Latest visit to the house...

We have just come back from a long weekend at the house: we had two meetings scheduled for Thursday, and managed to arrange another one for Friday whilst we were out there.

On Thursday morning, we were due to meet M. Petipas at 8.30 and open up the house for inspections by M. Bruneau (from the experts employed by Dominique's insurance company), and the huissier (apologies, I didn't catch his name).

We didn't expect M. Petipas to be on time (M. Boyer is always late!), so weren't very surprised when it got to 9 o'clock before he showed up...

I saw a car in the little road that leads to the house, but it didn't turn into the drive, so I thought nothing more until we had a knock on the door (normally all visitors are announced by the sound of a car parking).

He'd got to the village early, and pulled off the road to have a bite of breakfast before coming to see us.

All very good, until he tried to drive away, and got his wheels bogged down in the mud...

Have I mentioned the particularly cloying quality the local soil takes on when even slightly damp? And it has been raining solidly, so it's reminiscent of the Somme at the moment (we're not very far from there!)...

Happily, our neighbour (who wasn't keen on driving her father's tractor as she hadn't much experience of it) telephoned her cousin (the mayor) who kindly came in his 4 x 4 (yes, as a farmer, he does actually need one!) and rapidly dragged the car back to solid ground.

We had planned to have a meeting before the arrival of M. Bruneau, but time was against us, so went straight into his (very rapid) visit.

He said that Dominique's work wasn't a very good advertisement for France, was it?

We had to agree it wasn't!

I think that M. Bruneau had pretty much made up his mind before visiting the house, but given how the system works in France, that probably wasn't as bad as it sounds!

If Dominique had finished the work, and we had signed to accept it, we would have been covered by his insurance for all the work he was insured for.

As none of the work was finished, the insurance cover would not extend to our job. Add to that, most of the work he undertook he wasn't insured for, we were bound to lose either way.

At least next time we employ someone we will be scrupulous about checking their insurance!

An expensive lesson, but the expert was making a valid point when he said at least Dominique's work hasn't damaged the structure of the house. [He told us of a nightmare case where someone had paid €90,000 and had the structure of the house so weakened all he could do was have the house demolished!]

We were sad, but it wasn't unexpected. [I think we've looked in all the hats to see if there might be any rabbits!]

The huissier [a kind of indepent witness to any kind of dispute] said we would have a really good claim against Dominique.

But the main problem with taking the Tribunal route would be the length of time before we could begin work again on the house. The court case could take up to 5 years, and cost €5-10,000 in lawyers fees.

At the end of that, there may be no money with which to pay us anyway, so that would still be an enormous risk...

The huissier thought that Dominique's name rang a bell, so he called a colleague of his: apparently, there is (at least) one other court case in progress against Dominique, so even if we went down that route, we'd have to join a queue of creditors...

It's not looking an appealing course of action (especially given my family's experience of resorting to the law to resolve a dispute where we're got a really good case!), but we haven't made our minds up yet.

The day ended on a better note: we managed to get through most of "lots" of the dossier of works to be done with M. Petipas. We had a lot of points where we just didn't quite understand the technical language and M. Petipas explained what it all meant.

A few points were completely incomprehensible to us (all the words made sense, but not when used in that order!), but again they were easily clarified. Even in English, technical building terms aren't easy until you know what they mean!

There are a few points where we didn't want the proposed course of action, but most of those are also now resolved: either we could change those, or there is a valid reason we didn't know about why it has to happen that way, so we'll just go with what they have put.

So that just leaves a few points to be clarified, then (hopefully!) we are good to go.

M. Boyer has written to various trades asking if they wish to quote for our job, and has received some replies. He needs a few more companies, then they will have a day at the site with the interested companies, who will go away and send us quotes.

Sounds so easy! But we're keeping everything crossed!

Once M. Boyer & M. Petipas have analysed the quotes and we have chosen which companies to go with, then it should all be ready to start once a timetable has been agreed.

I do so hope everything works out right this time...