Touche pas aux nos notaires!
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Touche pas aux nos notaires!
I have been reading a story on the Le Monde app (I can't find the precise equivalent on their website) about the intemperate lobbying by the notaires against the modest reforms contemplated by the "loi Macron".
The language they have used on the twittosphere is bad enough, though in a long French tradition ("hyena" is one of the kinder expressions).
But the saddest thing, as ever, is the commentary by the readership of what is theoretically a left-of-centre paper. Even leaving aside the obvious axe-grinding by notaires and their employees, there is a reflex opposition to any reform whatsoever, however feeble, and a reflex defence of any "acquis" acquired by anyone, however absurd and regressive, to make you despair. By people who objectively could only gain by change.
As I recall, the solicitors made similar noises in the UK, decades ago, when their more egregious monopolies were cut back. But I can't recall them getting much sympathy, and the sky didn't fall.
That is, I suppose, the other depressing thing: the total unwillingness to consider that anyone else's experience has any relevance to France, or even to examine it (except as an example of Anglo-Saxon capitalist oppression to be rejected out of hand).
All that said, I really like living here: I can afford notaire's bills, through gritted teeth, on the rare occasions I need to. But I thank my stars that me and mine don't try to make a living here, or survive on the minimum veillesse.
The language they have used on the twittosphere is bad enough, though in a long French tradition ("hyena" is one of the kinder expressions).
But the saddest thing, as ever, is the commentary by the readership of what is theoretically a left-of-centre paper. Even leaving aside the obvious axe-grinding by notaires and their employees, there is a reflex opposition to any reform whatsoever, however feeble, and a reflex defence of any "acquis" acquired by anyone, however absurd and regressive, to make you despair. By people who objectively could only gain by change.
As I recall, the solicitors made similar noises in the UK, decades ago, when their more egregious monopolies were cut back. But I can't recall them getting much sympathy, and the sky didn't fall.
That is, I suppose, the other depressing thing: the total unwillingness to consider that anyone else's experience has any relevance to France, or even to examine it (except as an example of Anglo-Saxon capitalist oppression to be rejected out of hand).
All that said, I really like living here: I can afford notaire's bills, through gritted teeth, on the rare occasions I need to. But I thank my stars that me and mine don't try to make a living here, or survive on the minimum veillesse.
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That is, I suppose, the other depressing thing: the total unwillingness to consider that anyone else's experience has any relevance to France, or even to examine it (except as an example of Anglo-Saxon capitalist oppression to be rejected out of hand).
Sadly the reverse is also true.For example the huge opposition in the UK to healthcare reforms that include any sort of "private sector" component.
Mary
Sadly the reverse is also true.For example the huge opposition in the UK to healthcare reforms that include any sort of "private sector" component.
Mary
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Personally I think the Notaire system and its fees are preferable to the free-market style of legal services that we get in the UK or, Heaven forbid, the USA.
Here everyone has access to a government approved legal representative with a fixed set of fees that are pretty reasonable.
But then I also am quite in favour of keeping pharmacies as the only source of drugs and prescription medicines. Yes, a packet of paracetamol costs 2,50€ but what it means is that we don't grab a couple for every little ailment and we also do not have a major P problem like in the USA and NZ.
Here everyone has access to a government approved legal representative with a fixed set of fees that are pretty reasonable.
But then I also am quite in favour of keeping pharmacies as the only source of drugs and prescription medicines. Yes, a packet of paracetamol costs 2,50€ but what it means is that we don't grab a couple for every little ailment and we also do not have a major P problem like in the USA and NZ.
Domaine Treloar - Vineyard and Winery - www.domainetreloar.com - 04 68 95 02 29
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But the notaires are not as responsible to you as even a conveyancing firm is in the UK. Their prime role is to assure that all relevant property taxes are paid.
They do not assume as 'certain' a role in assuring title as in the UK.
Having said that let me admit that the exact nuances escape me for now so just treat that as a 'heads-up'.
They do not assume as 'certain' a role in assuring title as in the UK.
Having said that let me admit that the exact nuances escape me for now so just treat that as a 'heads-up'.
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The problem is not with notaires as such, as with the facts that their fees bear little relationship to their costs for the most common things they do, and that there are tight controls on new notaires setting up. One consequence is that almost all new notaires are sons and daughters of older notaires - effectively a hereditary suck on the public teat.Santiago wrote:Personally I think the Notaire system and its fees are preferable to the free-market style of legal services that we get in the UK or, Heaven forbid, the USA.
Here everyone has access to a government approved legal representative with a fixed set of fees that are pretty reasonable.
But then I also am quite in favour of keeping pharmacies as the only source of drugs and prescription medicines. Yes, a packet of paracetamol costs 2,50€ but what it means is that we don't grab a couple for every little ailment and we also do not have a major P problem like in the USA and NZ.
You can regulate professions as heavily as you choose without giving them hereditary "rentes" at the public expense. It is this aspect they are complaining about: nothing is proposed to reduce their monopoly on work which has to be notarised.
On my only recent experience, they are as lazy and slipshod as you might imagine from firms with no competition, but that was not my point. It was the French impulse (and yours, it seems) to always stay close to nurse, for fear that anything new is bound to be worse.
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NSantiago wrote:
But then I also am quite in favour of keeping pharmacies as the only source of drugs and prescription medicines. Yes, a packet of paracetamol costs 2,50€ but what it means is that we don't grab a couple for every little ailment and we also do not have a major P problem like in the USA and NZ.
By way of afterthought, whatever else French rules for pharmacies achieve, they certainly don't limit recourse to prescription and non-prescription drugs. It has long been a cliché that the French are European champion pill-poppers (antibiotics for the common cold; homeopathic sugar pills for anything or nothing). And like most clichés, it turns out to be true - though needless to say I cannot find the stats on the issue that I read a few weeks ago.