Saturday, August 23, 2008

Appointment with the bank - Rendez-vous à la banque

I made an appointment for next Saturday to open up a dedicated bank account - one of the key first steps to starting a business here in France. The bank told me they need four things from me.
  1. Projet de statuts (official paperwork for the business)
  2. Pièces d'identité (Proof of identity like passport or resident card)
  3. Justificatifs de domicile (Proof of residence from the town)
  4. Dépot du capital (Initial capital for the business to be put in the account)

A good lawyer friend was really helpful with the paperwork for the projet de status but it is taking me a bit longer than I had planned to gather up all the paperwork - including proof of marriage. I will likely pay someone to handle all the paperwork once I have everything checked off the list.

France Telecom: map of the conduit - France Telecom: Carte des fourreaux

Conduit Map (St Nom) I came back from the US this month and my neighbor had a big surprise waiting for me. He had called France Telecom to get more information about the conduit in the residence and to request a map.

He presented it to me at the door the day I got back. It's great. Now I can see where I need to put my own aggregation point (bottom right of the communal property) in order to get back to the exchange in the most efficient way.

There is, however, still some confusion over who actually owns the conduit. My neighbor was able to dig up some information from the original builder but it is information already had (Article 14: Passage de Canalisations). It is fairly clear that even if we don't own it we have a right to have the communal antenna (RF over fiber on the second pair) in the conduit.

He gave me the name of his contact at France Telecom and I'll follow up with him this week.