A Mine of Information

[Gardian]

One sees a lot of questions on this Forum which are patiently and comprehensively answered by others.

May I strongly recommend a couple of books, which for £12 or so each, would really help anybody seriously thinking about making a move out here.

Buying a Home in France by David Hampshire, published by Survival Books

               and

Living and Working in France (same author & publisher)

Both are readily available from the likes of Ottakars / Waterstones and almost certainly online from Amazon.

There's a bit of overlap and duplication across the 2 books, but for £25, you get loads of useful information. Inevitably not as up-to-date or comprehensive than some of the replies to very specific questions on here, but a more than useful start.

I hasten to add that I have no connections with the author / publisher.

 

 

[Cassis]

We got these (and others) when we were planning our move.  Just to confirm Ian's word of caution - due to French regs and rules on just about anything changing more often than a baby's nappy, some bits may be out of date.  But they were very comprehensive and better than several others we bought at the time.

[Russethouse]

I think they are also both available from the Living France bookshop too, however there is always the question of the lead in and publication dates, things do change and its always worth just checking here in addition.

http://shop.livingfrance.com/lvfra/product.asp?mscssid=6GAMLNWPV4HV8M0XV8H0MTFSBV175U6B&dept%5Fid=19&pf%5Fid=F%2FR11

edit: great minds think alike Cassis!

[Cassis]

AAAAAGH!  A giant URL!  [:D]

[Lori]

We have both those books too.  We read them before we arrived, so I'm sure there are more recent publications.  I would add that though we found the books very informative, we did find many discrepancies when we actually got here.  As has been said, things can be so different from one department to the next, one person to the next.  I am glad I read the books, but I would not want anyone to expect things to work exactly as the book states.  It didn't work that way for us.

Still good reading.

 

[Cerise]

I have the books, keep them to hand for the starry eyed guests who insist on trying to buy houses after drunken night out.  However,  do not have a giant URL - should I worry, is it dangerous and how come that Cassis always knows these things?

Think the fact that things change regularly in France is not the problem. However every French fonctionnaire knows the definitive answer to any given question - and he is never going to check whether his definitive answer is the same as anyone else's or whether it agrees with the official answer[:)]

[Miki]

Cerise,

I couldn't have put it better.

One of our early guests some years ago, had what was supposedly the

latest edition. On reading throught it, I spotted a few things that I

myself had thought to be correct, until one day,  a year or two

before, someone at URSSAF and the Prefecture just grimaced and informed

me that it might have been true sometime previously but it most

certainly wasn't at that precise moment ! I do remember thinking it was

similar to one of those Haynes manuals for cars,  in that, if you

don't know anything about cars, the manual was not really much good.

The  book on Living and working in France came out with some nice terms, which

only come to be understood, once you gained some experience !!

[Llantony]

Very true Ian - some people do seem a bit lazy about finding information.

By the way, way do your postings have some words highlighted in blue & double underlined?  It's very distracting and they don't seem to be important words!

Oops, just realised that on other threads lots of posts have this quirk - strange....

[Christine Animal]

Llantony, if you click on those underligned blue words they are probably links to what the person is talking about.

 

[Deimos]

I had both books mentioned when I moved here (plus another from the same author). I found them of limited use. Whilst for some things they were fine, for others they were downright wrong or misleading. Unfortunately the books do not tell you which bits are right and wrong so the entire book(s) become less useful. After a relatively short time in France I gave up on them as I got fed up with going off on "the wrong tack" and found it much easier to ask the appropriate authorities or people (i.e. those who would be making decisions, approving something, being paid for whatever, etc.). When you have limited language capabilities, it often helps to have some idea about things before asking. However, if you have been given the wrong idea from a book, understanding what you are being told is much harder as you keep making wrong assumptions trying to reconcile things with what your book said.

Maybe they are all right and just that some bit are interpreted differently around where I live. I don't know and either way, I found them "unreliable". Thus my personal experience would be to find other sources.

That said, they are relatively cheap and don't take up too much space on a bookshelf.

Ian

[Rob Roy]

Couldn't agree more Ian, although they appeared great to read when in the UK before we arrived - whetted the appetite for the move![:D]

[Gardian]

Quite agree: once you're here, you instinctively know who to talk to, where to go, etc.

But as a start, for those who might be in the very early stages of thinking about a move, then they're worth the money.  Saves asking what is an important question to those folk and what may seem naive to (some of) us. 

[Rob Roy]

And there is nothing like having helpful French neighbours who point you in the right direction[kiss]

[Gardian]

Touche! (sorry - can't remember how to do an accent on the e).

[Tresco]

[quote user="Ian Horn"]

Quite agree: once you're here, you instinctively know who to talk to, where to go, etc.

But as a start, for those who might be in the very early stages of thinking about a move, then they're worth the money.  Saves asking what is an important question to those folk and what may seem naive to (some of) us. 

[/quote]

Ian, I agree with the basic premise of your original post. I bought at least 6 books (possibly more) and they were very useful in terms of familiarising myself with terms/acronyms etc which I now hear (on the forum and in France!) all the time.

Hardly any of these terms (or indeed the books) relate to my life (no child, no job, no business etc etc) but I read the books end to end and some things sunk in. I gave all these books to someone else last year, and said, 'these are just for starters...you can't take any of it as gospel, etc.'

Once I had read all the books, that's when I looked at the forum.

Once I moved here I realised that asking a selection of neighbours would get me quite a long way to where I needed to be, while at the same time giving them desparately needed/desired information about me.[:)].

In the end though, people asking questions, and people posting in resonse, is what makes the forum. I have seen some apparently simple queries turn into mind melting debates. All good stuff.

 

[Philmco]

These books are a bit like a driving licence - once you pass your test you start to learn to drive!

[Mark]

[quote user="Christine Animal"]

Llantony, if you click on those underligned blue words they are probably links to what the person is talking about.

 

[/quote]

Llanthony was my favourite place in Britain until the outsiders discovered it...[:'(]

[Cassis]

Ooh, that's better, the big URLs on the other page now!  [:D]

Our neighbours were pretty poor as a source of information for foreigners wanting to know how things work - they know nothing about CPAM, registering foreign cars, etc.  because they grow up in the system and it enfolds them naturally, unlike someone coming in from outside.  They can probably tell you where the nearest supermarket is and who's the best butcher, but are unlikely to agree on that, either!

[Mark]

Your neighbours are a notorious lynch mob, by the sounds of it, or at least that one fella....[;-)]