frexpt

It's an advantage to have a recommendation. In all the years we have been in France, I have lost count of the number of "rip-off merchant" tradesmen (Brits & French) who have tried it on.

All I want is someone to repair my machine. I couldn't give a flying f*** what he calls himself.

That's very helpful.....

Our 6 year old Siemens washer / drier seems to have a wonky bearing. Does anyone know of an appliance engineer, preferable Deux Sevres? Thanks

Just bought an adapted 2003 car for our disabled son, brought it over last week and had it checked out by our local garage, who are as good as gold. They did a mini service gave it a clean bill of health. Son then set off for music festival in Slovenia on Friday. Got as far as Lyon (500kms) and the car died, after running hot. Father (me), rather stupidly had forgotten to add breakdown cover to the insurance we arranged and the local dépanneur who rescued him from the centre of Lyon has charged him 800€ for the privilege of driving him around trying to find a repairer and car hire place on an August Saturday. I wasn't aware of this until later and have a French friend on the case of this shyster. Nevertheless, the moral in future is, for me, remember to add the breakdown cover, no matter what the age of the car. I will investigate the German company tomorrow.

I do realise that I am being unrealistically optimistic here and no doubt the French bureaucratic monster will throw up a few difficulties and additional costs along the line.

It should do. I am aware of a number of these vehicles on French plates. There is one on Leboncoin at the moment. https://www.leboncoin.fr/voitures/1157994096.htm?ca=20_s

LHD from the UK, as a third of the price of the couple that have been for sale in France. No problem actually. DREAL is the body responsible for the immatriculation and they have been ever so helpful in doing this. Fiat has taken on responsibility for Chrysler / Dodge in Europe and their French Customer Services and Homogolation department are producing the necessary certificates.

For anyone else in this position, it appears that Mutuelle de Poitiers will do this.

Had 600€ debited from our account last month by Europcar / Enterprise, as payment for a minor scrape, even though we had taken the additional insurance to cover any excess....and that was on top of the 250€ deposit. Lodged complaints through both UK and French offices and despite being told that the mistake was being rectified immediately, it has taken 6 weeks of constant nagging to get the money back. This follows on from Cargo (van hire) debiting 1000€ "in error" when they took a card swipe security deposit a couple of years ago. I was told that the agent didn't fully understand how to use the card machine.....no apology offered.

I have also posted this in the Disabilities Forum, as unsure which to use. My son (wheelchair user) has just bought a Dodge Braun Entervan and I am not sure whether there are any insurance companies in France that specialise in cover for such vehicles. This is a vehicle with power doors and ramp to allow wheelchair access. This is not a modification, they are manufactured with these features. Otherwise, it is a pretty standard Chrysler Grand Voyager.

My son (wheelchair user) has just bought a Dodge Braun Entervan and I am not sure whether there are any insurance companies in France that specialise in cover for such vehicles. This is a vehicle with power doors and ramp to allow wheelchair access. This is not a modification, they are manufactured with these features. Otherwise, it is a pretty standard Chrysler Grand Voyager.

I have sent you a PM

I suppose that they will get around to asking for them eventually.

An update....... Have now received immatriculation references and refunds have been made into our account for the feuilles de soins we left with CPAM, so it doesn't look like translated documents will be needed. We haven't received the actual Cartes Vitales yet and in fact have not been asked for photos. I wonder if the electronic ones on our passports and driving licences will be used?

All sorted out. ExpressVPN works with the Livebox, but a configuration with a second router is needed, as juswunderin suggested.

Yes, we had to do a manual NOVA application to move ours back. That vehicle had been purchased from a UK LHD dealer, even though it was originally and continuously registered in France.

We've recently moved a car back and simply got it UK legal, MOT'd, sent the docs to DVLA and they did the rest.

A valid point for sure, but whether the BBC actually can justifiably commit the resources to a prolonged game of "Whack a Mole" with the VPN providers and other unblocking systems is another matter altogether.

Thanks, looks interesting. Presumably the peconfguration is for their own VPN service. There is a particular reason for using ExpressVPN, but a sub-router arrangement is something I wasn't aware of.

Apparently we need a Livebox Pro to be able to configure a VPN at router point, which is what we are trying to achieve. Even then, it looks a bit hit and miss, but that's Orange for you!

Okay....took all of our S1's and other papers into CPAM in Niort and "tout est bon". No mention of translations, but neither did the agent didn't want the proof of our residence that we had taken. I have a feeling that there may be further requirements when we hear from them in two or three weeks. Will report further!

It could well be that your smart TV is the older type that only has a web browser, not the pre-loaded technology to access Netflix, iPlayer etc. In that case, you will need something like an Amazon Firestick to do the job. That is the case with one of our Samsungs and we have also a subscription with www.Unlocator.com that unlocks all of the UK main channel players and a host of other things. It is struggling with US Netflix at present as are most location-masking systems. Th eonly one that I understand works consistently is www.ExpressVPN.com but that would need to be set up on your router. I have started a thread elsewhere about this, as I don't think it will work with our Orange Livebox.

I think you are right. I am going into CPAM tomorrow to give them what we have. My understanding is that they will accept the certs in their original form, but may ask for translations in due course. Since my original post, I have seen something to the effect that translated documents should not be requested for persons born in fellow EU countries, but we shall see!

Does anyone know whether it is (still) necessary to provide officially translated UK birth and marriage certs for a Carte Vitale application? There appears to be contradictory information floating around. I have also been told that the UK might have raised some sort of an official challenge to the French stance, but I cannot find anything further.