Lost en France

Money Transfer  So, the main job today was to to finally decide which FX company we were going to use to transfer the outstanding funds for the house, the Immobilier's fees and the notaire's fees. This was the big one (well not that big,by many people's standards , considering what we're paying for the house, but still probably the biggest lump sum transaction I have ever done with my own money). My working week makes sorting this sort of thing difficult, but Fridays are a non-working day at present and so perfect for this. What is great, and unusual for us, is that the £ has been modestly but noticeably improving against the € for a few days. It had even recently broken through the 1.15 level that had seemed to be foiling it for a while. I had three FX options I was considering: Britline Foreign Currency Direct Currencies Direct Research had already identified that any of these would give me a better rate than a high street bank, what I now need to know w...

With the completion date now quickly approaching, and with Fridays and weekends the only time available for me to talk to people (for reasons I'll not go into), yesterday was spent sorting out various bureaucratic aspects such as banking, insurance, utilities, the boiler, etc. It was a stressful and frustrating day. I know French bureaucracy has a bad reputation but, to be honest, it wasn't that which caused the stress and frustration. It was the sheer volume of things I needed to get sorted, the limited time I had (some individuals or businesses that were likely to be available on the Friday were less likely to be available over the weekend), and the fact that French (which regular readers will know I don't (yet) speak) would be a significant feature of the day's work. So, what were the tasks, and how did I get on? Insurance We need proof of insurance before we can complete the act de vente and so securing insurance was a priority and the first task of the da...

Today was the day for our telephone appointment with BritLine. You may recall we had submitted, over the internet, several documents they required and they had very  quickly confirmed all was in order and that a telephone interview was the next step. So, just a few minutes beyond the appointed time the phone rang and Mégane  introduced herself as our personal advisor. She asked us to describe our project and, based on this information, proceeded to explain how the account would work. The main points were: Credit Agricole is a regional bank and BritLine are based in Normandy. As we are in the Limousin, we will be able to use local branches for deposits and withdrawals but they will have no access to our account information - I was aware of this so it was not a problem. The chequebook was free, there is no maximum limit but we must have the funds to cover any cheque(s) issued - and they don't need to be presented for over a year (one year and eight days to be precis...

Chasing the Completion Date Its the 16 March. The immobilier had told us to expect to be signing the final contract (and collecting the keys) anywhere between mid-March and the end of April. Well, mid-March is here and we still don't have a date. Its not that we are especially in a hurry to complete (though it would be nice), but we need to know the date to allow us to book leave from work and to book flights. The only date we have is a 'deadline' of 30 April - even here I'm not clear on what that deadline represents 😕 I dropped the immobilier an email this morning, and to her credit she did respond quickly - but not with a date (or even a date by which we'd have a date, but to tell me that she expects it will be in the second-half of April. Not a lot of use really 😟 Opening a Bank Account I've also started the process to open a bank account. As predicted in an earlier post, we have chosen to go with Britline . We had a good experience with ...

Transferring the Balance - Where to Find a Good Deal We hadn't adequately researched the options for transferring money at the point that we needed to pay the deposit (a little under 10% of the agreed price). Sally had spoken to both our bank (HSBC) and Foreign Exchange Direct (recommended by one of the Immobiliers in France) and was left, surprisingly, concluding that the bank would be the lower cost option. We went ahead with HSBC and ended up paying somewhere around 3.5% more than the Business Rate. Not too outrageous but I wasn't convinced that FED wouldn't have been cheaper. Today, Sally and I sat down together to doe more thorougher research - guided by  https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/foreign-currency-exchange . Working through this and also guided my some earlier online research we drew up a shortlist of: HSBC Foreign Exchange Direct (FED) XE TransferWise (TW) Currencies Direct (CD) One of the key requirements was that anyone we went with wa...