I was in the Mairie and got handed the nice new council burgundy and cream😅 numberplates for the entire hamlet. Including the pile of rubble with the collapsed roof. So we are now number 1 and only, we’re the only ones this side. 200 yards on is nr.2, aforementioned pile, and number 4 and number 6. While in the Mairie, it turns out that all freestanding houses do have a name in the old records. Celine showed me and I can confirm that we actually live in “Le courtil d’Ahout”. Other than that, Royal Mail always found us as Mr. M., Llwydcoed, Royaume Uni. The postie here is equally good. As for DHL, GLS, DPD…
2 Likes
Here too, although things go to pot a bit when he takes a holiday. 
As for the rest, they seem to rely on youngsters in a white van who can’t be arsed to open the door and actually ask someone. In rural villages that will usually produce a result.
As to the numbering, how is that going to improve things? How do you know from which junction your number is calculated? I challenge, though I haven’t measured it, that we are 75 metres from the junction concerned (it must be that one because our neighbour who is closer to it, is 71), but we are actually closer to another junction in the other direction.
The simplest system, widely used in Britain, is to name a road and then number existing houses ( or houses and empty plots) with number 1 on the left coming from the centre and 2 on the right in similar fashion. Then all a searcher has to do is find the road and the rest should be easy.
If houses are built subsequently on vacant intervening land, and house numbering hasn’t already taken that into account, simple alphabetical suffixes can be added.
1 Like
Too logical and practical for that to work in France.
I think the metres from a junction is actually quite practical. We are 300 and are 300 metres from the turn off.
1 Like
I agree, our number is over 2,000, so people now know that they have to drive more than 2 kms along the road before they need to start looking out for us.
That does sound like a good idea but it’s not used everywhere. We’re no. 1, and over 750m from the junction!
1 Like
My ski apartment has a building name, though many address completion systems get that wrong. It has a street name, though Enedis insists it is on another nearby street. It has a number, though Leroy Merlin, CDiscount and Amazon often neglect to include it (but China’s AliExpress always gets my address perfect).
La Poste gets everything to me without fail. DHL, DPD, GLS, Geodis etc often do not… but I think that’s because they don’t want to drive all the way up the mountain.
I’m buying a house the address of which is Name of House, Commune, Code Postale. But somehow I think more deliveries will get to me first time there than they do here.
Hi
My advice is to hang onto the ‘old’ system as long as you can. Our house was known by name and location when we came here and we didn’t have problems with people finding us. The Commune then named all of the streets and gave us a house number, since which time I regularly get calls from delivery companies as our new address is not on their GPS. I have now gone back to using our old address for certain Amazon parcels which I know will be delivered by white van. Best cockup was when my new passport ended up being delivered to the local supermarket, much to the surprise of the UK Passport service . .
I was quite taken with the idea of numbering houses from the distance to the nearest main road… but… what happend if somebody builds a house on the other side of the road at the same distance from the main road? This could be a disaster! Smiles.
odds and evens depending on side of the road is included in that system too.
1 Like
What is the address on the contract you signed to buy the house at the Notaire?
Take that address to the town’s post-office and tell them that you are the new owners - plus give them your family-name.
You should do the same at your Town Hall. They are going to want to know who the new owner is as you will have to pay local annual property-taxation …
Do not worry the tax bills for the property will have no trouble reaching you.
I have just, for the second time, had problems with UPS. They kept saying that they needed more information which I’ve given them but it still came back with needing more information. In the end I’m not only gave them the location but described the house the gates and the fact that was opposite the cemetery – and you know what, they still couldn’t find it. The item in question is still floating around Brittany or somewhere I think.
That’s what I believed. But despite having our change of residence registered with notaire, mairie and local tax office, all state-related bills were sent only to our old UK address. Unfortunately, our purchasers changed the name of the house so no mail was forwarded.
It took us two years to sort it out…
UPS has actually been the worst here. It may have been partly due to my feedback (I made them all in the call centre laugh) they changed subcontractor and the new one is rather better.
DPD has been brilliant for me in both countries.
Have you thought about getting the numbered GPS coordinates for your home off your GPS and putting them into a line in your address that you have things sent to? I do that as well as our mobile phone number. As if it’s not on a line in the address, it seems the driver does not get to see it.
Goop point - but every other carrier has no problem at all, and if they don’t know they telephone and ask.
To be fair I do think that these companies put unreasonable demands on their drivers timewise - at least on the UK they do, according to a friend who worked with them for a while,
Our post works because our postman knows where we live. Post stops when she goes on holiday.
the 60 and 70 refer to the distance in metres down the road you are 
I’ve lived at numers 725 and 2010, the rest either had numbers in the bog standard system or didn’t have numers at all, my current house for example.
edit; only just come in on this one and see it’s already been answered 
Not at all one side is measured in odd numbers, the other side in even numbers (to the nearest metre)
It has, but not correctly in respect of my instance. There isn’t an adjoining road nearby, but we are about 70m inside the commune4S boundary. As our stretch of the D840 road has a name, though not yet a name plate! (maybe in a further eight years or so) I assume the ‘avenue’ begins at the commune’s boundary.
1 Like