New address notifications

General Discussion
1

Recently we gained a name for our lane, as did everyone else in the commune, then a few days later, a number.

A letter from the mairie gave a link to a public service that notifies all the main people who need to know, amongst them EDF and the Prefecture for the cartes grise.

I filled in the form as best as I could but it wasn’t easy. It took no less than 6 tries to get it to accept my wife’s health number. At one point I went to the other room to make sure she wasn’t deceased without telling me.

Then I got to the vehicles, I am allowed to enter up to 10 apparently. All went well with the Partner, formula number (in bold across the front page) then plate number. No problem.

Then to the Berlingo. 15 years old it doesn’t have a formula number, nowhere, I checked it all several times so, assuming it was too old for such things and that they would realise it, I went straight to the plaque. Numerous tries later I couldn’t get passed that so had to cancel the Berlingo altogether.

I’ve since had several emails detailing and confirming the changes and now one from EDF who want to know if I am moving house, cancelling my supply or just changing my address while staying put.

Half a dozen tries and I can’t even get into the right spot on the website.

Anybody else had all this malarky and, does it really matter? Our lieu-dit is still the same and in the past have advised people that my name and postcode will eventually find me, so should I bother?

I am braced for a plethora of emails from various organisations demanding more details, and to think I thought ‘what a good idea, do it all in one place’. :roll_eyes:

A bit of a worry though, that in the depths of winter, EDF might cancel our supply even though I thought that was illegal in France. :astonished:

1 Like
2

No and no. We continue to use our LD and gradually switch over to a more detailed address where it does matter, which is for any delivery driver from Amazon etc. All the services etc are perfectly well informed, it doesn’t need an individual homeowner to let them know when a whole commune has switched over to street names.
The one exception might be your bank, where you may have to go in with the paperwork from the Marie and some form of identification that yes, you are still you, living in the same house and the only thing that’s changed is an extra line in your address.

3

We are wondering how this will go down with our banks in UK, just tell them that it is French administration we suppose.
It is not that there are any other Williamson’s round here.

4

Certainly with our UK banks it’s not an issue - we haven’t had any physical mail from them in years.
And anyway, if the number and street name is not on the envelope the postman/woman still delivers it.

5

She won’t get her tip nest year of she doesn’t.

6

Sorry Jane, didn’t understand that, but thanks to you Sue for the replies.

Just tried EDFagain, got a little further but then came upon a form to fill in with the first box, code postale, already filled in but could get no further.

I reckon the best thing is ignore it altogether, as Sue says, we have recieved deliveries under the LD for 30 years with the only problems being white van men to whom now we can supply the full address on any order.

Edit, Sorry Jane, just had a fall in the woods and must have hit my head, I understand what you said now. I thought it was a lazy TIP at first. :roll_eyes: :slightly_smiling_face:

7

Hope you are ok.

2 Likes
8

I think so, I have posted a question about it in the Health category. Thank you. :slightly_smiling_face:

9

Yes, we have had the same thing where we live. Gave up on trying to update the address on some websites. ANTS/France Connect being one of them. Went through the motions, response came back saying all good, but re-connecting to FRANCE CONNECT a few days later, and I still see the old address…and contrary to the information provided by the Mairie and France Connect, the local tax office was not informed of the change, and sent all of this year’s tax letters to the old address (which still works fine, of course).

10

Just had to download my attestation de droits from Ameli for an insurance quote and, lo and behold, they have already amended my address without the need for any silly questions. :laughing:

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11

We’ve had similar problems with our own property and the addresses for our rental properties.

The address we have used for years for our own property (no house number or road name) is no longer recognised by La Poste, we are a single property at the end of a chemin communale out in the middle of the vines).

Our rental properties used to be identified by cadastrale numbers but various utilities decided to ignore that and now use some spurious identification based on some onknown logic.

Mostly it doesn’t matter, except for some courriers who seem to have trouble finding us, even though the property is easily found on a GPS and what courrier doesn’t use GPS these days?

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12

We live on a road that changed its name 50 years ago. We also have an LD. We gained a door number 5 years ago. This doesn’t stop Google still showing the 50 year old out-of-date road name on their maps (including my business address), or UPS, whose computer system obviously uses the same system, from not being able to find our address…and, yes I’ve written to them dozens of times.

PITA :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

13

Beggars belief how they worked it out round here. I have in the past had to search for houses with numbers in the thousands in small hamlets of 2 or 3 dwellings, but have always been able to count the buildings and parcels to find my delivery point.

Here there is no rhyme or reason. We are 75 and next door is 71, the only 2 houses on the road, fair enough I thought others in the area will not be far different. How wrong I was, 200 metres away is 131 and down in the village, right at the crossroads in the centre ( 1 kilometre away) is 1619, which itself is only 100 metres from No. 85. :astonished:

There are only 500 people in the commune, never mind houses or spaces. Somebody had a field day organising this, it was probably done with darts at a wall map, last April 1st. :laughing:

To be serious though, it does indicate that our LD, only 13 dwellings, is still the most important part of our address, signed as it is at the bottom of the lane, and outside no. 1619. :slightly_smiling_face:

14

Ours is. :grin: At least round here works very well because it is the number of meters from a major junction. So people know they have to turn into our road ands drive 2.3 kilometers where they will find our side turning on the right.

15

Those I have come across in the past have had some logic enabling me to find the right house with no difficulty . As long as you know the hamlet or LD and you can find those, either by signage or map, it is just a matter of counting. One I went to was 3 thousand and something, way out in the country, but I had the right LD and the only other building was a farm, about half a kilometre further on, which was in the 4 thousands, but lots of parcelles in between on both sides.

In our case I can’t see the connection between our 75 and the 85 a kilometre away down in the village, the one that is 100m or so away from 1619.

My friend lives at one end of a road which is about 500m long, he is 22 and I saw this morning that the house on the other end is 461.

I can understand the UK system where each named road has its own set of numbers, and I can understand a French system that numbers all the houses in a commune with a LD mentioned in the address. But I can’t see the logic for what seems to have happened here. Why bother with naming streets and roads if the numbers on them have no connection at all?

I’m really not complaining, as we are keeping our LD address, and it is well signposted, I don’t think we have much to worry about. Apart from white van man of course, who will pack up and go home if he feels like it with no attempt to do the job properly. In the past I have done a screenshot of where we are relative to the main road, and given them GPS coordinates, all to no avail. :roll_eyes: :laughing:

16

We were told by our commune when they did the numbering in the hamlet that every plot of potentially buildable land (and not necessarily actual building land) was assigned a number, and then those plots with no building on were simply skipped over for the notifications, although their numbering kept just in case, in some distant future, a habitation did get built there. That is how we have ended up being number 18 with a nearest neighbour of 14 and next nearest neighbour of 27, despite there being no buildings between us and them. Imagine if that’s what your friend’s commune did with his address.

17

I have given up with COLIS PRIVÉ and Fedex trying to get them to deliver here, I have lost count the number of times I have had the “cannot find your address” or "not able to gain access due to locked gates.
You contact them and tell them you have a clickable link to Google maps in the delivery instructions, there are no gates on our drive which is signposted at the top and before you go there we have CCTV on the drive and the front of the house so we know that ther was no delivery attempt.
Next day…“we cannot find your address” :face_with_symbols_over_mouth:

18

DHL driver on one occasion left a “could not deliver” card in our mail box at the top of our “chemin”. I suspect he didn’t even bother to turn down the chemin to reach us. The card told us that the package was being returned to “their nearest depot” for collection. In the space he’d written Bordeaux, which is 108 kms away. Not hard to guess where he lives. The DHL helpline got a serious talking to!