Amazing for October, but its been so warm and sunny I’ve been out cycling every day. Partly for the exercise and the chance to enjoy the autumnal countryside, and partly because it is a diversion from opening the bills and demands for information that arrive in equal measure from the accountant and from URSSAF, who [...]

A very useful book if you are running a business in France is called L’Encyclopedie Pratique du Gerant de Sarl. Sounds gripping, don’t you think?
Among other things it talks about the legal requirements of operating a company, the paperwork that needs to be kept for 10 years and so on. It also talks about the [...]

Now that the gite business is reputedly over-crowded (or impractical to enter because no one is buying and selling houses), and only the most wildly optimistic expat would set up as an estate agent, we need to look around for new ways for expats to scratch a living together.
Suggestion 1
One of the most common questions I [...]

This posting is brought to you live from the Hotel Mignon, Avignon – great name for a hotel, a lovely (basic!) very typical French hotel in the centre of Avignon and a million miles from financial scandals and troubles.
I’m not one to delve into the murky world of finance very often – after all part of the reason I [...]

At some point in the last three years, the goal of this website changed. It started as a ‘let’s make a site about our favourite places in France’ website, to an ‘OK let’s make the best possible site about France’ website. How and when it changed is a bit of a mystery, but I am [...]

France isn’t best known for its high level of customer service, and today I’ve been dealing with a fine example…
For years we had an unwritten rule in France of not buying anything on the internet, because the only slight chance of getting customer service in France is to stand persistently in front of a long [...]

Well, after years of resisting, and much good advice to the contrary, we have become a SARL. A SARL is a fully fledged French limited liability company with shares, proper accounts, and – so we are told – enormous associated expense and bureaucratic effort.
I can hardly wait.
I won’t trouble you with the reasons why we [...]

I’ve gleaned a few useful facts about starting a business in France that might be useful, and more importantly could save you loads of money, so I thought I’d share them. Note I am not an expert, I’m just trying to point out some potential pitfalls and things to be aware of. You need to [...]

We live near quite a small town, about 3000 residents including those of us who squeeze into the surrounding fields. All the same, our town has most facilities that you want – primary school, 2 supermarkets, DIY store, 2 butchers, bars and restaurants and so on. And four estate agents.
A few years ago when we [...]

The events in the financial markets last week were so significant that we even heard about them down here. Wow, they must have made some noise. In fact it was the noise of expats worrying about their savings and pensions that we heard first, followed closely by the sound of the dollar crashing into the [...]

The year is gliding to a close on a bit of a poor note, world economy wise, and I’ve been wondering how it might affect us.
I read that property prices in London fell 7% in November. If that continues for another 14 months, houses in the UK will cost about the same as a flat [...]

Starting a business in France is something that has troubled me before, but this time…we’ve actually done it! OK we haven’t received our SIRET number (company registration number) yet – the application has to wind its way through French bureaucracy for a week or two first – but we’re on our way.
Mrs B insisted on [...]

A few days ago I wrote about some of the ways that expats can earn money. Today I thought I’d give two examples of how people make very large amounts of money on the internet.
I don’t do either of these – they are not very ethical and and do require some technical knowledge – but [...]

Having had the excitement of advertising our property for sale on the internet, having quite a few enquiries very quickly, and agreeing a sale price with a potential purchaser, it turned out we can’t sell (at least at that price) because of complications with tax and notaires.
No big deal I suppose, but slightly annoying. Especially [...]

As we move closer to the day of actually starting a French business, we’ve been talking to other people in a similar situation about the options. Every conversation ends ina horror story, and the dire warning that whatever we do we shouldn’t start a French enterprise, unless we like paying enormous costs and being buried [...]