Because I want to replace my ageing gates and its allready there so replacing rather than a new install, do I need to ask for the Maire’s blessing?
If its like for like no.
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Blimey I’ve played fast and loose, unkowingly, with the regs for the last 30 years.
New fencing, new gates, changed gates, changed the position of gates, built sheds, dug ponds, mostly under the knowing eye of my friend and neighbour who is a councillor, and nothing said in all that time. 
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That’s what I like to hear 
Well they wont look the same as I update but will be in the same spot. Metal replacing crumbling wood. However I don’t think I will run to the Maire’s as there are new builds so much closer to the Chateau with some horrible looking gates.
Very helpful, thank you.
We have a regulation here that gates must have some form of evacuation for water to go through be it holes or a big space underneath. I think the local councils have more to do than police such regulations though as have seen some totally solid ones locally. On this new estate, we must all have the same colour but not styles.
Cor thats lax of them.
Run your proposal by the neighbours first, and if they are OK with it, then just do it.
Regarding the Mairie, it’s the sort of question that is best not asked, especially if you are more than 500 meters from any ancient monuments.
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Do you mean less than?
Its in the developer’s rules about all having same fencing and colour for windows,doors and gates and in my notaire “tome” plus 18months to get it all done which we all seem to have.
Its similar in lots of new builds in the UK. Life doesnt seem to like individuality these days.
No, you are correct in that statement. Those old days have certainly gone for good.
No, I actually do mean more than 500 meters. If the property is within the protection zone of an ancient monument, then there is much more chance of someone from the local patrimoine / historical society starting to ask awkward questions. All it takes is just one local who doesn’t like foreigners, and if the property is within the 500 metre zone, then they have you over a barrel.
Not a situation I recognise. We have lived with the ‘zone’ for nearly 19 years, in fact our home is on the list of local patrimoine/historical buildings, it contains elements amongst the oldest within the department and I would hazard a guess that it is older than any other owned by other contributors. We have never had an building (permit) application refused and we have submitted many, more than thirty covering our own home and for the neighbouring rental properties. We have had many a meeting face to face and via telephone with ABF with whom we have a very good rapport.
We have a second home, the semi Trog house in 24, that is even older than our normal habitation, it is beyond the scope of ABF, but it is still considered of great historical value.
Nobody, even complainers, have ever “had us over a barrel”.
From what you say I think that you are very fortunate to have such reasonable people to deal with at both the Mairie and the ABF.
We also live ‘in the zone’, there being only the village bakery that separates us from the church. Some years ago I obtained permission to revamp the front of our home by getting rid of the old shop window and making it look more like a dwelling house than the old butcher’s shop that it used to be. We went through the entire procedure following the rules to the letter re displaying signage and permission notices etc. When the work was completed, I then had to endure having the Mayor berating me in front of a group of his cronies and saying that he had not given his permission for the work to be carried out despite the fact that I was able to show him the permission notice bearing his official stamp and his own signature.
The ABF people here are crazy. A neighbour just around the corner wanted insulating horizontal cladding on his north facing gable end, and the ABF refused permission unless he hung the cladding vertically. Same cladding, same colour, but vertical instead of horizontal. What’s the point of that — it’s the same cladding at the end of the day. Can’t even say that it was so that it was in keeping with the neighbourhood as no-one else has any cladding at all.
Our recent application to have our blown and falling cement rendering covered, was refused on the grounds that we should have a lime mortar finish to be in keeping with the other buildings in the locality. Clearly the ABF woman has never ventured forth to our village from her office 70 kilometers away or else she would know that all the buildings in our village centre have cement rendering as was the norm 50 years ago.
On the one hand we have central government urging us all to insulate our homes and thus reduce energy consumption and carbon footprint, and then when one is willing to spend 10k doing exactly that, there is some little ‘jobsworth’ who has clearly never been to our village, in an office miles away, saying that you can’t do it even though you have the local Mayor’s approval.
It’s a funny old world, the upshot of which is that the ambiance of the village center will continue to include rendering that is progressively falling into the street. Must be part of ‘La Tradition’ I suppose.
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He’ll be fine, he’s a welder and loves metal!
I regularly had problems with ABF both on our own property being only about 100m from the church and also being the oldest house in the village centre and also for jobs we took on. We found over many years that if we could show examples of how other nearby properties had been altered totally differently, they often relented and gave in to what the us/other owners were proposing plus we also had a very good friend locally who was an architect and often twisted their arm too. Mayors are afraid of change or upsetting the voters rather than use common sense in my opinion.
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Civil servants the world over IMO.