A tale of admin adventures

Moving to any new country brings with it an amount of administrative 'bumph' to get through. Sometimes this proceeds smoothly, sometimes not. Sometimes it can become positively farcical. In any event if you live in France you are well advised to always carry an up to date EDF bill with you -- and I aways do. You never know when it might come in useful to prove you live where you say you live.

Having said that, France isn't the only country obsessed with energy bills. When we moved back to the UK in 2005 we endured a complete and utter farce when trying to open a bank account.

We'd sold our house in Maastricht and agreed to move out at the end of September to dove-tail with our house purchase in the UK. We had had an offer accepted on a house in Suffolk. To speed things up we'd made sure we had a mortgage approved before we even started looking at houses.

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I had already started my new job in the UK at the start of August, while Niall was still holding the fort in Maastricht. Needing an account to receive my first salary and having the mortgage already sorted at the Halifax, it seemed natural to turn to them for a current account.

Off I toddled during my lunch break to fill in the paperwork, armed with letter from employers as to salary and a sheaf of other paperwork I thought I might need. It should have been simple. It wasn't.

Do you have a gas or electriticy bill madam to prove where you are living? No I replied and explained that I was in London during the week but tried to get back to Maastricht at the weekends and so was mostly staying in one of those cheap and cheerful hotels as advertised by Lenny Henry.

Sorry madam, no can do came the reply. I was informed that I had to furnish the Halifax with a copy of a utilites bill to prove where I lived. In vain did I re-explain to yet another person who had joined the conversation that we were in the process of moving back and that this was the very reason I couldn't give them what they wanted.  I even flurished the paperwork which indicated that they, the Halifax, were giving us our mortgage! And pointed out to them it was in their own interest, as without a bank account on our part how were they going to receive their first repayment from us? Nothing helped.  The Halifax remained adamant: no bank account; even though they agreed it was a ludicrous situation.

A variety of banks later, who all took exactly the same attitude, I was getting very fed up and not a little desperate. It was a Catch 22 situation and the number of lunch breaks I was wasting was high. Another day, and I tried yet another bank; the list of options was shrinking fast.  This time I nearly fell off my chair when the new accounts person said they were happy to have me as a customer and no, thank you, they did not need a copy of a utility bill. Eureka... finally!

the old one

An early rash of encounters with French officialdom when we first moved here taught us the value of the EDF bill.  Mostly our encounters were smooth but there were some that were a little less so.

Up to this week our most recent brush with French official administration had been obtaining the 'Carte Grise' [French registration] for our car a little over a year ago. That process went well until we came to the point of needing to go to our Préfecture in Tours for the actual document.

Open only in the mornings, the day we went up it was a complete madhouse with zillions of people queuing. We checked later and there was no apparent reason for the hordes; it just 'was'. It took nearly 4 hrs of waiting before we were called to the guichet [counter]. All credit to the staff, they remained friendly and helpful throughout. Eventually, in the middle of the afternoon, we emerged like troglogytes blinking at the light, clutching the temporary registration in dazed triumph. It then took all of 10 mins to have the number plates made up.

However, ever since even the thought of having to brave the Préfecture as caused us both to have an urgent need to lie down in a darkened room.

and the new one

Earlier this month I collated all the paperwork I needed to swap my Dutch driving licence for a French one. Keen to avoid the trauma of going to Tours I went to the Sous-Préfecture in Loches to find out if they could do it. They were happy to submit my application for me but I would still need to go to Tours to pick up my new licence. Sigh...

On Monday I phoned up the Préfecture in Tours to make sure my application was indeed all correct and to confirm that a simple appearance at the guichet with my Dutch licence was now the only remaining thing that was required to exchange it for a French one.

Yesterday, we left at the crack of dawn armed with newspaper, books, water bottles and fruit. In fact everything, short of a comfy chair, you can think of to make a very long wait tolerable.

We got there at 9am. Not even the sniff of a horde!  We didn't even need to take a number and were greeted by a very friendly lady at the guichet. 20 mins later I was the proud owner of a French driving licence. Hurrah!