Moving country to be self sufficient

[Pumpkin&Piglet]

C O N G R A T U L A T I O N S ! ! ! !

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Here we go!
We are finally leaving this friday. Solictors only let us know yesterday so 3 days of frantic packing ahead!!

Good luck! Whereabout are you headed in France?

[clanpowell]

Here we go!
We are finally leaving this friday. Solictors only let us know yesterday so 3 days of frantic packing ahead!!

Good luck! Whereabout are you headed in France?

Not sure yet. Hopefully Limousin or Poitou Charante but we're are not closing down options at this point. Some nice stuff keeps poping up in Brittany but we're a bit nervous of the the weather for yurts and tepees.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Well, they are all very attractive parts of France, though you're right about the winds up there.

The soil is better in the Poitou Charante - Limousin was one of the hardest places for the peasantry historically. The acid soils tended to make growing stuff more difficult; only chestnuts grew really well and famine was present right up to the end of the 19th Century. Of course, these days we can buy the lime easily enough, but one lasting effect is that Limousin is still very sparsely populated. This can, of course, be quite desirable if one is looking for a tranquil lifestyle, but it does mean a lot of "dead" villages, long journeys to school/shops and finding doctors / dentists can be difficult away from the larger towns. But the scenery is lovely.

Good luck with your search!

[contadina]

Whilst taking a rather meandering route to Italy I stayed at a couple of camping a la ferme places in Limousin (and many other parts of France) and the husband and I decided that if we couldn't find anything within our budget in Italy we would return to look in Limousin instead. Of all the places we visited in France Limousin seemed to have more small-holdings rather than the monster-sized farms you see in much of France.

[clanpowell]

OK. We did it.wwe went out to the Correze last week and started to buy a house. All the usual French red tape to come I expect but so far it's been disconcertingly simple, especially as we're cash buyers and the look on the vendors face when we told him we wanted to live in it not have it as a holiday home was priceless! He promptly agreed to show us around the house again to show us all the little quirks and confirm all the questions we had. He's even going to meet me at the rugby club to help me sign up and take me on a tour of the surrounding woods to show me his favourite cep spots!
And the next questions are woodburners. Best place to get them and will I be able to install it myself?

[bill1953]

Good luck I am sure you will do well.

[Pumpkin&Piglet]

Well done to you both, can't wait to see it all - there's a recent thread on here about woodburners

[The Riff-Raff Element]

OK. We did it.wwe went out to the Correze last week and started to buy a house. All the usual French red tape to come I expect but so far it's been disconcertingly simple, especially as we're cash buyers and the look on the vendors face when we told him we wanted to live in it not have it as a holiday home was priceless! He promptly agreed to show us around the house again to show us all the little quirks and confirm all the questions we had. He's even going to meet me at the rugby club to help me sign up and take me on a tour of the surrounding woods to show me his favourite cep spots!
And the next questions are woodburners. Best place to get them and will I be able to install it myself?

Congratulations! French bureaucracy isn't much worse than UK, just that the rules are different, which is more disconcerting than anything else.

Are you buying through an agent or are you going direct and just having the notaire involved? If the latter, you may want to get a translator involved to ensure that there are no mysterious rights of way or hidden tenants lurking around the place. Reckon on about three months for the transaction as there are various bodies that need to be contacted to check there's not any outstanding mortgages and so forth on the property. We've bought three houses in France. I'm no expert, but I might be able to answer some questions.

Woodburners: somewhere in a town near you there will be a showroom selling poeles à bois. These places will offer a full fitting service. Your local plumber should also be able to order and fit one for you, which might be slightly cheaper. Ask about tax breaks on this: when we fitted our Godin stove in the kitchen we got 50% of the material & stove cost back as a tax credit, but as part of that deal you must be completing a tax return in France and the fitting must be done by a professional. The percantage may be different now, but woodburners count as renewable energy, hence the credit.

Alternatively you can get woodburners at your local bricolage store. They'll probably deliver it, but fitting will be for you to arrange. Again, there should be a credit if done professionally. Finally, you can try the website http://www.leboincoin.fr which carries online ads for just about evrything. I piucked up an Invicta woodburner - new and unsed - for half the catalouge price just before Christmas. Of course, I had to literally go and pick it up too, which is the limitation with le bon coin.

Fitting costs somewhere between 700 and 1500 Euros. It can be done DIY, but you need to make sure the fitting conforms to the norms or your house insurance could be invalid. This might require inspection for which you will have to pay.

Good luck with the purchase!

[123sologne]

Well, this our turn to go, finally...
It has been a long time since I posted here as we have been so busy with our little lives. I re-read my post from 2010 about us moving back to France and planning to do it in 2012...
Well actually we brought the all thing forward to 2011 and put the house for sale in April last year. The fact is, my dad is alone down there and needed us to get there faster.
Well after 2 sales fallen through we finally exchanged on 24th Feb and we will be leaving the UK on 23rd March , nearly 11 months after we 1st put the house for sale!
Bizarre how finally our move is happening in 2012 as we 1st wanted to do it, back in 2010...
But I was so right to want to move back quicker for dad as he is currently in hospital not doing well at all!
What a journey it has been!
At least we don't have to worry about where we are going to, but while part of me is happy, part of me is also very sad with dad in hospital.
Also, I am starting to worry about paper work... Could I ask how the ishers who moved to France organized themselves for the likes of car insurances? Can we keep our UK insurance to cover our car for a little longer once in France or do we need to apply for French one urgently? But if we need a car insurance urgently, we do need to change our number plates 1st, don't we?
I am already so confused!!!

[Millymollymandy]

Congrats both of you! Sorry about your dad 123 Sologne. Sorry I can't help with the car insurance as we didn't move here from the UK and my husband had a company car at the time! I do know that you have a certain amount of time to reregister your car here and get a Carte Grise for it, which is when you change the number plates, so you would need to organise your insurance first I guess.

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Also, I am starting to worry about paper work... Could I ask how the ishers who moved to France organized themselves for the likes of car insurances? Can we keep our UK insurance to cover our car for a little longer once in France or do we need to apply for French one urgently? But if we need a car insurance urgently, we do need to change our number plates 1st, don't we?
I am already so confused!!!

I think (as I recall - it has been a few years) that you need to sort out the insurance ASAP since your UK address may very quickly become not your address. Your UK insurer may give you some grace, but I'd phone them to make sure of where you stand.

Insurance is easy enough to arrange - we just walked in off the street with our (UK) licences and an EDF bill and were set up in about 20 minutes. We couldn't carry our no claims over though, but I wasn't expecting to be able to. Our insurer was happy to insure on UK plates provided that we re-registered within three months. You'll see UK registered tax expired cars with the little green vignette in the windscreen all over the place. How they get the insurance I don't know, but I do know that if they ever claim they suddenly find - whoops - no insurance. Quite often these cars don't have a CT either.

A lot of Brits hang onto their UK licences claiming that they don't need to change them. Again this is all well and good - and the gendarmerie won't make a sond & dance about this either - until they have an accident and - oh dear - address on licence not the same as on other docs and the insurer just wriggles out of the claim. Seen that a couple of times now.

[123sologne]

Not sleeping well, so here I am checking this post at 2.30 am....
Many thanks, MMM and Riff Raff. We have a redirection on our mail for the next 3 months after we leave on 23rd March, so maybe that would at least cover us for the next 3 months with our UK insurance as my husband thinks (the insurance would not know that we moved and we do have European cover...), but as I am with Aviva I was thinking of contacting them to see if they would cover me on the other side, as I am pretty sure they do insurance in France too... But maybe as you said we should just contact an insurance company when we arrive and get it moving as soon as. However the house where we are moving too, is not under my name but my dad's name, so I am not sure about the EDF bill.... We will definitely sort out our driving licenses as I agree with you Riff Raff, do not give any good reason for Insurance companies to wiggle out of paying for an accident just for some bits of paper.

[Millymollymandy]

It's kind of funny, you're French and here are us anglais giving you advice on living in France.... I'm quite out of touch with how 'things' work in the UK these days too so I'd need advice if I was moving back there!

[The Riff-Raff Element]

It's kind of funny, you're French and here are us anglais giving you advice on living in France.... I'm quite out of touch with how 'things' work in the UK these days too so I'd need advice if I was moving back there!

Ditto. I suppose I'd find out things quickly enough 'cos I'd have some idea about how to go about asking, but I feel oddly foreign on my rare visits to the UK.