Lay My Hat

Ditto re the French cheques. We take a €300 deposit cheque but never cash it unless there is a problem. We also offer to take a deposit by Paypal for non French guests (who are few and far between). That way it's convenient for the guests and costs nothing to take and refund .

We ask that the place is left as found (though we still assume it will need a clean through). If it's not we charge €75 deducted from the security deposit - or people can elect for an end of stay clean for the same price. We have also experienced the weeks worth of dirty dishes scenario. An entire 2...

We have both - but only really advertise to French so, in practice everything is in euros. As all our bills are in euros this is not a problem.

We don't do short breaks in July, August or at Christmas but we do at any other time of the year. We offer either Fri to Mon or Mon to Fri - both at 75% of the weekly rate. We also offer a €125 discount if they bring their own bedlinen (house sleeps 10 to 12). (We rent mainly to French who prefer to...

LOL - I'm reading some of the posts on here and wondering if some of you have a life outside renting? Some of the stats quoted seem ermmm a tad anally retentive??? Do you spend every day analysing ad words?

First of all, we charge a security deposit and are intrigued by LV's 'no deposit' route. From our experience, the no deposit works fine for small breakages - we build these into the rental price and don't deduct. However, what if you have a serious problem? We had the young children of renters putti...

But just think of what might be walking through your door with that system. No chance to read, digest and think - actually, no, I have concerns about this person staying in my property.

Same as us: it 'focuses the mind' ;) We take €300. For French we accept a € cheque and return it if there are no breakages (I believe it's very difficult to stop a French cheque and an offence to bounce one). For non French (and French who prefer to pay by card - rare!) we take the deposit by Paypal...

Sorry Jimbo but I agree that no refund should be made. If someone broke their leg while skiing off piste or didn't bother to take anti-malarials and got malaria or got a stomach upset from eating street food etc why should I be expected to lose out because of their lack of preparation / common-sense...

We had one couple wanting us to ask the farmer to move his cows as they were too close (they were in the field on the other side of the road!). Our place is clearly described as a rural gite!! Some of the questions / demands are so dumb you'd have to be quite perverse to imagine anyone asking them!

They emailed me to say that the reason I cannot access the site on IE (to try paying via a different browser) is that, because I haven't paid, my site isn't accessible to allow me to make the payment?! Seems a weird set up - I can understand your advert not being visible 'til you've paid but seems a...

I'm hoping for some advice. Last year was our first year letting and we only advertised on a-gites.com and North of the Dordogne. We started advertising in March (so were wondering how successful our first year would be!) but, nevertheless, managed to book 11 weeks - predominantly via a-gites.com. W...

This is one of the reasons why we focus on the French market. Very few French want to pay by credit card - they all use cheques. Given the cost of having even a debit card in France, I can understand why. (They also prefer to bring their own linens for a discount that is less than our laundering cos...

Our renters asked us if we could provide a tree as they would be arriving Christmas Eve. Good suggestion to not assume.

Resolution has come in a circle. The earliest daguerre photos had sharp images and excellent resolution - but needed specialist equipment and knowledge. The box brownie, whilst opening photography to the masses, because of the negative size still had good resolution. Nevertheless, on statistical bas...