Has anyone actually been to the gendarmes and porte plainte? What is the process and how much time should we allow?
I posted just time back about how 6 mature oak trees were cut down without authorisation on our land, we had initially agreed that the guy who cut them down could come back, log them up and deliver them to our house and we wouldn’t make it official with the police as accusing someone of wood theft is very serious. Ater giving us serious run around, he finally turned up today, delivered 3 tractor buckets of logs, and then filled a large trailor with the uncut tree trunks and larger pieces of wood, and before I could get down to the field had dissapeared, a phone call later and I was told that no one worked for nothing and it was his right to take this wood. Which was way more than we delivered to us, and was NOT authorised, our clear instruction was that if he wanted paying he needed to take that up with our neighbours who he claimed had instructed him to cut the trees down.
He now has a deadline of 4pm before we go to the gendarmes on this, fortunatly his exit with our wood was witnessed by another neighbour and we have photographs of the wood after it was cut, so the amount nicked cannot be disputed.
So frustrated after we tried to be understanding after he messed up? Fortunatly the mairie is already aware…
Just go to the nearest Gendarmerie and state that you wish to make a formal report. As with anything in France, I would make sure you leave a good couple of hours to do this and go armed with the full story.
I wish you luck