Firstly, take a look at the costs involved. Fuel cost, ferry crossings and tolls are higher for commercial vehicles, plus the cost of hiring or buying a vehicle and hotel costs. Don’t forget if it is a 7.5 ton which you can drive, you’ll need to be familiar with tachograph rules and might need a digital tachograph card rather than the older type paper discs. The tachograph cards have to be applied for via the DVLA.
Then look at a broker such as Shiply.com whom we have used on several occasions to bring items over, or ET brokers who we actually used to move. If you are not in a rush, you will often find companies offering a cheaper rate as they can combine your job with another.
I think that you will be pleasantly surprised at how much cheaper it can be to pay someone else.
Finally, be ruthless with what you need to bring. Sell or dispose of much of it before you come. I brought several suits that twelve years later have yet to be worn, apart from a dark one for several funerals! Kitchen items such as under unit dishwashers and fridges, unless integral, are unlikely to fit underneath a French worktop. Their worktops are generally 5cm lower than UK ones.
Good luck.
Hi Teresa. All went pretty well thank you. The trip down with the aged felines was like a scene from a movie though and took 22 instead of the envisaged 15 hours lol. I had been taking them out in their new ‘dog sized’ carrier in the weeks before we left the UK in the hope of acclimatising them them to the idea of being in the car with it not ending at the vets. Didn’t work as they yowled all the way to Folkestone! The Burmese had obviously done a course in escapology, kept trying to dig her way out and managed 3 times to open the zips and lead the Bengal on a tour around the car! At one point the Bengal managed to push the window button and sat with the wind in her fur like a feline version of Thelma or Louise, as we rounded the Peripherique frantically pushing buttons to close it.
Our furniture removal went relatively well by comparison with a mere 14 hour drive! Our neighbour drove the 7.5 ton lorry with (virtually) all our worldly goods in . The whole thing looked in jeopardy at the 11th hour when the hire company called on the Sunday morning (hubby and neighbour were due to pick it up on the Monday morning) to say the lorry had broken down, needed a part from IVECO and wouldn’t be ready for another week! Fortunately hubby managed to find another firm with a lorry available - lucky or what ? on the Sunday morning just minutes before they closed. That night there was a monumental thunderstorm here and all phones, mobiles, internet etc were down for most of Monday so I couldn’t check on how they were doing . All fine by the Tuesday lunchtime when a text came through to say they were 5 miles away! My neighbour is a qualified HGV driver and as it turned out his wife had made arrangements to come with them too. My squeals of joy as she jumped down from the cab were probably heard around the village! Unfortunately there were items they couldn’t get in the lorry - mainly garden pots and equipment which they left behind - our neighbours said they’d retrieve them but some got forgotten and our landlord is now trying to charge us for their removal plus alleged rent arrears ! I paid our rent by direct debit and had rented the house for 25 years . The tenancy agreement says rent is payable in advance and I didn’t cancel the direct debit until the day I left so in my opinion we are paid up to date. In fact we actually left a week before the notice expired. So on top of all the bureaucracy we have to sort out here I am now doing battle with them as well! I guess we will (hopefully ) look back and laugh about it as we do when we recall the cat escapade but it all seems too much to deal with at times and I have to take a deep breath and remind myself to take it one bit at a time!
Wow. Certainely an experience. Thank goodness you got another lorry.
Hope you sort out with the landlord, he’s probably trying it on. Also has he got your deposit?
Are the cats settling?
We are thinking of becoming resident in January, fortunately when we bought our house it was fully equipped so we can take our time changing things. We will probably put the contents of our UK house into storage and then if Brexit all goes ok and we are not thrown out of France ( I’m a pessimist) we will bring over what we want and sell the rest.
Someone told me to bring my books and I love books but my husband thinks it’s a bit of a luxury!
Do you feel really happy and settled with your decision? I’m sure I will be but I know it will be a big adjustment.
Good luck in your new home.
Hi Stella , thought I’d replied but yes I did ring the Mairie in the end as my emails got rejected (they don’t seem to empty their mailbox!). Was told all OK and they’d arrange to put notices out preventing anyone from parking outside the house (which they did). We put red triangles out and all was unloaded within a few hours (no mishaps!!). My request about where to leave the lorry overnight (our neighbour drove it back over to the UK over the next two days) got either lost in translation or the message didn’t get relayed to the correct person. By my interpretation we were told to leave it on land opposite the tennis court as it is owned by the Mayor who she’d inform and it would be fine.
When we went to wave our neighbours off the next day a lady came down the road from a house about 500 metres above the site we’d parked the lorry in and asked who had told us to park the lorry there. She wasn’t angry or annoyed just said it could have been damaged by the logging lorries who use the big barns on site and should we need to park again could we leave it over on the verge of the approach road! I found out later she was a relative of the mayor so quite what went on I don’t know but am not losing sleep over it lol.
Hi Teresa . Our landlord was a housing association so no deposit as such but yes they are indeed trying it on and when my husband went back to the UK recently he rang the woman who’s been sending the letters and she was extremely rude. We have spent thousands on the house - it was after all our home - which she queried and said something along the lines of ‘why would you spend money on a rented property . I bet you haven’t got receipts’. To which my husband replied - well we were required to keep it in good order as part of our tenancy agreement and it was our home so why wouldn’t we want it too be comfortable? And actually we do have the receipts!" It was a hovel when I took it over and I am so angry they can treat us like this. We gave notice and by their own admission it was in excellent condition. There is more to it than that but too much to go into here. As to your questions about being settled here I’d say its probably too early to tell as we have yet to survive a winter which by all accounts can get a bit grim! . Our cats have settled in well and and are snoozing in their new french cat bed in the afternoon sun coming in through the French doors as I write. They were stressed initially but have explored all the nooks and crannies clearing cobwebs as they go lol. They are ‘indoor cats’ so no worries about their acclimatising to the local felines although some do visit our terrace!
As to us. Our new home although in relatively good order (it has mains drainage, double glazing and reversible heating /aircon) is completely different to the house we left. As such it is taking a bit of getting used to as it is ‘open plan’ and larger than we are used to in some aspects although we only have a courtyard and a terrace here whereas we had a large garden in the UK. Our UK house felt more ‘cosy’ so I guess its just a question of getting used to it. We have been made to feel very welcome by the village and when we had the awful deluge last week my neighbour knocked with some drinking water - which reminds me I must return it.
We should’ve taken out shares in Earthborn having purchased the paint to redecorate the house as there is loads to do and we bought the paint intending to decorate before we arrived ! We haven’t started yet . We had intended to do it before we moved all the furniture in but there was so much preparation required we didn’t event get one room done!
The first few weeks here seemed a bit like a holiday and we had to keep reminding ourselves that we live here. We thought being on a main road might be a concern but actually its quite nice as we get to see a bit of ‘village life’ even if its just the local children hanging out or playing ball in it. The pace of life is so different and (so far) people seem much more approachable and friendly. Our neighbour has offered us some tiles to replace the missing ones on the top of our courtyard wall - she’d noticed as she walked back up the lane between our two properties that some are missing and she has loads in her garden from their roof repairs.
People have asked if I would miss family . I guess I do but my parents are both dead, my son is in the Army so could move anywhere and in any event lived the other side of the country to us, my sister lived two counties away and my daughter announced she was moving just as we arranged our move here so would no longer be a short drive away.
My husband’s family were all fairly local to us but even then he didn’t see them a lot although he would talk to his brother virtually every day. Modern technology makes it much easier to stay in touch so I have yet to feel ‘cut off’.
Daily living wise we seem to be settling in well and life has taken on a different pace but we haven’t been bored or fed up. The weather was lovely when we got here but is now turning chilly and last week it gave us a taste of what can happen here with the awful deluge on Sunday. We were very lucky here and our house stood up to it well despite its age which was a relief.
We have opened a bank account and day to day we wonder where the time goes. Today has been spent working our way through some of the stuff we need to sort out - Carte de Sejours, Carte Vitale etc. The scary part is actually Brexit. It has me terrified. We are not wealthy and would not meet the income requirements for Carte Vitale if a deal isn’t struck. Even if it is we will need to probably use savings until my state pension and my husbands occupational pension come in to payment in a few years time.
For us there was no other decision if we wanted to have some retirement time together. We looked at buying a house in the UK but could only afford a grim flat in a housing estate or a wreck that would’ve taken all our savings to renovate. Here we have a quirky but habitable house with the most stunning countryside all around and some modest savings left. I gave up a car I loved but sometimes material goods and possessions aren’t everything and I’m sure none of us will be remembered for our lovely fitted kitchens so the fact my current one looks like it was built by Messieurs Bodge & Leggit doesn’t bother me.
We are only 90 minutes from the Mediterranean and Spain about 2 hours. So long as the planes keep flying and we are allowed to stay (and go back and forth) the UK is about 2.5 hours away (we’re 50 minutes from Carcassonne) no longer than it used to take me to drive to my sisters and just a bit longer than it will take to get to my daughter’s. I just hope and pray we get to spend the summer (and many more) here so I can update you with a more optimistic sounding reply. My pessimism isn’t anything to do with France or our life here its down to the continuing uncertainty emanating from the UK.
As to becoming resident I wish in a way we had done things sooner. We saw the house in December last year and completed in April . We made our decision when the 'transition agreement ’ was published thinking now perhaps naively that all would go OK from then on. We delayed actually moving in as my husband had just started doing work for a new company and felt obliged to continue until his private hire licence ran out in August. We are now finding that appointments for things the Carte de Sejour - which the govt advises you to get - are not being given out until after April - after the Brexit deadline. So we just have to hold our breath even longer and hope they accept that we asked for it before the deadline. Driving licence is another issue .My husband’s expires in May next year so he needs to exchange it before then as it gets mightily complicated if you let it expire. As you cannot apply until you’ve been here 6 months he can’t apply until January and we’ve read of people waiting over a year for it to be returned. If there is a no deal its possible he will have to take a French driving test - and so may I. Not a prospect I relish despite the fact I’ve done all the driving in a lhd car since we bought it in May!
As to the books - I’d bring as many as you can and leave behind other ‘non essentials’.We are avid readers and although if there are a few English speakers around your area you will probably find book exchanges or even libraries with English books in, there is quite a price differential for new books. I recently bought a copy of Sepulchre by Kate Mosse - mainly as it contains reference to many of the places around here , including our own village. It has the UK price under the French one. UK £7.99 €12.99.
Your setting sounds wonderful. And lovely neighbours. Glad your cats are settled. We are early retirees but because my parents are still alive we put off moving over. We bought the house last year and prevaricated.
Well I did. I really believed that Brexit would be sorted one way or the other before now.
My husband is in France in November so will enquire about becoming resident in January.
I think he’s going to register with the Mairie and inform the tax that our home will no longer be a secondaire.
I’m hoping common sense will prevail but as we’re dealing with egotistic money grabbing politicians who knows.
I have got a seasonal job lined up in the UK but if necessary I’ll have to give notice.
I do know though that we are extremely lucky to have a home in the UK which we intend to rent out once we know what’s going to happen (courtesy of my husband’s inheritance and downsizing our family home).
My children totally back us on moving and are desperately trying to find a loophole that will make them Irish, Italian or anything! My father is an Irish citizen because he worked there for many years but unfortunately we cannot inherit that as we weren’t born there.
I think I just have to hope for the best and be prepared to have a few more hoops to jump through.
Books are my best friends. I go to Emmaus where they sometimes have some for sale in English, also the library have just started stocking English books, given mainly by those who have second homes here.
I also read a lot of books in French and am currently enthralled by the Verhoeven trilogy (actually 3 and a half books) by Pierre Lemaitre, gripping stuff.
I buy books for mum either through Amazon or The Book Depository who have free worldwide delivery.
IMO, and also my French friend’s, books are too expensive in France and they belive, as do I, that more should be done to encourage children to read …
For electrical goods there are some very good places in France where you can see before you buy. Most have Internet sites and you can browse , compare prices online and then go and see the quality.
Like other have and will do, I do advise you to get rid of things that have spent years sitting in the back of cupboard because they might one day be useful.
We moved over many years ago from a 3 bedroomed house, it was in the days when everything had to be declared in triplicate to the French customs, believe me it was a real incentive to have a clear out. Apart from our newish dining room furniture and some flat packed bargain bedroom furniture everything fitted in a trailer towed by our Fiat Panda ! Ah nostalgia, a thing of the past
I think you will find that most towns/villages have a library. It may not be well advertised… ours is in a room given over by the Mairie. Books can be taken out… without charge… simply noting name/address and the book reference … in the register.
Also, these little libraries are grateful to receive books (in good condition)…in almost any language… for adults and for children.
At one school session (using the library) … a child asked for my help with a lovely looking book… fascinating pictures… but it was written in Welsh… the child only knew it was NOT French and assumed it was English…
I had to explain… that it was NOT English… and we spent that session making-up a storyline to fit the pictures…no idea if it was anything like the original… but we had fun.
My 6 year old grandson is fluent in Welsh. Unfortunately we are not and like many bilingual children he switches from English to Welsh without thinking and we have to remind him that we don’t understand. One night he insisted on reading his favourite bedtime story himself and translated it into Welsh as he read. If only I could do that in French!
Hi Vanessa,
I love your posts! “ like some feline version of Thelma and Louise”. Hilarious! ( I don’t know about Bengals, but I love Burmese cats - they’re almost human! Owning one myself one day is on my wish list…)
You really should write a blog - your later description of settling in to a new French life are also well written and informative. But this thread was quite some time ago. How is life now?
Best wishes,
Desna.
Bishops move. We use them all the time. Drive them for a deal.
It’s really nit worth you doing it, unless you really love moving furniture about. It works out more bother than its worth.
We used Bishops move in Gatwick many times. Give them a call and ask for sales, say a nice English/French lady called Claire living in the Pyrénées said you would do me a great price.
I’ve taken a quick look at your link… do they take on foreign journeys/deliveries???
I understand there’s a lot of paperwork these days … so just wondering if you have personal experience of how these people cope… ???
