Thank you for this John; I’ll certainly take your advice and pass it on to my son too. What an absolute nightmare for you though and no consideration with regard to the stress it may have caused. I was thinking of setting up an account with Orange when we arrive but I’ve heard that they can take months. Also, there was a letter in the house asking for the return of their ‘box’ (this was dated before my son’s father died so presumably there was another bill that he didn’t pay). And we’ve just returned home to a bill from STGS - albeit a reasonable one for the water. They’d actually rejected the original direct debit mandate (phew!) that we’d returned and sent a bill starting from when we had the water connected until June so a bit of breathing space. My son is still mystified as to how not Open but Total Spring could set up and account and close the EDF one. Oh for a quiet and simple life.
just a last thought i had to sell because of the inheritance tax which would be payable when i died on the property, My nearest blood relative my brother died thus my niece became the nearest blood relative, this made the tax payable increasing by so much, as she is not considered as close a relative that on her inheriting she probably would forego her right to inherit and the property would go to the state.I have moved the money to the uk from the sale and now intend to rent in France and remain domiciled in the UK Just pay the bills as they fall due so if the account is estimated you can dispute the amount and not have to struggle to get your money refunded most Fren ch people do it this way in 18 years EDF only read the meter once, I used to email photos of the reading to them Your French neighbours know the pitfalls so befriend them
Hi John… and anyone else in this predicament…
When I cancelled a DD… I also went to my Bank… showed them all the correspondence and confirmed, with them, that any DD’s that so-and-so might present… would be refused and returned to sender…
that was many years ago, but I do not see why that should not work nowadays… 
The banque was la Poste unfortunately i had to try to do the cancelations via email, letters and phone calls from England. I was unable to get to the La Poste Banque in person they just didnt respond to any communication eventually my friend who is the post mistress and runs a branch of the bank suggested setting up an internet account and try to cancel all payments that way.With sum difficulty I was able to accomplish this the main problem being i had no address in France by this time.Through the internet account i sent instructions to stop all payments from the account they acknowledged recite of the emails marked them as read but nothing happened although no further payments were made, at the third attempt the over payments to EDF and PRImagaz were credited to my account and hopefully i will have no further difficulties with payments out of the account. I never received any explanations why it had taken so long only the thread suddenly was marked closed
Haha, just noticed your comment rather late. Actually, I was given that name due to knitting and playing animal crossing on my Nintendo at the same time. My face was glowing, evidently.
Have you resolved the inheritance issue yet? Nancy
We’ve not had a chance to visit France since February as my son has had to work extra hours to pay off his father’s debts and I’ve been dealing with selling my house and other family commitments so no, not really. We move out of my home here in the UK on the 4th of June and will be in France on the 22nd - goodness knows what awaits us. There will be more bills as is to be expected but hopefully no more dead birds or any other such detritus. We will be there for three months to see what we can do and to decide whether we want to stay (if so I will be buying a small place of my own where I can just read and crochet and potter about in the garden as I’d intended doing upon retirement but for this intervention).
Best of luck to you, Jacqueline! You may be pleasantly surprised when you move to France, and able to potter about as you desire. Once one has resolved all debts, life becomes simpler and more relaxed. At least you have a house, such as it is. I’m betting that things will work out for you in the end. Nancy