Oh wow good to hear about this so we should use this boiler then we are getting our plumber to install it though
Hi. I arranged my own multiple moves with a landrover and box trailer over the Covid period. You have to produce confirmation in one form or another of the date you established your principal residence in France, and the date on which you relinquished occupation or sold your principal residence in the UK. This is because you have a deadline of 1 year from the beginning of making your principal residence in France in which to take your property customs free to France. An easy proof of residence form to use is the attestation of residence on the EDF website. An easy proof of starting your residence in France is your dated form giving you a tax number in France from the local tax office. ( give them âFORMULAIRE N°2043-SD Demande de numĂ©ro fiscal et de taux personnalisĂ© de prĂ©lĂšvement Ă la sourceâ ) Although there are UK tax implications that might affect the choice of date for your change to become tax resident in France.
For the customs, you sign an âattestation de non-cessionâ form to confirm that you have lived outside French territories for more than 1 year, that it is your own property for your personal use, that nothing is less than 6 months old, and that you will not dispose of or sell anything within the following year. There is a specific customs form, cerfa_10070-03.pdf which is mainly tick boxes, but you need to tick the right boxes! I used excel to print the (detailed and costed) inventory, with header stating âInventory, my name, Move from XX in the UK to XX in Franceâ and footer with âpage number, signĂ©, Ă - the name of the place where you are when you sign, and the date on which you signedâ. Costs can be guesstimated fire sale costs. I put the GBP costs in round figures, then used excel to convert them to Euros for the Douaniers. You also need proof of ID, so I provided large images of our passports and cartes de sejour. You need three print copies. of: cerfa_10070-03.pdf, ID, inventory, attestation, edf or similar proof of your address in France, proof of starting fiscal residence in France, all duly dated. The professional cross channel removals companies do some of this for you, but the paperwork is still required, as are the signatures. I think their only real benefit is that they are used to the process. Its tedious but easy enough. The douanier will complete cerfa_10070-03.pdf and hand at least one copy back to you, stamped and signed, with the inventory etc.
I over ran the limit of the yearâs grace period. At that point it becomes much more complex, and I have both had to pay and been waved through depending on where I crossed, how the douaniers felt, and whether it was a small sum and too much paperwork for them to bother. It is much less formal at Dieppe than at Calais. At Calais you have to find the lane to go to the customs, not straight forward, and its all too easy to drive out of the port instead which I have done in the dark and wet. I then had to ask the ferry company to let me back into the port to go to the customs office. At Calais its bureaucratic and packed with anxious lorry drivers. At Dieppe you just tell the douanier on duty checking passports, then pull over into the subsequent waiting bay to have the paperwork checked. On about 8 trips I had the contents of the vehicle checked only once, and that was cursory, looking at the inventory and then looking in the back to see if it was plausible and matched.
It is also better if out of the 1 year grace period to ensure that you estimate of cost is less than 1000 euros, and also the load weighs less than 1 tonne.
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Extremely helpfull, very detailed i will pass this on to my husband. Its alot to take in but worth it. We would go Portsmouth to caen route as its an easier drive to the south. Thanks so much again
I donât think I can add to all the excellent info you have received already, but I do have 2 air to air heaters installed in different rooms a few years apart. The first is excellent, the second less good, but happy to answer any questions you have. But:
You can reply to multiple people or wake up someone that is temporarily off line or thread, by simply writing @Lola89 (for example) and you will send your comments/questions directly to them.
Makes life easier. 
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Hmm, why is that?
Lesson learnt, find the company that make the unit, Daikin, Vaillant etc and use their registered installers.
We find ours uses about 5kw per day with the two of us. But hoping to engineer evacuated solar soon as I have 66 tubes waiting to bring over.
Depending on where in the UK you are coming from itâs worth considering the Newhaven-Dieppe route - DFDS are subsidised by the Seine-Maritime departement on that route (so as to keep Dieppe port going), thus fares tend to be quite a bit cheaper than Brittany Ferries charge for Portsmouth-Caen.
Going south towards Le Mans / Poitiers / Angouleme it adds about an hourâs drive compared to arriving at Ouistreham, but if youâre not in a hurry it can save you some quids, and Dieppe is a much quieter port than Ouistreham.
This may or may not apply to you but as well as their cheaper fares DFDS also do a 20% over 60s discount if you book by phone (for some reason itâs not available via their website).
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I second the Dieppe route, we always use it. I beg to differ on the drive that way though, the tolls are over 60e where if you head around Rouen and across to Chatres then down towards Limoges that is only about 13e in tolls and same distance, to my house anyway 
Welcome to the forum BTW. I moved with a small family, my youngest is in his last year of primary now. Please feel free to ask any kiddy questions!
Depends on what tariff EDF you run it on. We always had night/day tariff which meant it switched onto the lower charge from 21.30 - 05.30. Now I have the full air heat pump system in this new house with a 270L tank, I discarded the night/day tariff because it heats as and when and I was not getting any use from that tariff, however my electricity costs with the air source heat pump are half of what I was paying previously it is so economic.
Oh dont tease, genuinely interested.
I was just indicating a general direction, not recommending a specific route. 
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The company in question were/are registered Daikin installers 
They had to resort to an proper engineer from Daikin being sent out, but only after much wrangling as their pride & arrogance wouldnât admit to being unable to deal with the problem.
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Ah so just a fitter then, the frequently over used term engineer! You would think the fitter would want to learn more but as I have found some prefer to be lazy/disinterested so they have an easier life.
With some companies even the boss doesnât know how to install their own products.
A few years ago (well probably ten or more actually) we had one of those fancy Quooker taps installed in my motherâs kitchen (the kind that has a small hot water tank under the sink). Expensive but a very good device - cheap to run and you have instant hot water on demand, especially for cups of tea or coffee - saves boiling a kettle for one cup.
Anyway, the Chief Numpty came out and fitted it himself as apparently âthe engineers are all busyâ.
He assured us that it would be fine connected directly to the mains, not via the water softener, despite local water being very hard.
Wrong.
Within 18 months the thing had entirely furred up inside with solid limescale - fortunately Quookerâs engineer who came out to look at it replaced the internals under warranty, which was good service.
We then had to get our own plumber to run a pipe from downstream of the water softener to prevent a recurrence.
He also connected the hot and cold feeds to the tap the wrong way round, so that the mixer tap was âleft for cold, right for hotâ, instead of the normal setup. Dodgy if anyone unfamiliar with it used it as they would get very hot water instead of cold.
We didnât realise it at the time, we thought it was just how the thing was designed.
So pillocks exist at all grades.
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So what happens if no one stops you or asks for anything can you just carry on or do you still have to go and declare?
The least hassle the betrer for us even if it adds to our journey. A company told me that if you did this yourself they would stop you and go through every box but when i spoke to an expat in my village he said its lies and most of the time you just drive straight past with your passport
Yes just carry on! Its up to them. Brought loads of stuff over still do, if they want to look thats fine but generally they dont, never been pulled in to check apart from the usual explosives and drug swab tests
Ah, they know your criminal history it seems. 
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Hi. I often see french customs at peages on the motorway or lurking at roundabouts. You should not be charged any customs dues for bringing your own property within the first year of starting residence in France. So although you could drive through, I would suggest that itâs not worth the risk for having duly stamped paperwork after a delay of about half an hour. (I note others have recommended Newhaven to Dieppe, and my wait there to get processed has never been more than half an hour. At Calais I once spent 6 hours waiting to be processed.)
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