1. Introduction

So, you have finally found your rural idyll in France where you can enjoy your retirement or your summer holidays and the calm and beauty of the French countryside.

Or, you have purchased a swanky apartment in Paris, where you like to impress and entertain your family and friends.

Or, at least, you had hoped to do so, until you discovered that not everything you needed to know about living in the property was fully revealed in the Notaire’s office.

No-one told you about the noisy neighbour or that the adjacent farmer planned to start a pig farm.

You could you have predicted that your neighbour would later contest the ‘right of way’ you thought you had been granted.

Neither did the seller happen to mention the long-standing dispute about the boundary that existed with the property.

Oh, ‘hell is other people’!

Fortunately, such instances are rare but, when they do occur, there are not always easy answers as to how you deal with such problems.

Sometimes there exists a solution in law, but enforcement and penalties can be weak and the process long-winded.

In other cases you need to take joint action with your neighbours, but the French are generally not a militant lot when it comes to neighbour relations.

‘Live and let live’ is their general dictum.

So you may find yourself on your own, in which case we hope the following pages are of some use in guiding you through the rules and practices that apply.

We would like to hear of your own experiences because this is a subject where we can all learn from one another.

Next: Boundaries