issued new Fleet Orders highlighting ‘the horrible character of unnatural vice’ and insisting that naval officers ‘stamp out the evil’. Recommended methods included inspection of jars of Vaseline or hair gel for tell-tale pubic hairs, while officers were also encouraged to secure ‘the help of the steadier and more reliable men on the lower deck’ in order to counter the regrettable tendency ‘to treat these matters with levity’.

There's a bit more about it in (English) Wikipedia, here.The milice don't appear to have been involved in the repression after the republic was proclaimed.

When I first bought a vehicle in France I too didn't have a permanent address (in fact no French address at all), but I had a friend who was happy to let me use his address instead. That was quite a while back (15 years or so) and there may be more checks now. I've seen people say that re-registering a UK caravan in France can be quite a chore (it probably depends on its age). You might be best buying the caravan in the UK and then taking it back there to sell. I have both LHD and RHD vehicles, and obviously the LHD option is preferable when driving in France. On the other hand (see what I did there?) if you're used to the location of the gear-shift in a RHD car, and when driving with a caravan you don't mind overtaking a lot less often than you might otherwise, RHD might be a good short-term answer. RHD cars do seem to be quite a bit cheaper in the UK compared to their French LHD equivalents. It's easy enough to re-register cars in France provided they are mainstream models and not something exotic (try asking here first before buying), but there is a cost: you'll need to change the headlights, and this can add quite a bit depending on the model. It's another thing to check before you buy the car. Good luck with the move!

Catalpa yes, ET and I have clashed elsewhere - hence the post...... But I've lived in France for ten years, and I'm retired and I'm absolutely NOT looking for work, in fact I'd like to do much less myself, but my experience over that ten years with many artisans has been just like the OPs: they say they would like the work but they just don't turn up when they say they will. Or it's an endless process of calling and waiting around, then in the end the devis never comes. There have been some honorable exceptions, of course - I'd really recommend our (expensive but definitely French) plumber (PM me for details). I think a few more British ex-pat builders, etc, competing on absolutely equal terms (I mean, in case it isn't obvious, not on the black and with properly comparable skills) with local artisans are exactly what is needed. And if they turn up when they say they will they will be much more likely to get the work - or they would be from me! It's called competition......

You must all think me very slow in getting the point, but after reading the links Quillan kindly provided, I still don't see a three-month rule for EHIC cover as provided by the UK, particularly not on the "France" section of the NHS link that idun posted. It would have been very easy for the UK government to have spelled it out in unequivocal terms if they had wished to. As for those EU directives, having read the explanatory EU document (and no, it's true, I haven't read the actual directives), these say that EU countries all have to allow you to stay for at least three months, and for at least six months if you are actually seeking work. They do not require any EU country to adopt a rule making you unable to stay for longer than the three or six month periods: that's left to the discretion of member states. The comprehensive health cover requirement might well be provided by the UK's provision of an EHIC, and in practical terms (which is all I have ever been asking about) I haven't heard here on this forum anyone saying that they, or someone they know, has been refused medical treatment in France because they have been here longer than three months. But maybe the simple answer for my friends is that they should make sure that their parents in the UK keep a room for them, and use that as their address when they are away, and that they should make a visit back to the UK not less often than once every three months, making sure they keep copies of the ferry/airline tickets. As I've said previously, Mr Foaf will be looking for work in the UK while he's in France, and chances are the more promising job interviews (and hopefully he will get some) will be face-to-face ones. If the system does have to played like this (and I am not yet entirely convinced it does) then this would seem a modest cost of doing so.

[quote user="Quillan"]It's not the UK side it is the French side. You can only use it in France under EU law for three consecutive months maximum. It doesn't matter for how long it is 'valid' for with regards to the issuing country it is the rules of the country in which it is being used that counts. I think you might find that technically a French issued one used in the UK can only be 'used' for three months. Just because the card is valid of 5 years it does not mean you can live in France for 5 years using said card.[/quote] Quillan - I must have missed it, but is there a link to an official website that says an EHIC is valid only for a three month visit? You asked the same question yourself in an early post on this thread, and idun replied with some information from a UK government website that made no mention of three months. What idun said was his own interpretation: [quote user="idun"] I would only say that a EHIC should be used for a maximum of 3 months and then as one is properly a french resident, then french rules should come into force[/quote] I'm interested in this - and it is something quite separate from the "Trial Emigration" issue - as I know at least one retired UK-resident couple who visit their house near me in France for a good four or five month stay each year. They like the summer weather. They don't take out medical insurance each year, as far as I know (and I think I would know if they did).

[quote user="Pommier"]They've got to tell the UK school to avoid prosecution, the school presumably notify the relevant government department.[/quote] The school doesn't. Personal experience - well, my daughter's anyway.

Thanks ET - that's helpful. I do wonder if it is the same form for Child Benefits, but I accept that it might be. I would take issue with the view that "you can't decide off your own bat that you're going to pay NICs. It's up to them to decide whether you're entitled to or not". I don't think that's right. Mostly the UK system nowadays depends on just that - after all, it's called "Self Assessment" and you wouldn't get very far if you said you were waiting for HMRC to decide whether you had to pay or not.

[quote user="EuroTrash"]Phone him on his mobile. Most artisans mean well but have too much work and tend to give priority to the clients that hassle them every day. If you're away most of the time and rarely hassle him, he'll not see you as a priority and you'll stay at the back of the queue. One email or text in a blue moon is very easy to ignore when there are other people who phone you every few days.[/quote] ET - I'm not, well, not entirely, trying to trip you up, but how does this post about "most artisans" having "too much work" square with this post of yours: [quote user="EuroTrash"]But bearing in mind that unemployment in most of France is far higher than in most of the UK, and that it's far harder for newly arrived foreigners to get a job than French jobseekers, I think he's in cloud cuckoo land if he thinks he stands more of a chance finding work in France than he would in the UK. [/quote] After all, insulating a roof internally and putting up plasterboard on a ceiling isn't exactly rocket science - I've even done it myself recently, despite having worked in an office job for thirty-five years. Isn't it the kind of thing that a newly arrived foreigner could do as easily as someone from France?

[quote user="EuroTrash"].... Of course it means what it says. If you earn most of your income/work most of your working hours in the UK, either for yourself or for an employer, and you and/or your family live abroad, you can apply to remain in the UK social security system.... [/quote] ET - that isn't quite what the official UK website says - but maybe it's a simplified version on there. I don't see anything about "having an established record of self-employment" or "earning most of your income" or "working most of your working hours in the UK", and as far as the latter at least is concerned I really don't see how it could be compatible with "having your children living with you within the EEA". Of course if you earn comparatively little in the EU country where you live it might just be possible to earn most of your income in the UK, but what it actually says there is just this: "You must pay National Insurance in the UK". Would you have a link to the forms that have to be filled in?

Thanks very much for the comment about broadband, Kathy. Definitely something to consider. I don't know whether other people have followed the links on Child Benefit and noticed that - surprise, surprise - there are different and more generous rules for Civil Servants working abroad? I wonder who drew the rules up? But I also saw that it says quite clearly that you can continue to claim Child Benefit it if you are living with your children in an EU country and are paying NI contributions as a self-employed person. As the Class 2 rate is only a couple of pounds a week I'd say that was a bargain for someone in the Foaf's position. What it says on the official website is this: You can get Child Benefit for children living with you within the EEA or Switzerland. You must pay National Insurance in the UK (ie you’re employed or self-employed) or .... Perhaps it doesn't really mean what it says - again, has anyone actually claimed Child Benefit like this?

[quote user="idun"] Araucaria, you never said how your daughter and family had health care in France either, I did ask. If she kept her UK home then it would just be a long holiday and she would be covered with an EHIC.  Still, oncerning these people you know, to me it feels like you just want us all to say what these people will want to hear and I am not going to do that, and others haven't too. I'm not perfect, I get things wrong in life and have probably done things I shouldn't have done. But as we are not a lucky family and IF things can go really wrong then they tend to, I do try and keep within the boundaries set by various governments in the countries in which 'I CHOSE TO LIVE'! It is respect for that country and it's people, and when can such respect be a bad thing. And tax, well that is as far as I am concerned the least of the issues this couple has to deal with. [/quote] Idun - I think the question of needing medical care simply didn't arise for my daughter: six months isn't all that long. They didn't take out any insurance other than assurance scolaire which the school required, if that was what you wanted to hear. If they'd had some kind of serious illness they might have been able to go straight back to the UK for long-term care. But no, I don't want people here to say just what I want to hear (though that would be nice). What I asked for was advice about practical issues, and I might say now that would be the issues that actually arise rather than the theoretical ones you'd have if you tried to dot every i and cross every t. I think only one person so far has given an example of a problem in practice, and that was being caught by the rules for Family Allowances - mentioned by HoneySuckleDreams - but the thousands of pounds HSD mentioned would take quite a while to notch up as the current rate of Child Benefit for two children is less than £1800 per annum. How did they get spotted and prosecuted, HSD? I hope my friends don't sound like the Daily Mail's nightmare benefit scroungers. Yes, they'd be getting free education in France rather than the UK, but the village school (the one opposite their ruin) is undersubscribed and the local people would welcome one or two more children in the school, to keep the numbers up and protect the school a little from being closed or merged. They'd have their healthcare paid for by the UK government. They'd probably qualify for very little in the way of cash benefits while looking for work in the UK, and other than (UK) Child Benefit, they wouldn't expect to claim any. They'd get nothing in France. If anyone would like to suggest how they could take advantage of the system, well they can post here publicly or PM me, but I don't think they expected to do so, and I think neither they nor I would know how to start.