I was complaining to one of my French friends once about some nonsensical legal requirement. He agreed it was nonsensical but offered the explanation that with two buildingsfull of politicians in Paris with nothing else to do but pass laws some chunks of fool's gold would inevitably appear amidst the pure nuggets of sensible legislation. (He has a great sense of irony.)

A recent chunk (or nugget, depending on your point of view) is the requirement that, as of 1/1/11, a property cannot legally be offered for sale in France in the absence of a "Diagnostic de performance énergétique". By handing over €110 to an expert we have got four copies of a colourful five page report that tells us all sorts of things, some with unbelievable precision. Three of those copies have gone to agents who would otherwise have been obliged to take us out of their windows and delete us from their websites.

Mind you we've been in their windows and on their websites for two years without result so maybe a "Diagnostic de performance vente" should be demanded of them.

So on a scale from A (économe) to G (énergivore) of annual energy consumption required for heating the building and producing hot water we are in band G. Well a cursory look at our ancient building would tell you it's not in the snug and cosy league, even in summer. On the positive side though it takes so much energy to heat the place that there's none left over for global warming. On a similar scale dealing with the emission of greenhouse gases we're only at B.

It then gives you a whopping great number of the kilowatt hours needed per annum and tells you to the nearest cent what that costs and rounds off by estimating costs and return on investment for various ways of improving the energy performance of the building and tells you about the tax breaks available.

All very impressive but I don't think it will be an encouragement to prospective buyers.