France Voila and FPD news - 29 February 2004

1. Investment Property Sales
2. Tilting at Windmills
3. Leaseback Yields
4. Hunt the Civil Servants
5. Channel Crossing Pirates
6. More on the Pool Laws
7. Renting Long Term in France
8. Taxation on Rentals Income in France
9. Complaints
10. Schooling in France
11. French Medical Insurance
12. French Internet sites for Home Rentals - the Law
13. Guilty Until Proved Innocent
14. Vintage Cars for Sale
15. Owners and Advertisers Liability to prosecution and Taxes

We now have over 25,000 subscribers and the aim of this newsletter is to give information about life and living in France to all visitors and English speaking residents. The information and comments are based on our personal experience and research.

Carole and I have lived and raised our family in the South of France for 15 years and if you read some of our archives and weblog you can see that it aint all roses, sunshine and wine festivals.

Sitting in the garden on a sunny day in February, while our friends in England write to me about the snow makes it all seem worth while.

I have been slow sending news and information recently as we have been working hard improving our services on our websites. Our main business is in the tourism industry in France, helping people to find and to rent villas and homes here through our sites such as

http://rentalsfrance.com/
RentalsFrance

This is getting more difficult as the Laws and regulations tighten up. Many of these rules are good, if they are ever applied, such as the safety requirements for swimming pools, but others are no more than restrictive practices aimed at protecting the estate agents here who, in general, give a very poor and very expensive service. However, the bottom line for all the new initiatives is to do with collecting more taxes. What started out as, literally, a "cottage" industry, people renting out their private homes for some extra income, is now a billion euro business. We have had floods of mail ab