Another daft stupid program - A Dream Home in Normandy

[Iceni]

I really cannot type for laughing. We are watching A Dream Home Abroad on C5 Friday 8:00 to 9:00 GMT based in Normandy.

Every mistake that it is possible to make they are making and I am sure that if they put their mind to it they could make a bigger rear end of it. A French builder allows them to start work without any planning permission etc etc. I know that most of this is staged but it is all blamed on the French, red tape, the fact that the French cannot speak English - do I need to go on.

No plans, no organisation and no UK house sale - what more do you need to make a TV program - and of course nothing is their fault, blame it on the Frogs.

They expected a full house renovation and grenier conversion in 8 weeks including planning etc - and the commentator is complaining that the French don't do a 'proper job' as they only plaster the plasterboard joints, they don't plaster the whole wall - they skimp.

I have really had a good time watching this, I am sure the true story cannot be anywhere as bad as this program makes out and can anyone really be this naive or would the truth not make good TV?

[Russethouse]

I've got that on too - I'm just wondering if the couple are forum members ?

They seem completley unable to say 'no' to their builder, or complain

OK - now seen the end of the program, there must have been a hell of a lot on the cutting room floor ! How did they get to the nearly finished house, from where they were, just 5 minutes before the end ?

[Dave&Olive]

and for £55000, £5000 over budget dream land.

[Iceni]

[quote]and for £55000, £5000 over budget dream land.[/quote]

John, an accountant in a previous non renovation life nearly fell of the settee laughing (or was it the wine?), he thinks that once again someone it telling porkies - can they let us know the name of the project manager and they can come and do our renovation for a similar pro-rata budget.

What I don't understand (living in a renovation project for 16 months) is how a builder/plumber or anyone on site gets away with doing what they want and not what you want, then don't put it right and then you have to pay for it? Not how it works here.

Again it looked like no business plan, no cost benefit ratio for rooms etc that are going to be let out. He was a business man and I would doubt that someone who has run a successful business in the UK would go into this without using the same cost techniques - they just omitted to show any of this - again a program made for effect and not reality. Lets hope the punters keep coming and the B&B bubble keeps on growing, I am sure Miki would have a view on this but he is probably far too busy to watch TV .

[Cat]

I watched it too, and so did my french friend (who is an immobilier here in france).

We simply could not believe what we were being shown (fed???). It might make compelling viewing, but I'm certain that if all had gone smoothly with the project then it would never have made it to our tv screens.

And did I get it wrong, or were they really charged 1,300 euros for that plastic shower?  Have they never visited a DIY shop here it france, what a rip-off.

As for the house sale falling through back in england, my immobilier friend says that this is the bane of his life, and hates having to put in a clause suspensive for this, as they fall through so often.  He also says that permission is definitely needed in order to put in a new "opening" (the velux windows) and that dear old Didier the builder would have known this, but that it is apparently fairly common in rural areas to assume that no-one will notice and just to get on with it.

Ho hum

[Russethouse]

I thought €2000 for a room with no access, that was Didiers idea, that they didn't want, was rather eccentric to say the least !

Noticed for a B & B, there didn't seem to be any en suites. As I have said on another thread, that would mean that we wouldn't consider it at all, and I don't think we are the oly ones.

However, the rooms that were finished were very nicely done, but £5000 over budget ??? I'd be amazed !

[Diana]

We also thought the £50,000 +£5 to be totally unrealistic. My husband spotted on one of the workmens vans the town address of Montbourg, which is about 8 miles north of us. I have to say every single french artisan we have employed has started on time, finished on time and always within budget, the rewiring was actually less than the quote and the work done to the highest standard. Didier sounded more like some of the Brits working on the black in these parts who hope you don't know the french way of doing things, ie planning permission and paying your tax etc. They promise the earth, take your money and then you find you have fallen foul of the law and they just shrug their shoulders and and say they were unaware and more on to their next victims.

Diana

[Quillan]

Now I know we have seen a lot of this type of thing before and discussed it many times on the forum and it is somewhat typical of quite a few peoples experience if only they would admit it. But, I don’t know if I watched a different program or what, perhaps we were all laughing so much as to miss a few points and/or got them wrong. The first point is that the barn conversion was totally separate and the bloke was doing it himself although not a builder (I would love to see how he gets on with that!). He was waiting for planning permission and had allocated around 3 to 4 months for the work. The house was timed at 8 weeks and the builder initially said he could do it in that time frame. I know, we have all heard that one before.

He didn’t know about the permission to make the extra bedrooms in the farm house (or to put the roof windows in which was probably why it was stopped) although his builder did. This seems to be a simple (yet expensive) problem of one thinking the other was doing it, although the builder did put his hand up and say that in the end it was his fault. I noted that no effort was made by the builder to ‘sort it out’ although he should have known about increasing the total habitable space rules (and about permission for the roof windows) and that an architect was required.

As for the builder ‘doing his own thing’ well what can you say. I have seen this done before, total disregard for the client and then tells them ‘but that’s how it’s done in France’. Personally I would not have paid him for the extra work he took on himself to do.

The shower thing, well what can one say? I have bought 2 shower enclosures here in France, a basic square one for just over 100€ and a hydrotherapeutic one for 299€ from Brico Depot. The expensive shower in the program is expensive in reality but no way is it 1,300€ more like 300 or 400€. I hope somebody got the name of the plumber and is telling their friends not to use him.

I would not like to call these people stupid because I don’t think they are but naive yes. I think their biggest problem by far was their inability to speak French other than a few bits out of a phrase book. This again has been discussed in various parts of the forum and basically I think it’s fair to say that if you don’t speak French to a high standard then don’t renovate, it’s a recipe for disaster.

As for the costs, well I don't know as I have never done, nor want to do, a renovation in France so I leave that one to others better qualified to answer. The question is where did he get his price from and if it was the builder and they both signed a devis (estimate) then thats what it cost so to go £5k over seems reasonable. The fact that it perhaps should have cost another £20k or more on top of the original £50k is of no interest if he signed the contracts, that would be down to the builder. This might have something to do with the high priced showers, trying to claw some money back because he (the builder) got the price wrong perhaps?

[Val_2]

We watched and nitpicked too,being inthe same trade and seeing the standard of work being carried out. I could not for the life of me understand the woman wanting to put that damn four poster bed up in a room which hadn't even been decorated yet. No normal builder would have had the time to spend making rooms no one wanted or asked for and as for the owners not saying anything until he had done it,is beyond belief and paying up for it as well! As long as you remember that everything is edited for viewing,it probably took weeks longer than they said and a lot more money was spent so that the whole thing would be very attractive to the viewing public as without more and more doing this sort of thing,there would be none of these programmes.As for that stupid presenter,well he had no idea about building practices in France and was annoying to say the least every time he opened his mouth.

[opas]

We also watched the program. The builder felling the tree did it for us(Mr O trained as an Arborist ...in his youth!) that tree should have beentrimed first...so it doesn`t narrowly miss the house

I also laughed when she made the bed up...in white bedding, and the room not even painted

[David584]

Did my eyes deceive me ? Am I correct in thinking that the four poster was in its original wood patina when they put it up and then white in colour at the end of the programme ?

As for the tree, when I first saw that I uttered words to the efect of OMG and was slightly less profound when the rerun was shown. 
Talk about cutting it fine.

As someone has already said, naivety (sp) appeared to feature a lot here when a little research could/would have saved them a great deal of hassle. But there again, would it have made a TV programme if everything had gone smoothly?

 

 

[Eskenazi]

Slightly off topic but I was interested to hear about the

friend who is an immobilier, hating having to put in

clause suspensives relating to UK house sales. We tried

to do that twice & we told absolutely no way, you

absolutely cannot put that as a reason for a c.s. because

the 2 systems are totally different. We will certainly

give it a try if others have!

[Cat]

On the subject of clauses suspensives (me being the one with the immobilier friend), there is no legal reason why a clause suspensive can't be added for a dependence on sale of another property.  While it is true that they don't do things this way in france in general, you just might be able to find someone to agree to this.  On the whole though, the "once bitten - twice shy" french immobiliers want nothing to do with this clause suspensive, and will simply refuse outright.

In fact, my immob. chum here says he won't be allowing them either from now on!