can't stand this place anymore

[Perik Omo]

Plus the fact that an SCI is effectively a private company with no income so it's impossible to mortgage or get a loan against. It would mean the each shareholder would have to try and get a loan which for us is not possible with such a low income and certainly not possible for the other two shareholders who are in New Zealand and having a hard time as it is.

It's all made worse by the valuation of the property which is now valued at a smidgin over half what it was valued at in 2010 by the same agents so spending a minimum of €20k whether now or after the sale would be a huge problem and leave us with very little money to buy anything in the UK . This only all started because my wife has started to miss the grandchildren and wants to move back to be near them before they get too old and won't want to know their grandparents. The other three grandchildren are in New Zealand and my wife has had enough and is so fed up she's decided to go to NZ for 6 weeks and leaves on Monday. Personally, even with all the problems, I have no desire to move back to the UK and quite enjoy my life here which in itself is starting to cause a rift

[Alex]

chris watton said:

At least here in the UK, you are not taxed on every single Euro you earn, whether you're paid 5K Euro or 500k!

Actually, in the UK if you earn over £160k you ARE taxed on every pound you earn.

[magooagain]

Perilk I don't think banks will loan on a principal residence. As by law they can't reposes your home. I stand to be corrected there. But I was told by my bank(credit Agricole) when I applied for a mortgage on a second property to renovate and rent out.
I got the loan on both mine and my wife's income.

As regard your lake problem,. What would happen if there was a catastrophe with the fish in your and the neighboring lakes???? !!

I hope it works out ok for you. I am not to far from you if I can help atall.

[Perik Omo]

Hi magooagain,

Thanks for the offer, I'm actually here alone for the next 6 weeks so if you want to pop over for an espresso and a natter any time you'd be welcome!!!

I'm very near to Chalus and just off the N21.

[Russwhitehouse]

This man needs some support for fks sake! I am at the other end of France, but surely there must be someone nearer!

[magooagain]

Perik Omo said:

Hi magooagain,

Thanks for the offer, I'm actually here alone for the next 6 weeks so if you want to pop over for an espresso and a natter any time you'd be welcome!!!

I'm very near to Chalus and just off the N21.

Thanks.Im stuck working in Belgium for another two weeks but will give you a shout if I get the chance when I get back.

[Expatloon]

It's bad planning and lack of forethought which causes things like the arrival of children to make you want to move back to UK, if you've got children the chances are extremely high that they sooner or later they're going to pop some out.

You can't blame France or the French for that !

[smifffymoto]

Can it not be done like fosses are ie. get a quote and nock it of the final sale price and it is then up to the buyer too comply?

[Russwhitehouse]

Expatloon said:

It's bad planning and lack of forethought which causes things like the arrival of children to make you want to move back to UK, if you've got children the chances are extremely high that they sooner or later they're going to pop some out.

You can't blame France or the French for that !


Errrr...........not sure I follow your thinking there in relation to lakes?..........care to elaborate?

[rdjohn]

Expatloon said:

It's bad planning and lack of forethought which causes things like the arrival of children to make you want to move back to UK, if you've got children the chances are extremely high that they sooner or later they're going to pop some out.

You can't blame France or the French for that !

Do I need to smoke something or pop a pill to decode this post?

OP wait for Magooagain, I am sure he will offer some sound advice.

Good luck, it is this sort of stuff that really scares me about France.

[Le Pop]

smifffymoto said:

Can it not be done like fosses are ie. get a quote and nock it of the final sale price and it is then up to the buyer too comply?

Seems fair, but it wouldnt surprise if this was not the case....

[Fatt McMissile]

Here's a couple of links, unfortunately not for your department Perik, but they may generate some ideas. The first is regarding subventions, grants for owners of lakes. The second deals with the costs and possibilities of bringing lakes up to standard or draining the lake and restoring the original land.
http://www.correze.fr/fileadmin/user_upload/Correz...
http://www.eau-loire-bretagne.fr/les_rendez-vous_d...

To lower costs, could you drain the lake over a longish period simply by making sure more water exits than enters, give away the fish, then remove the dam?

Moving the goalposts is not a particularly French occupation, as anyone who has been in business in the UK will tell you. Unfortunately and sadly the results of pressures brought by environmentalists, politicians, and bureaucrats, all of whom are likely well insulated from the effects of their actions, end up as great difficulties and personal grief for individuals.
Few of us can claim that we didn't make some misjudgements when we moved to France, that's pretty obvious from this thread and you're not alone.
Steve

[Perik Omo]

Thanks for the in Fatt, I'll have a read of those. I'm putting this on the back burner for now as my wife is away in NZ for 6 weeks and the friend at the marie is away for the next 5 weeks and I'm going to be quite busy with stuff around the house.

It's been a strange week this week, last Sunday one of the toilets wouldn't stop running so took all the mechanism apart and put it back together and it's OK now but couldn't see why it went wrong.

That night the dishwasher wouldn't start (no water going in) so took it out, emptied it and tipped it on it's side a few times (advice from the web) plugged it back in and it was functioning OK, looks like the anti-flood mechanism kicked in but don't know why!!.

The next afternoon the large upright Bosch freezer (3 years old) suddenly decided to defrost and wouldn't start up, not very useful as we'd just loaded it up with €150 of fresh meat from a farm the day before, found that the compressor wouldn't kick in so unplugged from the mains left for 30 mins and plugged back in and hey presto! it works again (info from the web again), why did it suddenly decide to stop?

The next day the sola water heater control unit failed with an error code, got in touch with the installer who contacted the manufacturer and the error code was a roof panel temperature sensor failure and the installer can't come until next Friday so I took the control unit apart and found one of the wires from the roof panel sensor was crushed and frayed, cut the damaged wire off and re-connected it and it's OK now so it must have been like that since it was installed 8 years ago but only now decided to fail!!

The day after that the letter about the lake arrived.....

I've obviously upset some sort of Karma and it's come back to bite me in the b*m.

[Driller]

I'm totally ranted out with all this stuff right now. No energy left to get angry.

It's turned into a pathetic, defeated, bitter acceptation of the innevitable.

[Blib]

How terrible. I fear that the UK is headed in the same direction. With more and more people employed in creating red tape and laws and restrictions. We are sleepwalking into a similar position.

If one's livelihood depends on controlling the public it is in one's interest to introduce more and more controls.

[Driller]

Things are definitely changing in the UK but I don't think it will ever get anywhere near as bad as this in France.

Here the reasons for all the crap are cultural and historic.

On the upside (blimey!) the inlaws have been around this week and the food has been quite amazing.

I've been ill for several months with unshakeable coughs/colds and have been knackered. It's getting better now so there'll soon be the energy to join in the ranting again

Here's a nice little story illustrating the problems businesses face here:

Voilà pourquoi je n’embaucherai pas Marcel

Edited by Driller on Sunday 1st March 09:09

[lowdrag]

Marçon not far from here; a local makes parpaings, breeze blocks, and has done so for 30 years. He employs 11 people from the village. Things haven't been going so well and unfortunately one of his long term employees is now, after hurting himself at home, classed as an invalid. So the employer is required to pay him 36,000€ as compensation. The result is he's chucked the keys away and filed for bankruptcy, is on the dole with his employees, and there is no work in the area to be found. Totally logical of course.

[Le Pop]

Driller, I hope you don't mind but my French is not good enough to fully understand that article, especially in the fog of a Sunday morning, so I google translated it and attach it below. The translation is full of errors, but you'll get the gist and hopefully it'll save others who perhaps wouldn't have read this excellent piece from missing it:-

"Enjoy" is not the right word....



That is why I will not be hiring Marcel
Published February 4, 2015 in General Economy, Work & Employment

And the problem is that there are five million small artisans in this country not be hiring Marcel ...

By Jacques Clouteau.

My name is Alcide Resets, I spring 53 to the counter of my life. After many years in Australia, I returned a few months ago to take over the small business my father, who was a manufacturer of wheelbarrows. Everyone remembers the famous slogan of the 1960s: "When all the others stop, only Resets wheelbarrow ..."

In late 2014, I developed a new wheelbarrow, lighter and more stable, with which I think to increase my income, which otherwise remain modest. If sales follow, I can not assume sole production and it will take me to hire a companion in the workshop. I had thought of asking Marcel, a brave guy of the village and just looking for work. But knowing nothing with French law, as long as I stayed away from the country, I spoke with artisans friends, I went to the chamber of trades, I consulted the Internet, and I'll explain why I n ' will hire not Marcel.

I thought to give Marcel € 100 per day, he makes me four wheelbarrows. Finally I can build four, because I do not count my hours. But I learned that a law prohibiting an employee to work more than seven hours. So I do not understand why Marcel, working less than me, and therefore producing less, more gain than me without any liability.

That is why I will not be hiring Marcel, because, you see, I am manufacturer of wheelbarrows, no philanthropist.

These 100 daily euros, I intended to give him every Friday night at the end of the work week, as did my father once, or 500 euros all round if he worked from Monday to Friday and 400 euros if the week has a holiday. But I learned that now you had to pay employees each month, which is totally stupid because everyone knows, the month does not have the same number of days and public holidays are sown ... It ' Perhaps not the fault of Marcel, but in any case not mine. I do not see why I would give him the same amount in February than in January because my father always taught me that any wage must first match a job.

That is why I will not be hiring Marcel, because, you see, I am manufacturer of wheelbarrows, not a bank responsible for compensating the bumps of the calendar.

I also believed that it was enough to give him this money and declare to tax, to be in good standing with the law. But I learned that he had to write a newsletter, with two dozen lines, and take Marcel on the money I owe him a certain percentage, to go give it to a group of divers from various agencies to exotic names: Urssaf, job center, etc. Of the 500 euros weekly that I intended to give Marcel once served these organizations, he will remain less than half. I objected then, he could not live. They said that although he would not live much at all, but as it was against insured against all accidents of life: illness, old age, finger cuts, maternity (for those who do not followed, Marcel is a male ...), unemployment, the small and the great pox (the little that is standard, but it's great supplement), the Spanish flu, and even death ...

So I said it was all silly, since Marcel could very well make himself for what he wanted and that his privacy was not looking at me. Also his grandfather owns this beautiful vineyard, so it will never be in need in the event of unemployment as it soon will inherit the vineyard. In addition, his grandmother will bequeath him two or three houses that will rent, so make contributions for retirement will not help. And contribute to the death means nothing since it is not single and if he dies he cannot touch the money.

And finally I argued that I thoroughly understand any of their papers and I had other things to do at night, after assembling my four wheelbarrows as filling out paper and write checks for risks that concern me no. Wickedly was told that it was like that solidarity in France since the war and it was no different, and that if I did not pay all that you drag me in a court of justice and take me the money force.

That is why I will not be hiring Marcel, because, you see, I am manufacturer of wheelbarrows, not scribbler and redistributor of money. And that night, I need to rest. And that, for giving a job to someone from my village, I do not want to run the risk of ending up in court.

However, I asked what would happen if I was crazy enough to take care of these problems, if Marcel would be immobilized by a sudden back pain after riveted throughout the day. With such amount of dues, I had no doubt that Marcel was pampered like a prince, and that such insurance would provide me a pronto Marcel bis to continue the work. They explained to me that Marcel would receive 80% of his salary, since it was not his fault that he had no income, but I, for cons, I would provide the remaining 20%, or almost 300 per months until the Rhône flows into the Euphrates, in the name of a mysterious agreement signed by a very old occult sect called social partners. I objected that if Marcel had low back pain, it was not my fault either and that his insurance had only to deal (it's also way it used to, insurance ...) . And if I were to build more wheelbarrows to pay these 300 euros, it is I who have the spine to the dogs. It snapped me that I would get nothing at all, as the backbone of a boss, it was his problem and not that of national solidarity.

That is why I will not be hiring Marcel, because, you see, I am manufacturer of wheelbarrows, no insurer or reinsurer. And if I work, like most people, it's for me and my family, and not for others.

I also worried about what I would do if my wheelbarrows Marcel is no longer selling one day and if I have to separate myself from him. I was then printed by a document describing the dismissal procedure menu. I read it three times before giving up. I just realized that Marcel would be paid to do nothing a number of months, and the money to pay for doing nothing would come out of my pocket, even though I would not have receipts. And to spice up the sauce, I would have to pay him severance pay, when the company would have more money, and I empty pockets and more work ...

I objected that if customers do not want my wheelbarrow, it's pretty darn not my fault, and if they do not buy them anymore, so I'm out of cash, so I do not see, except to dip into my savings, how I could pay Marcel, who no longer manufactured, with money I do not have. I was replied that a contract is a contract, and I have to respect it and a boss has to provide its employees a minimum of security. What I said does not understand how I could provide security to Marcel that I would never ... I also susurrais them that if I wanted to hire Marcel, was to give him a job, not to make it a salary ...

That is why I will not be hiring Marcel, because, you see, I am manufacturer of wheelbarrows, not social nanny.

A gentleman claiming controller work with hands too white to really know what the job, came to visit my father's workshop. He pushed jackdaws cries horny in front of the stamper, screaming that she was not up to standard, and that if I were an employee in front of this machine, I would go to jail. I replied that my father had worked 40 years on this venerable machine and it was only died too old. In any case I did not have the first dime to acquire a new stamper, and there were a thousand other ways to get hurt in a shop than go to get their hands on the damn machine.

That is why I will not be hiring Marcel, because, you see, I am manufacturer of wheelbarrows, no guardian angel.

Then one day, a few months after my return to France, a nice letter told me that I would have, too, giving more than half of my profit, after paying Marcel, to benefit from social protection against a mountain of calamities (legal curious lapse that makes you "benefit" of various things with your own benefit ...). I declined the invitation, since I had during my life in the Pacific, saved enough to be safe. They said that the protection, in the sweet land of France, was not a personal option, but mandatory, under penalty of the worst financial penalties and even jail.

That's why I will probably not go now, so why do not I will hire Marcel, because, you see, I am manufacturer of wheelbarrows, not a safe which will draw people I know not guarantee me things I did not need.

At that moment my thoughts on the future of this small family business, I watched the look of the buildings where créchaient those people who wanted my skin, I found sad and ugly. I looked at the head of the employees of these bureaucratic machines to which I was speaking, I found depressed and depressing. I looked at the prints that I had received, I found unreadable and incomprehensible. And I thought of my grandfather and my father, proud of their wheelbarrows and happy to satisfy their customers. I thought about the dream I had, returning to France, to find this simple happiness for ten years, before tasting the joys of angling. I wondered for what strange reason I would die behind me to support this army of parasites and maintain a system that is the absolute opposite of my most sacred values. Because, you see, the work has always been synonymous with happiness for me. And this happiness, all these organizations have made it a prison ...

The problem in all this is that we are five million small artisans in this country not be hiring ... It's Marcel nerd, is not it ... But after all is it really a problem? Do not hire Marcel, that will make a lot of work for the social workers, the pôlemployistes, distributors minimum income, and of course Chinese wheelbarrows manufacturers ... And France, to Australia, still go a little more in the last Communist countries of Western Europe.

As for Marcel, he will wonder long why I have not hired. He will find quite a few good souls whisper to him that the bosses are all the same, they prefer to sweeten the pill in the Pacific than to play a social role in France solidarity. I never wanted to play social, me, because, you see, I'm a single manufacturer wheelbarrows ... And the others up there, officials who know everything about everything while n ' have never worked all their lives (in the sense that my father heard the word "work"), they will wonder why I'm long gone. No time to explain ... If Tray + 20 they still have not understood, it is definitely too late ...

In a few days I'll stop riveting wheelbarrows and I'm going back in the Australian bush. I'll close the door of the old workshop, which sustains my family for two generations, and throw the key into the river. I still love this country where I was born, but I have not the courage to learn to become as dopey as those who run today.

[crossy67]

This popped up on my FB page, like her or loath her the giff is very true especially here.

[jammy_basturd]

Perik Omo: You said the regularisation of the lake only becomes a problem once you put the property up for sale. Could you not rent the property then, and move back to the UK and rent a property here?

Wait a few years for the French property market to recover before selling up?