I have just sent this to friends who have just moved here a few weeks ago and are about to embark on the full time ex pat life in France having had a holiday home here for a good few years. Fortunately for them their French is fairly good and that is a massive head start. Just spotted that there is a posting on car registration so will have to have a look at that as that is partially covered below:
Hi Karen and Simon,
This is well worth a read on the early retirement stuff.
As far as I am concerned you have to stay healthy and avoid any of this or have a massive heart attack in which case they will look after you.
Basically it is a nightmare. I still have loads of bills, which I have paid for and still cannot find out if they should all have been sent to the UK or just to CPAM here. It also looks like they are time limited so the older ones I can kiss reimbursement good-by to. Phoning the georgies in Newcastle is like talking to the wall and they are even more obtuse than the French and as hard to understand.
We have our CV attestation but we still don't have the actual cards. The pharmacy in St Bonnet would not accept the numbers on the CV attestation but Bollick Pharmacy in Mirambeau, opposite the square did. What is that all about?
We also have top up insurance but no-one seems to be able to tell me if the insurance and the CPAM office are linked or do you have to send copies or what to the insurance company. As I said before it is a nightmare but a lot of that is down to not speaking French.
Finally, after many aborted attempts, got the agreement from the Prefecture on the car re-registration, but talk about going through hoops of fire. Due to a mis understanding I thought that I had to produce a stamped envelope with my address on it as proof of residence. It turns out I needed to provide a stamped self addressed envelope for the Carte Grise to be sent to me. Found this out at 11.55 yesterday. They close at twelve and true to form there was a sign on the door saying they were closed in the afternoons all this week. The man gave me an envelope to address but I had to get to the Tabac and back with a stamp for it. Just made it on time, somewhat out of puff, and fortunately the people behind me, who had moved up, had held him up so that helped. A lady had popped out of the office next door, I think she was the manager, and looked over everything and told him it was all OK, while he was still dealing with the other people. I tried the old, parle vous anglais?, to which she replied non. As I left she called out bye bye when I said au revoir. Grrrrr. By the way there may be no 'Road Fund License' in France but it just cost 299.50⏠to re-register the car from the previous owner to my own name.
Just made it back to the bank for 3.00 for my appointment to sort out the car insurance. Waited 20 minutes before being seen, which is par for the course. Insurance sorted but still can't drive the car until the paperwork arrives. Only in France!! New contact there speaks very good English and is well travelled, which explains that. I said to him about earlier and he thinks many French are too embarrassed to speak English in case they make mistakes and look silly. I told him I wouldn't mind being in that situation and I would have a go anyway. He also mentioned that his wife teaches English and he has often prompted her to teach as a part time job. May be worth progressing, depends what she wants in the way of wages.
Love and best wishes Ian xx
