Foreign Perspectives

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

When we kicked off with the French taxation system we were constantly getting letters saying that we hadn’t paid this or that in time. Most of the time the initial demand for the money arrived in the same post that the reminder did and frequently the initial demand arrived a week after the reminder.

So, we started moving some things onto direct debit. Major mistake.

Even if you tell the authorities that their calculations are in error, they just collect on the direct debit. So, this year when they have calculated that we made EUR 155,000 the direct debits are a major joke. You’d think that the bank wouldn’t pay out on a direct debit that was going to put you thousands into the red but that’s not the case.

Anyway, we’re off to the bank tomorrow to attempt to cancel several of them. At least with the cheques we knew that they couldn’t take the money out.

Of course, that’ll no doubt require an appointment with our “banking counsellor” which might mean a delay of some weeks.

Popularity: 14% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

We were a little bit optimistic about how long it would take to do everything this morning but managed to be driving away from the dealership around 3pm which was pretty good going on the whole.

As you might expect, Credit Agricole was the worst. It took almost an entire hour from when we went in the door until we walked out with the bank cheque. That was with only two people in front of us too!

We dropped off the hire car next before heading over to organise the insurance at MAAF. Funnily enough, it turned out to be somewhat easier to do than it was doing the whole lot in English had been for the Alto. We’ve to get a statement from the old insurance company but otherwise that’s it. Well, we have to attempt to get a statement from the old insurance company I should say as they’ve pretty much completely ignored us over the last four months so it might not be quite so simple.

By then it was after 1200 so we had lunch before going on to the car dealership. Since we didn’t have any proof of address with us they seemed to be able to carry on without it which has us wondering why they asked for it in the first place, though we often wonder that in France. Having a leaf through what’s included in the price we’ve paid it looks like the overall price is lower than it was on the Internet as they’ve included a few substantial things that weren’t in the online price and, of course, we’d not to pay for hotels, petrol and tolls between here and Paris either.

Anyway, our little car is doing quite nicely. Between the low price of diesel and the 50+mpg that it gets we’ll likely not even have to top it up ’til well into next week.

Popularity: 8% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!

If you cast your mind back to 2004, we had an appointment for the medical visit for the residence card for Wendy just before Christmas. After sitting for around two hours we told them that we couldn’t wait any longer as we’d guests coming. They said they’d make another appointment for us.

We just received a phone call saying that the appointment is for September 29th. Yes, almost three years later!

Still, at least they’re making up for it now as it’s an all day affair rather than the brief visit that it was supposed to be last time.

Popularity: 6% [?]

If you enjoyed this post, make sure you subscribe to my RSS feed!