We have our own fosse (fairly new so complies) but have today received a bill (only about 17€) for assainissement (sanitation charge) which we really don’t understand.
I can’t recall having had this bill before.
We are taking it up with the Maire to see if he can explain it but has anyone else already had one and questioned it?
We get a “pollution” charge directly related to the amount of water consumed as part of our water bill, maybe something like that. Difficult to know without seeing the bill.
Hi Graham…
I believe there is an annual charge towards the costs of the SPANC person… around here is it 25€ pa paid by everyone with a Fosse .
Some friends had complained to me about it… felt they were hard-done-by until I pointed out the costs which our household has to pay for the pleasure of Mains Drainage. (yes, it is a pleasure now, our past system was horrendous). Mmm… stopped them in their tracks 
Maybe it has been reduced… maybe not… whatever, it can’t hurt to question it. I certainly would… 
(I’m questioning every cent of expenditure these days… )
If it is for SPANC it seems they have carte blanche authority to extract money from people and to disguise it, they change the name… the bill used to come from SPANC themselves 
Oh… that would have me twitching… definitely be interesting to hear what the Mairie say about this (they should know if it is kosher).
What is the “name” now then… if not SPANC??
It says its from Communaute de Communes des Charentes and is issued a du livre des procedures fiscales et L.1617-5 du code général des collectives terriroriales so my guess is its a replacement for the SPANC annual charge…
Aha… if ComCom has issued it - s/be ok. So long as it’s not asking for your Bank Details … 
(maybe ComCom needs money… and this is an extra??? who knows, should be something in your local news if things have changed.)
Hi Graham,
This answers all your questions iro SPANC and
Tout savoir sur l’assainissement non collectif for the Charente region.
Why is there a billing change?
Our community wanted to implement a new billing method to ensure the budget stability of the service while allowing you to stagger the payment of the fee for users. The experience accumulated by our service has led us to opt for an annualized billing method for the fee that is becoming widespread within the SPANC.
Yes, it is SPANC the Maire has confirmed.
C’est normal, il s’agit de la redevance ANNUELLE du service SPANC de vérification des installations d’assainissement : maintenant, le paiement ne se fait plus tous les 8 ans mais chaque année (voir document joint) : 12,38 € car votre installation est conforme et cela sera de 16,50 € chaque année à partir de 2018.
So all in order and I’ll pay online as I usually do the Centre des Finances Publiques.
@Stella I think you can lock this as the question is answered. Thanks.
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