How it works
From choosing a plan to the first report
Four steps, none of which asks you to travel. A recent photo of the grave is enough for us to know what state it is in and whether we can begin. Here is what happens, in what order, and what we need from you at each moment.
The journey
Four steps, and we take it from there
The summary is on the home page. This is the full version, with what we ask of you and what we commit to holding.
- 01
Online, or after we talk
You choose a plan
We offer three plans. You can subscribe directly, or write to us first if you would rather talk it over before deciding.
You commit for 12 months, one full year of care and attention for the grave. At the end of that period, the subscription is renewed for 12 months, unless you ask to cancel by registered letter at least one month before your contract’s anniversary date.
The amounts shown are net, TVA non applicable, article 293 B du CGI. Nothing is added at payment, and the price announced is what you pay each month.
The three plans
- Essential Presence, 4 visits a year, €59 a month
- Continuous Presence, 8 visits a year, €99 a month
- Heritage Presence, 12 visits a year, €169 a month
Worth knowing before you subscribe
- 12 months of commitment, renewed tacitly each year
- A change of plan takes effect on the contract’s anniversary date
- Your card is registered when you subscribe, but nothing is charged before we have confirmed the state of the grave
- 02
We reply within two working days
You send us a recent photo
One photo is enough, taken with your phone within the last month, straight on, showing the whole monument and its surroundings. It tells us what no description can: the state of the stone, the plants, the room available for an arrangement. What we look for in it is set out further down this page.
What you send us
- A recent photo of the whole grave, less than a month old
- Whether there is a vase there, and its condition
- The town and the name of the cemetery
- The name carved on the monument
- The location, path, section, number, if you know it
- 03
On quotation, before anything starts
We confirm, or we suggest a big clean
If the place is in good shape, it is confirmed directly: we set the date of the first visit and the subscription begins.
Some graves need an initial restoration clean before regular care can be set up. When that is the case, we tell you plainly, before the visits begin. The quote is drawn up once we have studied your photos: never a price announced blind, because a grave left for two winters and a grave left for ten years do not call for the same work.
This clean is billed separately, once, and you remain free to postpone it or to entrust it to someone else. In every case, regular care only starts once the grave is back to a clean starting point: tending a monument still covered in moss would amount to billing you for a visit for nothing.
If the grave is in good shape
- Confirmed directly, no visit to arrange
- The date of the first visit set with you
- Your family space opened
If a big clean is needed first
- On quotation, once we have seen your photos
- The detail of what will be done, and of what cannot be
- Your decision, on no imposed timetable
- Care begins only once the place is back to a clean starting point
- 04
Before the first visit
We create your memory space
Before going on site, we ask you a few questions. They are not there to fill a file: they are there so the visit resembles the person it is about, not a standard service.
Nothing is required, and you can add more later from your space, as memories come back. What you keep there stays private: only your family can see it, and none of it goes anywhere else.
It is also the moment to invite the other members of the family. Each has their own access, wherever they live.
What we ask you
- The name of the deceased, as it is carved
- Your bond with him, or with her
- The flowers or attentions to favour
- The dates that matter in the year
- The memories you would like to share
What your answers change
- The choice of arrangements, season after season
- Where the visits fall in the calendar
- Particular attentions on certain dates
- What goes in your family’s memory book
The starting point
The photo you send us
It replaces the visit you do not have to arrange. It is from this photo that we decide whether care can begin, or whether the place needs a big clean first.
The question of the vase
We always ask whether there is already a vase on the grave: without a holder, a dried flower arrangement will not last until the next visit. If one is missing, we tell you and we suggest a holder before installing anything.
From Continuous Presence onwards, a vase can be provided as an extra service on request. With Heritage Presence, that first vase is on us at the first installation when one is needed, to choose from our selection, and we show you the arrangement before installing it.
What the photo should show
- The whole monument, straight on, framed from the path
- The base and the border of the plot
- The vase or the holder, if there is one
- The plants all around, even if they seem unimportant to you
- Anything damaged, close up if you can
What we read in it
- The material of the monument and the state of its surface
- Its orientation and exposure, which explain moss and lichen
- The state of the joints, the fixings and the stability
- Whether there is a vase or a holder, and its condition
- The access: distance from the gate, width of the path, a water point
What it is for
- Knowing whether care can begin straight away
- Pricing a big clean without you having to travel
- Choosing a rhythm suited to how exposed the place really is
- Setting the starting point every later photo will be compared to
- Finding the grave without hesitation, from the very first visit
After every visit
What you receive, every time
The report is published in your space on the day of the visit, once the photos have been read over. You are told, and you can read it again and download it whenever you like.
- The before and after photos, taken from the same spots
- The dated note: what we did, what we saw
- A message when it is published, and a report to download
The photos build up over the years into a gallery that shows, better than any promise, how the place has been kept.
The calendar
We place the visits around your dates
A visit dropped at random into the month is not worth the same as a visit placed the day before a birthday. So the calendar is built from your dates, not from ours.
The dates we place first
- All Saints’ Day
- The birthday
- The date of death
- Mother’s Day and Father’s Day
- The dates only you know about: a wedding, a parting, a habit
How we build the year
- Your dates go in first, the other visits settle around them
- We come a few days before the date, so the place is ready on the day itself
- All Saints’ Day is the busiest time: we start preparing it in mid-October
- We never leave too long a gap after autumn, when everything grows and falls at once
- Visits placed on your dates are included from the Continuous Presence up
What can move a visit
- Frost: washing stone in freezing weather makes its fine cracks burst
- An exceptional closure of the cemetery, or works in the path
- A funeral nearby: we step away and come back later
- A storm, which calls instead for an earlier check
The dates to give us
You give them to us when the memory space is created, or later from your space. They are only used to place the visits: they trigger no automatic messages and are seen only by your family.
If a date falls on a day the cemetery is closed, or during a frost, we come the day before or two days before rather than let the date pass. You will read about it in the report.
The duration
The commitment, said plainly
You commit for twelve months, one full year of care and attention for the grave. At each anniversary the subscription renews for a further twelve months, unless you cancel by registered letter received at least one month before the contract’s anniversary date.
- The first 12 months are one full year of visits: the time it takes to go through all four seasons.
- At each yearly term, the subscription is renewed tacitly, unless cancelled by registered letter one month before the anniversary date.
- A change of plan takes effect on the contract’s anniversary date, for the next billing period.
- The big clean at the start, when it is needed, is billed separately: On quotation, once we have seen your photos.
- The prices shown are net, TVA non applicable, article 293 B du CGI.
To begin
Let us begin with the first step.
Choose a plan, or write to us first: tell us which cemetery your loved one rests in and send us a recent photo. We reply within two working days. Our plans start at 4 visits a year, €59 a month.
We go to every cemetery in Essonne and to the neighbouring towns, just south of Paris, setting out from Viry-Châtillon. For somewhere further afield, write to us: we will answer you honestly. · Monday to Friday, 9am to 6pm