France Made Simple

That gorgeous French farmhouse looks perfect online. But what can you actually do with it? And what’s happening in the field next door?

This week, I’m joined by Philip, the software engineer behind French House Check, a tool designed to bring scattered property information together into a plain-English report.

We talk planning restrictions, agricultural land, flood risks, septic tanks, energy efficiency and why a beautiful listing only tells you part of the story. Philip explains how his own search for a renovation project led him down a rabbit hole of French government websites, and inspired him to make the process easier for other house hunters.

Having bought a few properties I probably shouldn’t have, I know how useful it is to ask the right questions early. If you’re buying in France, planning a viewing trip or selling a property, this episode will give you plenty to think about.

Find Philip at https://frenchhousecheck.com.

Or email him - [email protected]

With thanks to our sponsors, Fab French Insurance.

That beautiful stone house might come with stunning views. But how far is the school, how much will it cost to heat, and are you about to become a full-time taxi service for your children?This week, I’m joined by my friend Natasha, who moved from Croydon to Normandy with three children aged thirteen, eleven and seven. We talk honestly about moving with older children, finding supportive schools, making friends and building a working life in France.There’s also rural isolation, freezing houses, teenage soirées involving raclette machines, and the peculiar expat competition over who’s lived here longest.If you’re planning a move, this is a reminder to look beyond the lovely property and think about the everyday life you actually want. As Natasha puts it: you can’t live off a view.With thanks to our sponsors, Fab French Insurance.And you can get in touch with Natasha here:https://ournormandylife.com/category/our-business-life/www.ournormandylife.comOr on Facebook :https://www.facebook.com/share/19nrgAbYYU/Or follow her on Instagram :https://www.instagram.com/ournormandylife?psln=NGFua2tydzR2dDZ3

Need a French bank account but already stuck on the proof-of-address problem? Welcome to France.

In this episode of France Made Simple, I explain what new arrivals need to know about French banking, from opening an account and gathering the paperwork to understanding your RIB, direct debits and the difference between immediate and deferred debit cards.

We’ll look at traditional banks versus online options, fees to watch out for, moving money from overseas and why opening a French account doesn’t sort out your tax residence. And yes, we’ll talk about cheques. They’re still a thing here.

A practical, jargon-free guide to getting your banking organised, without assuming that what worked for somebody on Facebook will necessarily work for you.

That gorgeous French house might tick every box. But will you actually enjoy living there?

In this episode of France Made Simple, I’m joined by Ben, who helps people moving to France find long-term rentals. We discuss why renting before buying can give you valuable breathing space, why securing a rental can be surprisingly difficult for newcomers, and how to look beyond the holiday dream to find somewhere that suits your everyday life.

From choosing between rural tranquillity and town convenience to understanding your lease and making a personal connection with potential landlords, we explore what helps a move work. I also share some of my own less-than-brilliant property decisions. Yes, there have been a few!

If you’re planning a move to France, this is a practical, honest conversation about finding your feet before putting down roots.

Ben’s contact details are here :

+44 203 376 5117 (UK)

+33 7 56 28 09 20 (France)

[email protected]

With thanks to our sponsors, Fab French Insurance.

French home insurance is not quite as straightforward as you might expect, especially if you’re coming from the UK or another country with a different insurance system.

In this episode of France Made Simple, Cat is joined by Fabien from Fab French Insurance to debunk some of the biggest myths surrounding French home and contents insurance.

We look at what is legally required depending on whether you’re a tenant, homeowner, second-home owner or landlord, and why French insurance doesn’t work in quite the same way as UK buildings and contents insurance.

We also cover some of the areas that regularly catch people out, including:

• Why buildings-only and contents-only policies aren’t generally how French home insurance works
• What happens if you have a swimming pool, garage, shed or other outbuilding
• Why your valuable possessions in a shed may not be covered simply because you’ve declared the shed
• How the “new for old” principle actually works; and why it doesn’t necessarily mean getting back what you originally paid
• Why photographing your possessions and keeping receipts, valuations and certificates of authenticity can make a huge difference when making a claim
• Chimney sweeping, maintenance and what insurers may expect
• How “catastrophe naturelle” claims work in France
• Why natural-disaster cover is different from ordinary claims
• The surprising issue of underground water pipes and where responsibility for leaks begins and ends
• And perhaps the biggest culture shock of all: accidental damage to your own possessions is generally NOT included in a standard French home insurance policy.

As always, the aim isn’t to scare you into buying more insurance, it’s to understand what you actually have, what you don’t have, and where the potential gaps might be.

Because when it comes to French insurance, as Fabien puts it: you don’t know what you don’t know until you find out you don’t know it!

Moving to France can be an exciting new chapter but there are a few mistakes that can make the transition considerably harder than it needs to be.

In this episode of France Made Simple, I run through five of the most common mistakes people make when they move to France and, as usual, I’ve made plenty of them myself so you don’t have to!

We look at why you really do need to learn French (and why “I’ll pick it up when I get there” probably isn’t going to work), why you should start thinking about your garden much earlier than you might expect, and why it’s surprisingly easy for a move, renovation and French admin to take over your entire life and even your relationship.

I also talk about the culture shock of moving to France, including the little social rules that can catch newcomers out, from saying bonjour and doing la bise to understanding why French people interrupt, wag their fingers and don’t necessarily mean to be rude.

And finally, we get to one of the biggest lessons of all: patience. French opening hours, August holidays, bank-holiday weekends, builders, paperwork and the general French approach to work-life balance can test even the most laid-back newcomer.

The good news? Most of these things can be anticipated, planned for and, eventually, laughed about.

If you’re planning a move to France or you’ve already made the move and are wondering why nobody warned you about some of this, this episode is for you.

And thank you, as always, to our long-term sponsors Fab French Insurance for supporting France Made Simple.

And as promised - here’s the link to my fabulous hairdresser!

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61580217764838

French Car Insurance: What You Really Need to Know

Car insurance in France is one of those subjects surrounded by endless urban myths, conflicting advice and the inevitable “my friend down the road does it this way” stories.

In this episode, I’m joined once again by Fabien from Fab French Insurance to cut through some of the confusion and explain how French car insurance actually works.

We talk about the bonus-malus system and how your no-claims history is transferred from another country, why French insurers can be particularly demanding when it comes to proving your insurance history, and what can happen if the information on your application doesn’t match your previous insurance record.

We also look at foreign-registered vehicles, including UK cars being driven in France while their owners are waiting for the import process to be completed, temporary French registration plates and the increasingly strict approach to cars that remain permanently on foreign plates.

Another big difference is that in France the insurance generally follows the vehicle rather than being based solely around named drivers. So what happens if you lend your car to a friend, neighbour or family member? And what happens to your excess, your no-claims discount and your cover if they have an accident?

We also get into the thorny subject of foreign driving licences…Including British licences after Brexit, EU licences and the different rules that can apply depending on where you originally obtained your licence.

The main message? Don’t assume that because something was perfectly normal in the UK, US or elsewhere, it works the same way in France. And perhaps most importantly: don’t rely on Steve from Facebook.

As Fabien says, “You don’t know what you don’t know.” Sometimes paying for the right advice at the beginning can save you a lot of money and headaches later.

Fabien has been working with expats in France for many years, and we’ve worked together for more than a decade, so this is a particularly useful episode if you are moving to France, have recently arrived, are importing a vehicle, or simply want to make sure your existing French car insurance is doing what you think it is.

France Made Simple — demystifying life in France and telling it like it is!

Buying a property in France can be exciting, romantic and, occasionally, a spectacularly expensive mistake…

In this episode, I go back to one of the earliest topics I tackled on France Made Simple, finding a property in France, but with a rather different approach. After nearly 30 years of looking at French properties (and buying quite a few!) , I look at the five things you really shouldn’t do when choosing a French property, based largely on mistakes I’ve made myself.

From getting carried away by how much house you can get for your money, to ignoring the realities of rural life, underestimating renovation costs, falling in love with a staircase and buying the wrong property out of sheer desperation, there are plenty of lessons to be learned.

I also talk about how Survive France started back in 2009, the early criticism of its rather tongue-in-cheek name, why feedback from listeners is changing how I approach the podcast, and my recent discovery that an all-inclusive holiday involving sun loungers, swimming pools and absolutely no exploration whatsoever can actually be rather wonderful.

As always, I’ve made the mistakes so you don’t have to!

French health insurance can leave you facing a maze of unfamiliar terms, confusing reimbursement percentages and potentially expensive gaps in cover. Choose the wrong policy or misunderstand what it pays, and a hospital stay, dental treatment or even a pair of glasses could cost far more than you expected.

So what exactly is a mutuelle? Is it private health insurance, or something different? What does “top-up” cover really pay for? And when a policy promises 100%, 200% or even 300% reimbursement, what does that actually mean in euros?

In this episode of France Made Simple, I’m joined by Fabien from Fab French Insurance to take a deep dive into the French healthcare system and, in particular, the sometimes baffling world of complementary health insurance.

We discuss how French public healthcare works alongside a mutuelle, why this is very different from the private health insurance systems many of us are used to in the UK and US, and one particularly important point: why existing medical conditions generally don’t prevent you from taking out complementary cover.

We also talk about hospitalisation, glasses, dentistry, physiotherapy, osteopathy, alternative treatments and some of the things you might be surprised to discover your policy covers.

Fabien explains what those confusing reimbursement percentages actually mean, why the cheapest or most expensive policy isn’t necessarily the right one, and why understanding your own needs is far more important than simply choosing the policy with the biggest numbers attached to it.

We also look at the French parcours de soins — the healthcare pathway — and why knowing how the system works can make a real difference to what you pay and what gets reimbursed.

And, perhaps reassuringly, if you still find French healthcare and insurance confusing after all this… you’re not alone. As Fabien points out, plenty of French people don’t fully understand it either.

If you’re moving to France, newly arrived, or have lived here for years and still find yourself staring blankly at your mutuelle documents, this episode should help make sense of one of the most important, and misunderstood, aspects of life in France.

From playing Little House on the Prairie in a London garden to fishing for mullet in the Bay of Mont Saint-Michel… how exactly did that happen?

In this rather more personal episode of France Made Simple, I tell the story of how a little girl growing up in Streatham, dreaming of ponies, vegetable gardens, chickens and a cottage in the countryside, eventually ended up living in rural France and, somewhat accidentally, creating the very life she had been fantasising about for decades.

There are childhood memories, Escape to the Country fantasies, derelict French houses, vegetable gardens, an alarming quantity of green beans, homemade preserves, dehydrated courgette crisps, fishing nets, tidal rivers, seals, and one slightly terrifying adventure in the Bay of Mont Saint-Michel.

It turns out that becoming self-sufficient is actually much harder work than it looks on television. But there is something incredibly satisfying about sitting down to a meal made almost entirely from things you’ve grown or caught yourself.

And perhaps that’s the real point of this episode: sometimes the life you dream about when you’re young really isn’t as impossible as it seems.

Moving to France isn’t always easy. There are frustrations, tears, bureaucracy, homesickness and plenty of moments when you wonder what on earth you’ve done.

But it is an adventure. And after more than 20 years here, I still wouldn’t change it.

So grab a cup of tea, coffee, glass of wine or something stronger, and join me for a slightly chaotic trip from Streatham High Street to Green Bean Hell!