Is it really necessary to keep an expensive French bank account after you’ve left the country?
By contrast, between us, my wife and I have I think, six S African bank accounts. That includes two currently empty accounts, that cost nothing to keep open. We declare these to the tax authorities, and the two currently empty ones are just used for easily transferring money.
That’s what I’d like to know!
Ah, you mean, is there a cheap one you could keep? Probably. But even if the account were free I think I’d prefer to close all my French accounts as soon as possible just to tie up loose ends.
I know quite a few people have had problems closing their accounts at my bank, the Soc Gen, after they left the country. Don’t know whether the same goes for other French banks.
I’m completely with you in the spirit of tidy housekeeping. However I recommend at least keeping accounts open for a few months, to deal with the completely unexpected. I had left my French account open when I left France (many moons ago) after working in Paris, mainly to be able to pay my French tax bills whenever eventually collected. When I later tried to close my account, the bank wrote to me asking what I’d ike to do with all the money in it. I was a bit surprised as there should have been next to zero in it.
It emerged that the French law firm I’d been working for had continued to pay my French salary into it for many months. However tempting to “forget’to tell them, I contacted my former secretary in Paris who in turn approached HR for instructions on how to return the money. I duly repaid the entire amount..My secretary, a Québécoise, said that HR had admitted that very few French employees would have volunteered the existence of the amounts paid in error, let alone actually repaid them!
That’s a nice story.
Straying completely off topic, does the fact you worked in France, albeit many moons ago, mean you are entitled to a tiny French pension?
Presumably that doesn’t make you ineligible for an S1, because you moved back to the UK after the French job. So the UK remains your competent state?
Am asking because I have a friend who returned his proffered S1, thinking his small French pension rendered him ineligible. But in fact, it has just occurred to me that he went back to the UK after the student job in France. Maybe he should ask for the S1 again?!
The NHS site says this, which doesn’t bode well for him:
We spoke to our French bank before we left, to explore options. We changed our a/c to a very simple one, no card attached, at the time it cost 2€ a month and when we finally closed it had only gone up by 3 cents.
One reason I would close existing accounts - and keep to hand a method of paying anything justified and unexpected - is that it appears there can be errors, overtakes and incorrect continuation of taking money from your account.
There have also been enough times when the above has occurred, and yet somehow the French entity even while admitting the error simply does not refund. Even if you could get incorrectly taken money back it does seem to sometimes require steps that are not practical to take if you are not physically in France. For sure even if you did get money back it would take ages, likely years, during which you would have account fees and other exposure.
So to me breaking the chain of bank accounts, while keeping an easy cheap method such as Wise, of paying anything genuinely due, would be an obvious protective step.
Leave your email address or if you have one, a physical contact address for your new location but if you leave existing accounts in place, or even accounts at the same institution, don’t say I didn’t warn you
No, I remained wholly in UK employee National Insurance via the UK payroll, (and in the UK DB pension scheme) throughout my entire stay in Paris. The secondment was (intentionally) structured to fall within standard EU rules for secondments, eg where you only ever contribute to one country’s social security, usually the ‘home’ country’s.
As far as the UK is concerned, I have at all times been covered by NI and have a full 35+ year record of NI contributions. I would be very confident that there should be no adverse repercussions in terms of obtaining an S1 in a few years time.
No, you’ll have no problems.
