Hells teeth, had a capital lettered email from the notaire waiting for me this am. Don't you just hate that! I don't know if it's the same in the UK, but when you sell a property here there are now a raft of tests that have to be done on it: termites, lead, asbestos, and energy rating and gaz installations of more than 15 years. The energy rating one is completely useless, by the way, and lasts 10 years, regardless of what you do to it in the meantime. The termite report is only valid for 3 months and our notaire had requested the guy who did the report on our property to print out a report dated recently - standard practise, apparently, so one doesn't have to keep paying for new reports. So here's the the thing: our 'expert' has lost his certification and cannot now do inspections! One week to go and we have to get another termite report done and got to the notaire. Jeez...Amazingly, although it is a Saturday (35hr working week here, you know) we have found someone who can come tuesday. Phew! Panic over.

Dave has been trying to set up a 'bail commercial' which is a rental agreement for our new business. We used a website called statutsonline to set up our new company and saved ourselves about 1000 euros by not doing it through our accountant. So, feeling pretty chuffed with ourselves, we thought we'd do the same thing for the rental agreement, which has to be in force for the day we buy the company. Well, on this website it costs 49 euros but you cant add clauses which we want to do as the rent will be free while we are renovating. Dave did a search on the 'net and found a changeable model one for free!!! I'll have to go shopping, we are saving money here! But then I remembered the termite report....well, you can't have everything. We need a rental agreement because we are buying the restaurant building as private people and renting it to our company. Complicated huh.

We are currently working as registered individual entrepreneurs which effectively means if our business fails all we own can be taken to pay the debt. For the new place, because there are several seperate elements, a house, a (small) piece of real estate, as well as the business, we don't want to be homeless if the business fails. So we have formed an SARL which is a limited company. This means we are only liable for the capital we have put up which can be any amount from €1 upwards. Usually an accountant or notaire does this, but like I've already mentioned, we saved a load of money by taking our accountants advice (already paid for in his fees) and doing the rest over the 'net. This website even put in the required ad in the paper local to our new business. You print out all the forms and send them to the Chamber of Commerce, they register you and send you your all important registration number, et voila!

TTFN