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Thursday, 06 December 2007 |
Bilingual lawyer Anne-Marie Gordon stresses the importance of making a French will, and what should be mentioned in it
Few people like to talk about French wills
and taxes, but if you are a French property
owner and have children under 18, this is a
good time to open the conversation.
First the basics. Under French inheritance
law the transmission of real estate located in
France follow French rules as to heirship and
the obligatory reserve parts for children. In the
absence of minors, the notaire will supervise
the probate process. However, a judge at the
local Tribunal d’Instance steps in when the
estate involves children under 18 or other
individuals protected by the court, such as the
mentally handicapped.
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Thursday, 06 December 2007 |
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The traditional maxim for stockmarket investment is ‘buy low, sell high’. While this sounds
sensible advice, it’s much harder than it sounds. How do you know when a share price is
low? It may seem low, but how do you know it won’t fall further? And how do you know
when a share price has peaked? It may seem high now, but could it continue climbing? How
do you know what it will do next?
Unfortunately there is no formula which
tells investors when a share price has hit its
lowest… or its highest and is about to start to
fall. If there were there would be many more
stockmarket-made millionaires. Even
professionals with specific training and years
of experience cannot predict what is going to
happen with any accuracy.
The media image of stockmarket
investment can be rather dramatic – lots of
shouting into phones on the trading floor –
but, in truth, possibly the key attribute you
need to make money from stocks and shares is
patience. Unless you are happy to gamble with
your money, you need patience to make
money safely from the stockmarket – and by
‘patience’ I mean a long-term time horizon.
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Thursday, 06 December 2007 |
My husband and I left France more
than a year ago and we are still
getting bills from Onetel against an
account, closed on August 18, 2006.
Our other services paid by direct debit
(prélèvement automatique) who were
informed of account closure drew their
final payment the following month. Not
Onetel: they kept going and lifted €2.90
a month from our Crédit Agricole
account.
Delay ensued while we wrote to
Onetel and waited for a refund.
Meanwhile, the debiting continued.
Crédit Agricole told me we
shouldn’t close our account because
there was a current prélèvement
automatique and they had no authority
to stop it (Catch 22). Six weeks later we
got the account closed, then the bills
from Onetel started arriving.
Over the years we have had good
service from Onetel, but now their
incapacity to realise they are billing a
non-existent phone line seems dubious
from a communications company. Their
disinclination to respond to letters
(including LR/AR) is inconsistent with
a properly run company. Their phone
number does not work from abroad. All
the evidence points to a scam. Does
Onetel still exist?
E Wallace
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Thursday, 06 December 2007 |
On arrival at a Novotel in Orléans
earlier this month, I was presented
with a guest registration card at
reception and told it was a police
requirement for the hotel to have such a
document completed by all non-French
nationals staying there. Strangely
enough, my wife and I had stayed at the
same hotel just three weeks before and
no such request was made then. On
both occasions booking was made via
the internet.
Over the years I must have stayed in
dozens of hotels in France and certainly
this is the first time for many, many
years that this “requirement” has been
presented; so I requested, and have now
received, a copy of the page of the
‘Journal Officiel de la République
Française’, outlining the obligation for
all foreigners to fill out this data sheet.
Is it possible that this rule still exists,
in its original form, since 1975? Should
non-French, EU residents of France still
be considered “foreigners”?
Now that my titre de séjour has
expired and new ones are not being
issued to European nationals, how can
one prove to these hoteliers that one is a
permanent resident of France, unless a
certified copy of a recent utilities bill is
carried at all times?
G Townsend
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Thursday, 06 December 2007 |
Ireally need your help please: on page
6 of your November 2007 issue you
had an article “Dangerous dog law goes
through”.
Can you please point me in the right
direction of where I would actually find
this law and all its relevant parts? I have
a serious problem with my neighbour
and neither he nor the maire is
interested in sorting it out. I think that
this law may be just what is needed to
help me.
Many thanks.
J Callan
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