Architects des Batiments de France
Discussion
So, I live in a village with a castle.
You need a declaration préalable to buy a different colour of toilet paper round here.
I wanted to paint the horrible brown shutters and front door. Lady from urbansime said "ooh yes, that will be nicer. Lady from Urbanisme gave me the official list of RAL colours we were allowed. We picked closest to what we want and go and have a meeting with the man from the ABF. He goes through everything and says it's all fine. We submit the application. Man from ABF says "No."
What the f
k?
We can contest, and that will be another 6 month wait for another blanket refusal for no reason.
Next place I buy a house I am going to do whatever I want to the house and I am not going to ask permission for anything. I've learned my lesson.
You need a declaration préalable to buy a different colour of toilet paper round here.
I wanted to paint the horrible brown shutters and front door. Lady from urbansime said "ooh yes, that will be nicer. Lady from Urbanisme gave me the official list of RAL colours we were allowed. We picked closest to what we want and go and have a meeting with the man from the ABF. He goes through everything and says it's all fine. We submit the application. Man from ABF says "No."
What the f
k?We can contest, and that will be another 6 month wait for another blanket refusal for no reason.
Next place I buy a house I am going to do whatever I want to the house and I am not going to ask permission for anything. I've learned my lesson.
Sebastian Tombs said:
So, I live in a village with a castle.
You need a declaration préalable to buy a different colour of toilet paper round here.
I wanted to paint the horrible brown shutters and front door. Lady from urbansime said "ooh yes, that will be nicer. Lady from Urbanisme gave me the official list of RAL colours we were allowed. We picked closest to what we want and go and have a meeting with the man from the ABF. He goes through everything and says it's all fine. We submit the application. Man from ABF says "No."
What the fk?
We can contest, and that will be another 6 month wait for another blanket refusal for no reason.
Next place I buy a house I am going to do whatever I want to the house and I am not going to ask permission for anything. I've learned my lesson.
So what can you contest if given no reason for refusal?You need a declaration préalable to buy a different colour of toilet paper round here.
I wanted to paint the horrible brown shutters and front door. Lady from urbansime said "ooh yes, that will be nicer. Lady from Urbanisme gave me the official list of RAL colours we were allowed. We picked closest to what we want and go and have a meeting with the man from the ABF. He goes through everything and says it's all fine. We submit the application. Man from ABF says "No."
What the f
k?We can contest, and that will be another 6 month wait for another blanket refusal for no reason.
Next place I buy a house I am going to do whatever I want to the house and I am not going to ask permission for anything. I've learned my lesson.
Have they given you alternative choices?
Our mayor's office has the usual colour chart. Unfortunately the approvals have now transferred from the mayor's office to the Prefecture.
So our replacement windows had to go through the full process and white is no longer acceptable - has to be 'pierre' a euphonism for bl**dy beige. Which of course adds a significant amount to the cost! The price of living where we do!
So our replacement windows had to go through the full process and white is no longer acceptable - has to be 'pierre' a euphonism for bl**dy beige. Which of course adds a significant amount to the cost! The price of living where we do!
I think we'll soon be in a similar position. After a couple of years of saying they want to do it and then not actually doing anything it looks like next week we'll sign the Compromis to buy the local school for our commune to convert it into a home. It's about 130 years old and while we don't have ABF to deal with we have a CAUE report and a commune who are quite protective. Originally they told us we could have wood or aluminium windows (and of course in specific colours) and now they say it must be wood. At least internally we can do what we want and they've agreed to let us have Velux windows but let's see what actually happens when we make our formal request.
I have a somewhat amusing coda to this.
When we had our meeting with the ABF man he said all sorts of things which I suspected were bullst but listened to anyway.
For example, we should keep our 60's square steel gateposts as they were more "in keeping" with the 1830's frontage than stone pillars, and especially not stone pillars with capping stones.
We said "but surely stone is the traditional material and nearly every house in France with railings has stone gate pillars?". "Oh no, that's very English. The French would never do that." "Not even if they lived right next door to the fking quarry?" was my unspoken thought in reply.
Then there was the matter of the rendering, which he insisted "should never have been allowed to happen" and so we couldn't do any more.
Fast forward to this year, and we still haven't painted our shutters, but we have bought another house in the village, which has a fully rendered exterior and stone gateposts with capping stones, all done during a renovation in the 1980s.
And the architect who rendered the house and did the stone gateposts? Why? it was the man from the ABF himself!
When we had our meeting with the ABF man he said all sorts of things which I suspected were bulls
t but listened to anyway. For example, we should keep our 60's square steel gateposts as they were more "in keeping" with the 1830's frontage than stone pillars, and especially not stone pillars with capping stones.
We said "but surely stone is the traditional material and nearly every house in France with railings has stone gate pillars?". "Oh no, that's very English. The French would never do that." "Not even if they lived right next door to the f
king quarry?" was my unspoken thought in reply.Then there was the matter of the rendering, which he insisted "should never have been allowed to happen" and so we couldn't do any more.
Fast forward to this year, and we still haven't painted our shutters, but we have bought another house in the village, which has a fully rendered exterior and stone gateposts with capping stones, all done during a renovation in the 1980s.
And the architect who rendered the house and did the stone gateposts? Why? it was the man from the ABF himself!
Ha ha. You do live in a very special village mate!
About 18 years back the old mayor invited me to buy a house in your village as he said we need more artisans in the village Magoo!
Not a chance mate!
I saw the mini parked up there. Nice little place that. I can remember thé pompier’s putting the old couples car up on concrete blocks in their garage to save it from the flooding some years back. Might have been a Fiesta!
About 18 years back the old mayor invited me to buy a house in your village as he said we need more artisans in the village Magoo!
Not a chance mate!
I saw the mini parked up there. Nice little place that. I can remember thé pompier’s putting the old couples car up on concrete blocks in their garage to save it from the flooding some years back. Might have been a Fiesta!
It's a funny place France with all of it's seemingly needless bureaucracy, or, in our case not.
We bought a 1,000 year old Chateau in the Mayenne that had been unoccupied for 20 years and was derelict, apart from having a new roof due to storm damage, fortunately the owner still had it insured.
After meeting the local Maire, who popped round to say hello, yes he spoke English, he asked what our plan was for the place. We said we wanted to bring it back to it's former glory. He said wonderful, get on with it. We were amazed that there were no restrictions or objections.
The end result was that we did rescue the place after 15 years of graft by me and my wife, although we did have professionals for the render and drainage systems.
On the other hand, we had friends in the village nearby who took down a garden fence and had a stone wall built, it looked beautiful. The local official took exception to it and said it had to be removed. They appealed and were told a decision would be made. That was 8 years ago and the wall is still standing. Bizarre.
We bought a 1,000 year old Chateau in the Mayenne that had been unoccupied for 20 years and was derelict, apart from having a new roof due to storm damage, fortunately the owner still had it insured.
After meeting the local Maire, who popped round to say hello, yes he spoke English, he asked what our plan was for the place. We said we wanted to bring it back to it's former glory. He said wonderful, get on with it. We were amazed that there were no restrictions or objections.
The end result was that we did rescue the place after 15 years of graft by me and my wife, although we did have professionals for the render and drainage systems.
On the other hand, we had friends in the village nearby who took down a garden fence and had a stone wall built, it looked beautiful. The local official took exception to it and said it had to be removed. They appealed and were told a decision would be made. That was 8 years ago and the wall is still standing. Bizarre.
One of our neighbours wanted to build a stone wall at the end of her yard to prevent the severe flooding she gets every time the river floods. Hers is the only one backing onto the river that doesn't have a wall and so she gets the worst of it.
The commune have refused for years to allow it, citing the fact that she is in a red flood zone and you cannot build walls to change the course of the water in a red zone.
The house in question used to belong to the commune. It was a gite. There used to be a wall there, and they knocked it down to make the view to the river prettier for the gite listing. Some pointing out was done, perhaps quite forcefully, and she now has her wall.
The commune have refused for years to allow it, citing the fact that she is in a red flood zone and you cannot build walls to change the course of the water in a red zone.
The house in question used to belong to the commune. It was a gite. There used to be a wall there, and they knocked it down to make the view to the river prettier for the gite listing. Some pointing out was done, perhaps quite forcefully, and she now has her wall.
Gassing Station | France | Top of Page | What's New | My Stuff