Fishermen Netted

[adamspiers]

Just read this......

The authorities are really clamping down on venues not registered.

 

The Limousin Times 19/6 - 25/6/2007

Fishermen Netted

Yet another English proprietor of a Limousin lake has fallen foul of the laws of the land. Numerous English in the region have been found by the gendarmes to be using their lakes for illegal fishing activities. Mr 'W' has a holiday home in Fromental and divides his time between Great Britain and France. Mr W owns a fishing lake or 'etang' de la Chapelle in the commune of Dompierre les Eglises as well as renting etang des justices at Saint Sornin Leulac. Mr W is charged with illegally renting these lakes to other British holiday makers for Carp fishing. After 2 months of investigations the gendarmes finally decided to take action last week. Mr W has an web site where he offers his lakes for rent at €1000 per week.

Not only are the lakes not 'closed water',that is to say 'closed' by means of fish grills that prevent fish from public waters entering private lakes, but his business is also completely unregistered. Via his website Mr W offered fishing equipment for sale or hire as well as airport pick up services as part of his 'package'. It is also alleged that an illegal employee was being used to run the business. A joint operation including tax officers, employment agencies and river authorities. On the 12th June 4 Brits were caught fishing illegally at etang la Chapelle and a further 3 at the etang Justice. The fishermen had no permits and were using illegal rods. Mr W's computer has been seized as part of the investigation and a joint dossier is being compiled by URSSAF,BCR,CSP AND COLT. If convicted Mr W could face up to 3 years in prison and €45,000 fine.

[adamspiers]

I have been informed by the owner of Chapel and Justices Lakes that he has now been cleared & is fully registered & is back in business.

 

This is good news & I am sure he would be willing to share any knowledge he has gained to any other Lake owners.

[johnhere]

Taken from another forum

 

Hello

My name is Bob Williams .......... Owner of Want2Fish Chapel and Justices Lakes.

I would like to put a few things straight before rumours take over the asylum and get completely distorted.

 

The recent nightmare of weather and the resulting water caused major problems with the Lake equipment, like the grills etc and we believe that someone complained to the River Police who then descended on the lakes, in a manner befitting a Drugs Bust or Terrorist Threat.

 

They have carried out a good number of such ‘raids’ on Lakes in the Limousin and they assume, sometimes correctly and sometimes not, that the operation is acting illegally in one way or another.

This can be grill problems, having ‘woody vegetation’ on your dam wall, building shower blocks and toilets without planning permission and running restaurants without the necessary permits, having apparently illegal fish, like Grass Carp and Cat Fish and of course, not being registered (although we have a letter from the Tax Office in Bellac telling us we did not have to register! More about that later.)

 

We are now aware that this operation, initially started in the Limousin, is due to sweep the country and next on the list, is the Champagne Region and then Brittany.

I would urge any Lake Owners to check and double check their grills, dams and business procedures so this does not happen to them. I would not wish this on anyone.

 

We purchased the business in Jan 2006 and spent a lot of time during 2006 trying to find out from the Chamber of Commerce, the Tax Office and the River Authorities all the necessary information to make sure we had this operation running correctly.

Doing this illegally was not an option, mainly due to the fact my house in the UK was on the line, which would affect my wife and family and as such their lives. We had to do this right.

We thought we were on the right track, and although this was not an easy operation, with the help of a translator, we made some progress, although this was slow and very few people would actually take on the responsibility and commit to paper, what they had told us.

 

We managed to get a letter from the Tax Authorities that states, I am not required to be registered as I am NOT a Commercial Venture, which means No Siret Number, TVA or anything else.

Also we spoke to the Chamber of Commerce, who said the same thing. The Translator and I were, to say the least, bemused, but 2 Agencies had told us the same thing so it must be so.

Renting out amenity land (my Lakes) is not classed as a Commercial Venture as we do not supply any services like providing airport pick-ups, Bailiff Services, breakfast, dinner, cokes, beer, Bait etc from the lakes themselves. Both these Authorities were told what we were doing and came up with the same answer.

I also have a 30 year ‘Valorisation Touristique’ document from the River Authority.

 

When we made a statement and showed the Police and Tax Officials what we had they said this was good and would be good for our case.

What is unfortunate it that the Police had no idea I had these documents.

 

What has happened here is devastating in many ways, especially when we thought we had got it pretty much sorted out. The problems we had were in hand, but the weather in 2006 and in 2007 made these works frankly impossible to get underway until July or August.

 

In conclusion to all this, I would ask you for your support, rather than your condemnation. We never intended to do this in any other way than properly and as close as we were to doing it properly .......... we were apparently not close enough.