Architects des Batiments de France
Discussion
So, I live in a village with a castle.
You need a declaration préalable to buy a different colour of toilet paper round here.
I wanted to paint the horrible brown shutters and front door. Lady from urbansime said "ooh yes, that will be nicer. Lady from Urbanisme gave me the official list of RAL colours we were allowed. We picked closest to what we want and go and have a meeting with the man from the ABF. He goes through everything and says it's all fine. We submit the application. Man from ABF says "No."
What the f
k?
We can contest, and that will be another 6 month wait for another blanket refusal for no reason.
Next place I buy a house I am going to do whatever I want to the house and I am not going to ask permission for anything. I've learned my lesson.
You need a declaration préalable to buy a different colour of toilet paper round here.
I wanted to paint the horrible brown shutters and front door. Lady from urbansime said "ooh yes, that will be nicer. Lady from Urbanisme gave me the official list of RAL colours we were allowed. We picked closest to what we want and go and have a meeting with the man from the ABF. He goes through everything and says it's all fine. We submit the application. Man from ABF says "No."
What the f
k?We can contest, and that will be another 6 month wait for another blanket refusal for no reason.
Next place I buy a house I am going to do whatever I want to the house and I am not going to ask permission for anything. I've learned my lesson.
I have a somewhat amusing coda to this.
When we had our meeting with the ABF man he said all sorts of things which I suspected were bullst but listened to anyway.
For example, we should keep our 60's square steel gateposts as they were more "in keeping" with the 1830's frontage than stone pillars, and especially not stone pillars with capping stones.
We said "but surely stone is the traditional material and nearly every house in France with railings has stone gate pillars?". "Oh no, that's very English. The French would never do that." "Not even if they lived right next door to the fking quarry?" was my unspoken thought in reply.
Then there was the matter of the rendering, which he insisted "should never have been allowed to happen" and so we couldn't do any more.
Fast forward to this year, and we still haven't painted our shutters, but we have bought another house in the village, which has a fully rendered exterior and stone gateposts with capping stones, all done during a renovation in the 1980s.
And the architect who rendered the house and did the stone gateposts? Why? it was the man from the ABF himself!
When we had our meeting with the ABF man he said all sorts of things which I suspected were bulls
t but listened to anyway. For example, we should keep our 60's square steel gateposts as they were more "in keeping" with the 1830's frontage than stone pillars, and especially not stone pillars with capping stones.
We said "but surely stone is the traditional material and nearly every house in France with railings has stone gate pillars?". "Oh no, that's very English. The French would never do that." "Not even if they lived right next door to the f
king quarry?" was my unspoken thought in reply.Then there was the matter of the rendering, which he insisted "should never have been allowed to happen" and so we couldn't do any more.
Fast forward to this year, and we still haven't painted our shutters, but we have bought another house in the village, which has a fully rendered exterior and stone gateposts with capping stones, all done during a renovation in the 1980s.
And the architect who rendered the house and did the stone gateposts? Why? it was the man from the ABF himself!
One of our neighbours wanted to build a stone wall at the end of her yard to prevent the severe flooding she gets every time the river floods. Hers is the only one backing onto the river that doesn't have a wall and so she gets the worst of it.
The commune have refused for years to allow it, citing the fact that she is in a red flood zone and you cannot build walls to change the course of the water in a red zone.
The house in question used to belong to the commune. It was a gite. There used to be a wall there, and they knocked it down to make the view to the river prettier for the gite listing. Some pointing out was done, perhaps quite forcefully, and she now has her wall.
The commune have refused for years to allow it, citing the fact that she is in a red flood zone and you cannot build walls to change the course of the water in a red zone.
The house in question used to belong to the commune. It was a gite. There used to be a wall there, and they knocked it down to make the view to the river prettier for the gite listing. Some pointing out was done, perhaps quite forcefully, and she now has her wall.
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