Permis, what Permis???

This post starts with the view that I wrote at the start of the latest visit, it then takes into account what happened at the end of the stay. Things change!

This was to be a short visit prompted by the possibility of meeting the builder who having been let down on a previously organised job might be able to start work prior to winter. I ‘phoned when I arrived and yes he could, and indeed did, turn up. He’d been here before and looked at the house from the outside and had the architect’s plans; so this was a chance for him to see the inside and make a fuller judgment.

As the fifth person to have a close look at the troublesome wall it was interesting to see how he made his judgment. And his view is unequivocally that the wall is eminently rescuable and can be held in place by the structure for the roof that he proposes. This is very similar to the solution offered by the two other builders who say that it can be saved. Overall he was encouraging about the task of undertaking the repairs, and when we talked through the timescales indicated that he could get me a quote before I leave again. Also that he could start the work in late October/early November and therefore be well underway prior to the onset of the worst of the winter. We shall see!

Other than that I did a deal more of clearing out of the house to remove all of the straw and hay that was stored at first floor level at the eastern end of the house. This constituted a substantial fire hazard as well as obscuring the state of the floors making it impossible to judge where it was safe to walk. Moving it in the temperatures I experienced was very hard work – hot and stuffy as well as very dusty. Fortunately I had some face masks available so that I did not inhale too much of the dust occasioned by the clearing process. And I was able to move all the straw/hay onto our field as shown by the picture above. Our neighbour enquired whether I intended to burn it – it would be unbelievably dangerous to do this as the material is completely dry and would fly everywhere – and I said absolutely not, it would rot down in due course. She seemed a little disappointed in this answer!

Other than that I’ve re-sprayed the courtyard at the front with weed-killer to keep that under control. No doubt it will re-grow again before we return some time in autumn but it’s worth trying to stop it getting completely overgrown.

And I made a visit to Biarritz to have a day off and just to see how long it took. It’s actually about 150 km and takes less than two hours to get into the centre of the town. There were surfers even though the weather was rather calm and they made it look all so easy that I immediately wanted to have a go. However, I’ve no doubt that I’d make a complete prat of myself if I did try it. But those visitors younger and fitter than I am will doubtless enjoy themselves enormously having a go at it.

And at that point all seemed well. And then I decided to look in on the Mairie as the architect had informed me that I should expect a letter from it formally confirming the Permis de Construire. Since I had received nothing and there was no sign on the notice-board outside a visit seemed a sensible idea.

How to contain my frustration at this point?? The secretary was helpful but a little baffled that there wasn’t a notification. She ‘phoned the Departmental authorities who informed her that there is a problem over the open-sided barn which we have planned to demolish. And it would seem that despite having had a letter that states we have authorisation as from the end of July in the absence on any further communication (which we haven’t received) we actually don’t have such authorisation! It would seem that the Departmental architect is having second thoughts about the demolition of the barn. But he’s not got round to informing us about this. So, I am told very firmly that I don’t have a Permis, absolutely no work should be done on the house and there’s no indication of what time-scale we are now expected to work to.

Given that none of the builders has actually got round to quoting on the work there’s no real problem in all of this – no work is going to happen any way! But to say that I am angry and frustrated is to put the least construction on my feelings. How we proceed at this point is any one’s guess. I shall retire to England to take advice and think it through. One feeling is that since I have the strong suspicion that the reversal of the decision is the result of the intervention of the Maire, whose parents are the next-door neighbours, I shall simply leave the house to rot away to nothing becoming a permanent blight on the face of the village and affecting his family’s property most directly. Childish and unhelpful I’m sure; but bitterness at the ridiculous twists of the bureaucratic process engendering feelings of hopeless rage can result in such thoughts.

An August Posting

Where to begin?? This is going to sound much the same as the previous post and the one before that because ……. progress is slow to non-existent. Once again I’ve spent time in Arné pottering around the house doing various, hopefully useful, things but in reality awaiting the attentions of builders. I have had further visits from builders and talked through the issues and therefore what they can or can’t do. Two possible English builders visited and seemed knowledgeable and willing but in the end they have dropped out on the basis that the job is too big for them. Another potential English builder has been introduced to me and he is keen to find a biggish job to replace one where he has been let down by the people for whom he was going to work. But despite promises he has not re-contacted me so I’ve no idea what the situation is with him.

The French builder alluded to in the last posting has returned and is apparently quite enthusiastic about taking on the job. He showed me some of his work that he’s done on a house in the village for another English couple and it is of a very high quality indeed. I’d be more than happy to employ him on that basis. But, and there always seems to be a but, despite promises he’s not provided me with a quote nor given me any indication of when he might start work other than to assert that he can start prior to winter setting in. I shall have to contact him again to prompt him on all of this and even then I do wonder whether I shall get a quote with a start date!

The one bright moment in all this gloom is that I have been informed by the architect that the Permis has been granted as from the end of July. I should have received a letter formally stating this but the architect was informed that the Mairie is ‘a bit behind with the post/letters’ and so I’ll receive it ‘sometime soon’. That was three weeks ago and I’ve received nothing so far. But despite this lack of a formal confirmatory letter I do actually have permission and could proceed, if only I could get builders to do the work!

So what I’ve done is carry on with the business of clearing out the rubbish from the house and from the courtyard to enable easier access to the house as a whole. Not terribly satisfying as it feels like marking time rather than getting on with the work that really needs to be done. Some of the results can be seen above – the picture showing the courtyard taken from the first floor of the house shows that all the earth from the wall that collapsed and was put outside has been removed to our field. In the centre of the house I’ve taken out all the dangerously positioned tiles, pushed tiles into better positions to take rain away and cleared away the beds, the wardrobe and the chest of drawers which had been left there. This means that this area is no longer so dangerous and is ready for any builder/roofer to set to work on it immediately.

I’m now back in the UK as out of the blue an offer to good to refuse has been made on my house here. So it’s a matter of organising a purchase of another, cheaper house and carrying out all the necessary to enable a move to be made. At the end of all of that we shall be able to finance all the building works very much more easily than would have been the case. But of course being in the UK means that I cannot so easily ‘pursue’ builders to try to get them started on the work.

What a load of moans! But it is very trying on the patience. Given that we shall both be retired from work at the beginning of October we shall be able to concentrate all our attentions on the house in Arné and this may/should mean that we can ensure better progress; at least I hope so!

A July Up-date

I returned to Arné a bit later than originally intended but full of hope that with the Permis close to being granted I could get on with the business of confirming some dates with the various artisans to work on the house. I should have known better!

Of course everybody I’ve talked to has warned me of the difficulties in making anything approaching reasonable, let alone swift, progress. And so it has proved. Builders who’ve visited previously have simply been unobtainable or have promised to visit but haven’t, leading to frustrating days of hanging around to no purpose. One set of builders who did visit were quite encouraging but are so busy that they cannot quote for a date before next year – this is of no use whatsoever given the advanced state of collapse the house is now in. And completely out of the blue another French builder has recently visited and says he will contact me on my return from the brief visit I’m making to the UK – he’s done work in the village for another English couple and is quite keen to work for the English; I’ll see how this pans out.

I have made some progress on my own behalf. I have many a visit to the local tip – the Dechetterie – with my trailer and disposed of a lot of rubbish from the house. I’ve also knocked down the pig-sties nearest the house in order to prepare for the work on the end wall – see the pictures above. Not as easy as it sounds as it was put together with what I call ‘amateur mortar’ – that is, made with a much stronger mix than a builder would have used and therefore impossibly hard to break up. In the temperatures we’ve been enjoying this has made for a very hard task indeed. How much further I go with this depends upon the builder who eventually takes the task on – there is a great difference of opinion about whether the end wall actually needs to come down and be replaced; presently this stands at two who would remove it and replace against two who would patch up and strengthen around it.

And I’ve spent an age in, frankly, ‘displacement activity’; that is I’ve cleaned up the second of the gates and then painted it over with anti-rust paint. With all the curls of metal-work this is a task that seemed to take forever. But the results are good as the picture above shows and though I can characterise it as a displacement, the reality is that to have replaced the gates with equivalents would cost around £500; so worth doing I guess. The other comment to make is that as it the task was conducted on the edge of the road it led to regular interruptions from passing neighbours who wanted to talk about the state of the house, what I’m doing, which artisans I will have to do the work, the state of the weather, the harvest, and so on. Pleasant in that it enables me to get to know more of my neighbours, but frustrating as it demonstrates very clearly to me how poor my command of French really is.

I must say though the inexplicable delays that seem to be a normal part of being here are certainly testing my patience. I fear that if this gets to be too much I could well be tempted to call it a day with this project and look to spend my retirement in other more enjoyable ways. Perhaps the comment of someone fed up with the lack of progress and an unwillingness to fight through French bureaucracy and apparent indolence. We’ll see how this evolves!

A Very Little Progress

As noted in the last posting we were firmly informed by the Maire that we must not undertake any work on the house. However, the alternative view from the architect is that of course we can carry out repairs and we decided that we would, with caution, follow the latter advice.

So we have made a start on clearing the courtyard at the front of the house to make access for the car easier. Originally it’s clear that this area was covered in pebbles of varying sizes and this would have been kept clear of all vegetation. But over the years weeds and grass have established themselves and collected earth as well. With every passage of the car over this area the earth has got churned up and the area is turning into a muddy morass. This was made more likely by the fact that the weather has been unseasonably wet – we ‘enjoyed’ some amazing storms. In the event our efforts only cleared a relatively small area including the splay in front of the gate.

We also purchased a trailer and I also found a place where I can buy gravel and sand at very low prices – much better than the various builders hypermarkets. So I’ve loaded up the trailer a couple of times and put the gravel into the splay and created tracks for the car to stand on as well. This has improved the muddiness factor significantly. I’ve also cleaned up one of the gates to see if it can be rescued and have painted a goodly portion of it. Some of this can be seen in the photo above.

I have also worked with chaux for the first time. This is chalk render which is recommended for working with earth walls. It creates a waterproof outer coat but allows the earth wall to breathe and thereby lets the rising damp transpire out of it. Using this I have repaired most of the major cracks in the front wall thus stopping the water penetration that is the most significant factor in causing the walls to deteriorate. Hopefully with the weather improving with these repairs in place the house will not suffer further significant damage at the front. The picture of the front of the house above shows some of the repairs.

Upstairs at the eastern end of the house I have started clearing out the very substantial amount of straw and hay which litters the floors. This is both a fire hazard and a ‘falling through’ hazard – that is you can’t be sure what’s underneath the straw/hay and could put your foot through a hole where the water has caused the floor boards to rot. The problem is what to do with this material – something I’ve not yet worked out though I suspect I’ll use it for composting on our field in front.

And talking of the field we have been fortunate in that our immediate neighbours offered to and then actually did mow the grass in it using their tractors. The grass had got to be well over two feet high and we were rather despairing about what we should do with it. Having mowed it they also took away the cut grass to feed to their milking herd of cattle so there were mutual benefits in this work. But we shall have to invest in a sit-on mower to help keep the field in shape. And in due course we want to plant it up as an orchard with fruit trees such as peaches, pears and cherries.

I did also discover the local “dechetterie” and make my first visit. This is the local rubbish dump and I disposed of all the metal items I took out of the house in my visit in February. I can see that I shall be making many visits with my trailer to get rid of the substantial amounts of material which will be generated by all the work we shall be doing.

So not a great deal of progress really. But at least we feel that we are moving forward still and as I said at the end of the last posting, we are still optimistic that we can make the important work that will preserve the structure of the house happen prior to winter.

Planning

Having arrived and got settled in the next step was to determine how far the whole planning process had got. So on the first Saturday we went to the Mairie – it’s only open Tuesday and Saturday mornings for a couple of hours. There we had the good fortune to meet with the Maire himself and attempted to discover from him what stage our request for a Permis de Construire had got to.

He had reviewed it and passed it on to the next stage – the DDE in Lannemezan. As far as he was concerned it was all OK except for one detail which he described but I simply could not understand. We were rescued from the impasse by the arrival of a lady who also lives in the village – she’s French but has taught in England for a number of years and has an English husband. She resolved the matter which is that the Maire would like us to retain the wooden trellis work at the top of the barn wall facing on to the road. We indicated that this would not be a problem as far as we are concerned.

So far so good and we were feeling quite positive. But he then told us that it would be the end of August before the Permis could be granted. Further we absolutely must not touch the fabric of the building at all. Not even repairs can be contemplated. Everything has to be left strictly alone. This is most unwelcome news, not least as I had agreed with the roofer that he would start on the house in July.

So we paid a visit to said roofer and told him the sad news. He was quite sanguine about this alteration, having had experience in France, and therefore accepting it as ‘normal’. I also spoke with the architect who, by contrast, got very fired up. He stated that the Permis ought to come through in July at the latest if all was well with the submission and that of course we can carry out repairs, it is alterations we cannot undertake. He agreed to ‘phone the DDE and find out exactly what progress had been made. But when he ‘phoned the person dealing with the submission was on holiday and once again the process stretched out. I finally heard from the architect only after I arrived back in England that the submission is regarded as complete and that all being well the Permis will be granted as at the end of July.

Subsequently I’ve received a letter from the DDE repeating this message – that is that I have “autorisation tacite” as from the end of July. There is however, a but to this. In a subsequent paragraph which I cannot fully understand there is a statement that as there is a referral to an external body – this relates to the septic tank – it may be that planning might not be actually given. If therefore I proceed with the works it could be that I’ll have to undo them under what appear to be some severe penalties. Obviously I shall have to clarify this and will call on the services of number one son who studied French at university.

Despite these caveats I do feel that we have made some progress – the submission is not going to be referred back which would have put the whole process back to the beginning, i.e. another three months from a re-submission. So it could well be that I do achieve a roof on the house with walls repaired and the ground floor sorted out prior to the onset of the winter. We keep our fingers crossed on that score.

The Journey

So finally we got round to towing the caravan to the house having decided to have it made ready at our own expense and then hope to recover some of the money via the solicitors (a rapidly disappearing hope). In the hurry to get to the ferry at Dover I very nearly killed us by causing the caravan to fish-tail as we passed a slightly slower lorry - how we got out of it I still don't know, nor frankly care to relive the experience to try to work it out.

Thereafter it took three days to complete the journey as I played it extra cautious. And we had a salutary warning when on day 2 we came upon the aftermath of an accident where a caravan had clearly fish-tailed turning itself onto the side and causing the car to crash into the central crash barrier. Fortunately it looked as if the people involved had escaped without personal injury. But it certainly reinforced the message to me that I should be careful.

Thus we were mightily relieved eventually to reach Arné in the afternoon of the third day. But of course nothing is easy and we arrived to discover that the road ouside the house was being resurfaced and access to it therefore was blocked. Oh the frustration! However, I managed to talk with the guy in charge of the team and he arranged it such that we could drive to the house. The downside of this of course was that we would be observed trying to get the caravan onto the courtyard by the whole road-laying crew.

Miraculously I managed to drive simply straight onto the courtyard with no hitch whatsoever, much to my relief. We then went off to purchase essential supplies and returned later, by which time the crew had disappeared. And then we sweated over getting the caravan into the position we wanted it to finally sit in. Said thus it sounds so easy. In fact we spent a good hour going backwards and forwards, slipping and sliding in the mud, hitching up and then unhitching and moving the car around or the caravan manually until, just as we were beginning to despair, it simply went in between the posts of the open-sided barn and into place. If you look at the picture above you'll see how tight the fit actually is.

The next issue was to provide ourselves with water, gas and electricity. In the case of water the problem was that someone had stolen the tap on the pipe from the mains! Unbelievable, as it couldn't be worth anything, but of course I had to replace it to be able to use the mains supply easily. For the gas we needed a French distributor to fit onto the bottles and only when we got this back to the caravan did we find that the caravan has push-fit fittings and the French system is based on screw-in fittings. So more explorations in the hardware supermarkets and we got something that would work. But that wasn't the end of my troubles as I couldn't get the fittings to screw into the gas bottle we'd purchased. So I took the bottle plus fitting back to the garage where I'd bought the gas. And all it was is that in the case of gas bottles the fittings are screwed in counter-clockwise - the man at the garage clearly thought that I was absolutely mad and incompetent; a very perceptive man therefore!

And for electricity we purchased a small generator. This worked first time and has proved very effective; albeit that it is expensive as a way to have power as well as noisy.

But with all of these things in place we could be comfortable and dry, cook for ourselves and begin to get on with the tasks in hand.

Frustration & Encouragement

The problems with the caravan continue to plague the project. Basically I've spent the last month kicking my heels in the UK trying to make sense of what the lawyers are trying to do to sort it out. As a consequence no physical progress has been made on the ground in France.

However, we have had quotes and responses from the tradesmen I talked with when I was in Arné and having checked these with the architect it would seem that they are at a reasonable level. So we now have some sense of the order of the costs that the overall works will amount to. I shall get further quotes to make the necessary comparisons and have some bargaining space though.

And the architect has also produced plans at the final stage prior to submission to obtain the Permis de Construire. This is the encouraging bit! As part of the submission there has to be an indication of what the outcome of the project will be and this is what the two pictures attached to this post show - compare these to the picture in very first posting.

Just like that it's all completed - we wish! But it is good to have a view of how it could/should all look when we get to the end of the long haul that this project will undoubtedly be.

And with that thought I shall now 'phone the solicitors to see what, if any, progress has been made to sort out the caravan. Let's hope that I can meet the new deadline I've set myself of setting off with a caravan at the end of April.