Archive for the ‘Relocating’ Category
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A good time to buy property in the Pyrenees?
September 28th, 2006 | 
Author: We went along to the annual village meeting for Maury in January.Distaster was the word for the day. Wine sales were down 50% two years ago, 30% in the previous year and the wine co-operative in the next village had closed.
Since then, the butcher has closed, the bank has closed and when we walked round the village in July the sheer number of boarded up shops was quite a shock. That’s what happens when a village is almost completely dependent on a single industry and that industry hits hard times.
Yet, even in these hard times for the wine industry, the English have been busy buying up vineyards in the area. More intrestingly perhaps is that they are much more successful at running the vineyards than the locals. Whereas the locals simply can’t shift their 2‚€ wines, the English are selling their stock at 25‚€ a bottle. How come? Simple really: the locals are trying to sell the cheap plonk that they’ve always sold in the way that they’ve always sold it but peoples’ tastes have changed. They drink less wine these days but it’s higher quality wine that they drink nowadays.
It’s not just the vineyards that the English are buying in the area. I’m told that some 90 English familes have bought property in Paziol for instance. So many in fact, that Paziol is pretty much an English village now.
Other indications that things aren’t good economically in this area is the closure of the Rolex shop in Perpignan. OK, people aren’t going to nip out and buy a Rolex every day but it is an indication that there’s a distinct shortage of money across the Pyrenees Orientale.
The downturn in the wine business has depressed property prices even more in an area that’s still relatively affordable so perhaps now would be a good time to buy in this area.
Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.A year in the vineyards: from first green shoots through harvest and back again
When we arrived here, I thought that it would be a nice idea to take a photograph of a single grape bush each week throughout the year. Well, I finally got around to starting on that project last February and the photos you see alongside this article depict the changing aspects of that particular plant.The thing that most struck us about this region during our first Winter was just how stark the landscape is during the Winter months. The top photo is how the landscapes looks from around December when the plants are prunned to about mid-April when the first shoots of green appear again.
From then, things really happen quite quickly here with the first appearance of the baby grapes in early May until the grapes are pretty much fully formed about mid-June. During this time, the farmers are busy in the fields getting their plants attached to the strings holding them up (the plants in this field are quite old so aren’t tied up).
Once into June, things generally slow down. The plants have all been sprayed and it’s the time for the work inside the winery to get underway in preparation for the harvest. Although you don’t see so much activity in the fields, things are far from quiet inside the various wineries.
In our area, the harvest gets underway towards the end of August (the date varies depending on the weather) and it’s pretty much over by mid-September. As you can see, the plants deteriorate pretty quickly after the harvest but the surroundings remain green well into November. In fact, garden plants and the like don’t start growing ’til it cools down a little so the burnt appearance of gardens is replaced by greenery (except in those gardens maintained by very keen gardeners).
Things change pretty slowly in the wine business with the local vines being replaced over a cycle of 40 years which means that you get about 36 years worth of wine from each plant as it takes four years before the first grapes appear. The bulk of grapes are still harvested by hand though this year European money has obviously arrived in big dollops as there are an awful lot of brand new grape picking machines. That does seem a little bit counterproductive in that those machines are generally used for the grapes producing lower quality wine which is the bulk of what makes up the growing lake of unsellable wine in Europe and, of course, doesn’t really help the unemployment statistics either.
Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.
I’m not going back to school!
As expected, James would rather have stayed in the original class. Every day, of the week he wanted to go to school. In fact he could hardly wait to get there, at least until last Thursday when they moved him to the class with the 2 and 3 year olds.
Now he doesn’t want to go at all and every day he comes out crying which is no good. Nursery school is supposed to be a fun place to be, not somewhere you hate to go.
Why the change in him? Well, lots of reasons but mainly down to two: 1) all the activities revolve around those for 2/3 year olds and 2) they’ve sat him with an older mentally handicapped child who absolutely terrifies him.
We were expecting the first aspect to cause problems. After all, the toys and activities are, understandly, targetted at a much younger age group so few of them interest him and, more to the point, those of the original class were really attractive to him. Not only that, but whereas the kids in the first class were talking to him all day (and he was starting to understand what was said), the younger kids are only just learning to speak so the only person that talks to him now is the teacher. Consequently, we think that it will take him much, much longer to learn French in the new class. My guess is that it will be years rather than the months that it should have been.
The second aspect is typically French. James can’t speak French, the other child can’t speak, so they lump them together. In effect, it’s the nursery school version of CIPPA (see First day at school in France).
So how come they were expecting James to be speaking his first French words within 2 or 3 weeks? Well, it seems that all their previous experience of non-French speaking kids has been with Spanish (and, possibly, Catalan) speakers. Spanish is very similar to French and therefore it’s relatively easy for a Spanish speaking child to pick up French in a few weeks. English is a totally different language. It will probably take a few months before James starts coming out with the odd French word or phrase.
Anyway, we’re taking our own advice and going to the school on Monday to have him moved back into the proper class. If they won’t do that (and we don’t expect that they will), we’re changing schools as he’s definitely not going back to that class anymore. However, as Wendy points out, now that they’ve labelled him as as a problem, it’ll be harder to get him into another school and perhaps impossible.
Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.Do the French actually believe that European law doesn’t apply in France?
Since we’ve applied for the European Residence Permit over two years ago and have yet to receive it, despite there being a legal obligation on the French authorities to provide it within 90 days, Wendy’s proposed that we use the Winter months to call their bluff.
To date, they have been coming out with phrases along the lines of “European law doesn’t apply in France” and “we don’t issue European Residence Permits” and consistently insisting on us providing the documentation required for them to issue a normal residence permit.
Now this causes a few little problems in that we’re not really here all that long and don’t have a number of key items that would be required to actually qualify for a normal residence permit. So for instance, we couldn’t provide proof that we had adequate resources in 2004, and Wendy still can’t provide proof of residence.
Anyway, as we’re usually not too busy over the Winter, Wendy suggested that we play along with them and see what they do when they conclude that she doesn’t qualify for a normal residence permit. As far as we’re aware, they should give her 90 days to leave the country (“or else”) although as we’ve been here over two years already they might reduce that somewhat. At any rate, we’re definitely going to ignore whatever time limit they might place on her stay here so I can’t see how they can avoid issuing a deportation order.
However, this will pose some difficulties for them in that she’s the parent of two European children who are, of course, here quite legally. Under European law, the Human Rights Convention, Rights of the Child, etc., they can’t legally separate a child from its parents, although perhaps they will argue they’re here legally under European law which doesn’t apply in France…. However, one of the children is French and I imagine that even French law would have something to say about deporting the parent of a 2 year old French child.
Since we’ve been here we’ve been approached by three different TV production units about filming us for one reason or another so when the deportation order arrives Wendy’s planning on calling them along with Australian TV, the local papers, etc. so I’m sure it would be “interesting” to see someone turning up and having to openly state for the news that European law didn’t apply in France and, no, they didn’t care about any rights that a 2 year old might have to be with his mother.
Where would they deport her to is also an interesting question. Should it be Turkey? After all, that was the last country which she was in legally, even if it was on holiday. What about the UK? Well, that’s a problem because as soon as she is pushed off the plane, she can quite legally come straight back to France. Australia? Well, it’s anyones’ guess.
Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.How many Inland Revenues are there?
The transition year from the tax system of one country to another can cause a number of peculiarities in payment of tax and social security as you’d expect.
For a start, the UK tax year runs from April to March whereas the French one is from January to December and both systems operate on the basis that you’re taxed by tax year. That’s relatively easy to resolve in practice as each country seems to apportion the tax according to when you made the move. What’s much more complex is the social security and healthcare arrangements.
We told the Inland Revenue in March 2004 that we were moving to France in April of that year. In fact, we told them twice in March as we wanted to register as overseas landlords (we’re renting out our UK property). Then we told them twice more in April that we had moved and indeed started getting letters directly to our French address. Snag is, that they continued to send letters to our UK address, my parents address and even my work address!
As you can imagine, we were quite busy for the first few months so it was June before we thought we’d have another go and told them yet again that we were here, twice more in fact. Finally on the seventh attempt they decided that we owed them over £500 as we’d not told them that we’d moved!
How come?
Well, the seven times that we told them we moved break down as follows:
1. in March and April 2004 we told our own Inland Revenue tax office;
2. in March and April 2004 we told the Inland Revenue “landlord abroad” people;
3. in June we told the Inland Revenue Child Benefit people; and
4. in June and July we told the Inland Revenue Tax Credit people.
In fact, we originally thought that telling just our own tax office was enough in that they use the same reference number for us as all the other Inland Revenue offices. So it should, but the problem is that the other offices were just lumped into Inland Revenue piecemeal within the last few years and integration between them is virtually zero at the moment. Even so, you’d think that telling our own offce twice was enough but in fact they still send letters to me at our previous address, my former work address and here, seemingly at random and it’s been over two years now since we made the move.
After yet another “pay up or else” notice in 2005, we wrote them a letter running through the sheer number of times we’d told them (and legally, we only needed to tell them once!). That at least resulted, eventually, in an apology and confirmation that we don’t owe them anything.
And yet, within the last week Wendy received another “pay up or else” letter. Funnilly enough the very same envelope contained a letter saying that she didn’t owe anything. Both signed by the same person!
Still, at least they’ve worked out that she’s living here. Where they sent my copy of the same letter (they always come in pairs) is anyones’ guess.
Copyright © 2004-2014 by Foreign Perspectives. All rights reserved.
