gallois wrote:
If I need work done I will go.to someone whose work I know or.someone who has been recommended. That person will have either years of experience in working on local buildings and materials and/or will have diplomas showing their work meets the standards necessary (state qualifications not some bit of paper given out by some college that no one has ever heard of). That artisan gives me an estimate which includes everything. If I agree it I will sign that I have read and approved it. That estimate does not change I will get everything.that is on it and I will pay exactly the price mentioned.(this is backed by law)
Any materials or appliances will be supplied by the artisan and will be of.a high quality because if somdthing.fails.within 10 years not only has the artisan got to put it right under guarantee but his reputation might suffer. If he dies or goes of business in the 10 years an insurance will pay to repair the fault.
Any appliances will be supplied at cost price and I will profit from any discounts that the artisan has received from his supplier.
During the work the artisan will clean up after him when he leaves the site. All rubble will be taken away for proper disposal, this will be noted in the estimate. The artisan will be insured against any accidents or damage during the work.
At.the end the job I will get a proper invoice and attestations allowing me to take advantage of any reductions in the VAT rate that the government has put in place for certain types of renovation plus I will be supplied with all the appropriate forms properly filled out except for my signature to take account of any government or regional grants that may be available for the type of work I have had done.
Yep, that right there is what is supposed to happen…BUT…
I have personal experience of following this route for an extension here chez SD, and, lets just say, it isnt quite the bed of roses its made out to be in your narrative… in fact some of the above actually makes me laugh out loud… Because yes, thought thats the theory, the reality is that there are not really the “protections” you imagine…(And this was while I was with my French wife, so not the case of a brit “moving to France and not getting it”)
Regards, SD..
If you did not get what you signed for didn’t your French wife suggest going to the gendarmerie and requesting an "expert ". The same applies to the insurance .In.fact if its a problem.with damage in your home your own house insurance will pay for the expert. If the intervention of the expert is not enough you can take his/her report to the local judiciaire and for €1 a judge will get the court gendarmes to investigate and issue a ruling.(a bit like a civil or small.claims court in the UK). If the person or company refuses to abide by that ruling you.arrange for a huissiere (bailiff) to go in.
This should not of course be necessary because you did check the artisan’s credentials and insurance before you employed them didn’t you? And you did not pay for the work until it was finished to.your satisfaction did you? And you did get everything that was listed on the estimate right down to the number of wheelbarrow loads of rubble to be taken away, didn’t you? If something went amiss later you did give the artisan the opportunity to come back and fix the problem first didn’t you?
I admit having one problem which I would have taken to the courts but I was outvoted by the other parrners I had in a twin. It all started with a vibrating engine which was taken in to a local (not LFFK) shop for an overhaul. Dutifully they showed us that the lobes of the camshaft were worn. The camshaft and rods were replaced and the aircraft was put back into service. A couple of years and about 200hrs later the vibration returned in the same engine. The problem was that the owner of.the maintenance shop at the time had sold the business during those 2 years and the new owner had changed the name of the company slightly.No one had noticed the name change as it was not obvious and no one appeared to know the shop was under new ownership. My partners in the aircraft thought it was going to be too complicated to sort the mess out quickly and the engine could not be looked at until it was all sorted which could have meant considerable downtime. So we swallowed and sent the engine to Nicholson Mclaren in the UK for another overhaul, which turned out to.be exactly the same problem.
So we did pay twice and discovered that the new owners had not kept up their insurance payments. Word, however did get round very quickly and everyone who had aircraft booked into this shop for maintenance pulled out and the company went into liquidation and the owner didn’t have a penny to his name. He was given a custodial sentence for fraud IIRC.
So hand on heart I can not say the system always works but there are exceptions in every system IMO.
gallois wrote:
If you did not get what you signed for didn’t your French wife suggest going to the gendarmerie and requesting an "expert ". The same applies to the insurance .In.fact if its a problem.with damage in your home your own house insurance will pay for the expert. If the intervention of the expert is not enough you can take his/her report to the local judiciaire and for €1 a judge will get the court gendarmes to investigate and issue a ruling.(a bit like a civil or small.claims court in the UK). If the person or company refuses to abide by that ruling you.arrange for a huissiere (bailiff) to go in. This should not of course be necessary because you did check the artisan’s credentials and insurance before you employed them didn’t you? And you did not pay for the work until it was finished to.your satisfaction did you? And you did get everything that was listed on the estimate right down to the number of wheelbarrow loads of rubble to be taken away, didn’t you? If something went amiss later you did give the artisan the opportunity to come back and fix the problem first didn’t you?
Yep, all this happened except the court/bailiff. The work was started in 2006 and “finished” in 2009. The project was supposed to take around 4-6 months. Im not going to put details on here, but lets just say, that I would never, ever, hire a french “artisan” contractor to do a complete project again. I would basicly manage the project myself, and any work I couldnt actually physically do myself, I would hire someone to do that specific job and be stood behind them the whole time they were working.
I have absolutely ZERO trust in any french “artisan” builder quite frankly, in my view the word “artisan” really means “amature”…And as for “expert”, I would say they are actually “mediators”… and dont get me started on Architects that cant use a tape measure (the root of the problem)…
Ive wound myself up enough now so I wont comment further.
skydriller wrote:
Ive wound myself up enough now so I wont comment further.
God I feel your pain. Happening to a lot of folks nowadays. The world is totally barking.
Getting ripped off by useless or dishonest “craftsmen” (“artisan” is a deeply suspicious term, often found on websites selling software libraries which will be out of fashion next year 
) is a common theme reported by “foreigners” living in certain countries which have been popular for “retirement relocation” or “barn conversions”, notably Spain and France, respectively.
These traders can spot a sucker from a mile away, and know that he won’t have the local community integration necessary to make life hard for them if they do a bad job. It takes decades to build the local connections and acceptance, and most never achieve it by the time they decide to sell up and come back home so they get free NHS treatment
However it would be the same if say a Frenchman moved to the UK and wanted his roof fixed; the chance of a local getting a crooked roofer is IME at least 50% and the chance of a “foreigner” getting a crooked roofer is more like 90%
It’s like using an avionics shop, 5hrs’ drive away, for a 30k job on your plane. It is very likely to be a disaster – even if it actually gets finished.
The entire business of “home improvements” is fraught with problems. Every crook heads straight for it. Most customers happily pay cash so you take home a lot more Yesterday we got a guy in to take a look at our wooden flooring (which has a section lifting up suspiciously, possibly due to damp) and he said the whole house needs to be re-done and suggested with a totally straight face that we do an insurance fraud and claim on the home insurance
I think Peter you make some very fair points.there. All the artisans I use ,are one man bands or certainly very small businesses.One of the big disadvantages this makes is that a plumber or electrician might have to rush off to do an urgent job eg a neighbour has a sudden burst pipe or no electricity. The advantage is that if we have a sudden emergency they will be round quickly to sort ot out.
For me its the same when I choose tradesmen to work on my properties in the UK. Once I find good ones I tend to stick with them even if someone.turns up offering.a cheaper deal.
Personally I have learnt over the years that a cash under the table deal usually comes.back and bites you on the bum.
Peter wrote:
It’s like using an avionics shop, 5hrs’ drive away, for a 30k job on your plane. It is very likely to be a disaster – even if it actually gets finished.
The analogy to this is someone buying a “home in the sun” either for retirement or vacation and then makes the mistake of ordering work done in their absence. Unless you have someone on site to oversee, check and stay in close contact with you, this is a certain recipe for disaster.
Talking about spotting suckers, this is also a huge business in the said holiday destinations, where people obviously are in a mood to imagine a life in the sun and feet in the sand. So selling properties there is a business which for a larger part relies on suckers who will only much later find out that for the money they spent, they could have gone on holiday in abundant luxury for the rest of their lives rather than arriving every holiday in their “workcamp away from home” trying to put it back in order in the 2 weeks they have…
That kind of thing is the epitome of “grass is greener” syndrome…
Silvaire wrote:
@Airborne_Again, the US benefits from not being isolated in a totalitarian world. Along those lines, I’d suggest you study the US role in defeating the threat of communism and other totalitarianism in the 20th century, including its role in liberating Europe (as well as Asia) from 1940-1990,
The role of the US in liberating Europe from the Nazis 80 years ago is indisputable.
The the track record of the US in global politics within the last 80 years is, however, much more mixed – and this is not only due to the fact that both Korea as well as Vietnam has not reached the original target. Even more, the mess that the US have created in Middle East (where US is actually responsible for large parts of the mess) or the problems in Taiwan (where US is at least partly responsible) or between Pakistan and India (where the US might not be responsible but also did not provide to a solution) is quite significant.
One has to admit that the most successful state/system of the las 30 years has been China. Yes, obviously some of that was due to catch up effects, but also because of doing a lot of things right.
Of course, one can debate if China is a totalitarian regime (the same way one can debate if there is not also a form of “economic totalitarian” promoted by the US). Truth is, however: The vast majority of Chinese is genuinely happy with what has happened in the last 30 years! I have many friends in China – most of them very well educated and fully aware of the differences between their system and Europe/US. They are amongst the most un-political people I know and have a mindset of “why should I care about politics when I experience 10% growth every single year ?!?”.
What is happening there is also not what I would wish for the country I live in – but I also do not see a justification that handful of US people tell 1.4bn Chinese what they have to have to be happy…
After 60 years of decline of the global relevance of the US (in 1960 they had 40% of global GDP!) we might need to consider that idea that there are even better systems…
Malibuflyer wrote:
After 60 years of decline of the global relevance of the US (in 1960 they had 40% of global GDP!) we might need to consider that idea that there are even better systems…
I agree with mostly everything you write but — the question is what is a “better” system? If it comes to economical growth, China may be better – although I’m sure that they will not be able to keep it up indefinitely and when they don’t the system will start cracking.
In all other respects, I find the Chinese system abhorrent.
Silvaire wrote:
the US benefits from not being isolated in a totalitarian world.
You should be careful with that kind of justification for military intervention as basically all countries could use the same argument to motivate any action that “benefit” them in some way. The only difference, really, is that there are few countries beside the USA capable of doing it on a global scale. (But lots more that can to it on a regional scale.)
Anyway, I find it somewhat hypocritical that you want the USofA government to leave you alone while apparently being quite happy with the same government bothering other people. But those people are not US citizens, of course, so maybe they don’t count?
