New rédevance (tax) on septic tank installations.

[Val_2]

Round here the new laws coming into effect from 2005 regarding the installations already of septic tanks and the like,are beginning to take effect. Yesterday a worried lady in the next commune contacted me regarding an official letter from her mairie saying that the new technicien d'assainissement wanted to come and inspect her system which has been installed for over 12 years.She is worried that the grey water from her washing machine and kitchen sink which goes directly into the fosse in the road may cause her problems. This is being called a tax and she is obliged to pay for this visit at a cost of 40€ which to a pensioner living alone is money she had no idea she would be having to shell out. Anyway, my reason for posting this thread is that in this letter it warns her that she must have all the installation and authorisation papers and drawings etc ready for inspection, all the receipts for emptying the tank and anything else connected to it paperwork-wise. Trouble is she has only had one official tank emptying session years back and threw the bill away after five years and then an unofficial one by a local farmer. I've told her not to worry about it and to speak personally with the technician who is a very nice young man and from talking with him previously may be full of practical advice and not really need to bother with all the paperwork. This is the first of these letters that I have seen or heard about and it obviously only affects those households not on mains drainage especially out in the country like this person is. Therefore I suggest you keep all your paperwork handy just in case your local commune demands this visit too,but to call it a tax is a bit off I think especially when the local water company are also in on it. The law they are quoting at the top of the page is from 1999.

[Jackie]

Yes we too had this inspection earlier this year, cost 53 Euros I think but not on the day of the inspection, got the bill in the post later.

The "Nice Young Man" was just that and did want to know where the liquid output from the Fosse Toutes Eaux went. "Not in the ditch" he said. I was able to show him where the outflow went into two filter beds and he was happy with that. No questions were asked about grey water soakaways and I did not raise the subject with him. He was pleased to see the bill from the vindange man which we had done just a few days before and he sniffed about to determine if there were any nasty smells which would upset anyone. Being empty there were none. He seemed quite flexible about things and having peered into all the traps etc gave us a report saying all was well despite the fosse vent being non-standard size.

The point is that I am sure that the inspectors must meet the situation that you describe all the time at the moment and as long as the fosse seems to be working ok they must show some sort of flexibility for this first visit. However when the next inspection come along in three years time I imagine that they would expect folks to have sorted out any minor infractions and that must be worrying for old folk with little money to pay to have things updated. Is there a hardship fund available in the local system?....................John in 79

[JeanS]

I'm new to thus forum.  Having read this info about the new tax, I'm now getting a bit worried. We bought a house in January  - however it appeared that there was a probelm with the fosse septic when we visited in February.  When work was being done to install an additional bathroom, they found a major water leak  plus a crack in the septic tank. We had to have the floor replaced in the dsownstairs bedroom.  I tried to find out if we had any recourse against the previosu owner & the estate agent because they must have known something was amiss - but was told that it would take ages & be costly, so we cut our losses and threw in the towel. We have a quotation for the replacement, because the existing one does not comply with the new laws.  We are still waiting for a ' cetificate' from technican d'assainissement.