Most recent visit to the maître d'œuvre

We went to see M. Boyer on 2 March - another all day marathon, with (obviously!) a break for lunch. It was good (mostly), but Dominique is still the main cause for concern...

We got to the house on Thursday afternoon, and were surprised to see a brand new chain around the gates; the old one was perfectly adequate. Who had put the new one there? And why?

The second question was answered much more quickly than the first: Dominique's machinery for installing plasterboard had gone from the house and barn, and his plastering platform was missing as well. I'm not saying Dominique cut the chain, but someone did: I found one link on the ground near the gate. It looked as though it had been cut with boltcutters and bent apart - that took some effort; I tried to bend it and couldn't make it budge! It's probably leaping to conclusions to guess that Dominique is guilty of breaking-and-entering (we already know he's not trustworthy), but someone who didn't have a padlock key but did have a house key took Dominique's belongings from our house... The only person we know with a house key, but without a padlock key (we changed that lock) is Dominique...

We told that to M. Boyer, who thinks it's probably Dominique who took his stuff. I'm not sure if it's breaking and entering if the breaking relates to the gate rather than the house, but it's criminal damage if nothing else, and we had asked for our keys to be returned in the letter we sent by courier in October (we've got proof of delivery to his business address: his mother signed for it), and told him that he could collect his belongings, but only by arrangement with us, so I'm sure that's some other law broken there. I know French law is different than English, but I doubt they let you just go to someone else's house and let yourself in when you've been ordered not to, having cut the security chain on their gate! The only reason we didn't report it to the police is that we are trying to get the matter resolved in as friendly a manner as possible. And we still can report him to the police later, if he won't be reasonable...

M. Boyer had finally had a meeting with Dominique (one that he showed up to - I think it was the 6th attempt; he was a no-show all the other times) on the Friday before we saw him. He had told Dominique there were 3 possible courses of action:

1. We go to a tribunal. This now predicted to take up to four years, and M. Boyer estimates it will cost us €10,000, and Dominique €20,000 - enough to bankrupt his business,
2. Dominique pays us back the money we have given to him, and he walks away from the job, or
3. Dominique re-does all the unsatisfactory work under M. Boyer's supervision, and to his standards

We are desperately hoping he goes for option 2 - we really don't want to wait another four years, and experience of the legal process has taught us that it's not certain and will probably cost you more than you get back! The thought of letting him loose on our beautiful house again is our least preferred option. M. Boyer since thought of an option 4: Dominique pays us back the money we'd paid him and the cost of putting it right! But as Dominique was on holiday that week, he hasn't suggested that one to him!

We spent the rest of the meeting discussing the house room-by-room - what we intended the use to be, and how we wanted the layout. We'd sent him some sketches, so we are getting closer, but I'm now not happy about the layout of the en-suite bathroom, but David says we can change that. We're planning another meeting in about a month, and hopefully by then Dominique will have got back to M. Boyer, returned our keys and chosen "Option 2"...

Please keep your fingers crossed for us!