We are returning to the UK after six years in France. Various reasons – family, social/cultural and medical. Details for another time.
Meanwhile, trying to sort out mail forwarding. We won’t have a permanent address for some weeks [initially Adagio Aparthotel in Liverpool while flat-huntin] and it doesn’t look as though La Poste can switch addresses once I have set up forwarding.
I can set up a UK address with Maildroppers or Mailbox-etc, but if I give that address to La Poste I will be paying for it – and having to collect from it – long after moving in.
My solution is to give a reliable friend here in France a collection of pre-stamped envelopes [both C5/C4] with address labels – initially for the Aparthotel. Then when we find somewhere, send him a sheet of labels with our new address.
Question: assuming 2 or three letters in each envelope, what price stamps do I put on them? I can’t remember the last time I sent a physical letter to the UK.
How will your friend have access to your mail in order to forward it once you have left the French address/France?
Surely, making up three envelopes with the type of correspondence you normally receive, placing it in a suitable envelope for posting to the UK then weigh it or take it to the post office to check the postage due…
Prices seem to change all the time for mail outside France and the EU. Even in France its expensive now, yesterday I sent an ordinary white envelope containing three sheets of A4 paper and weighing exactly 20g to town nearby by the fastest service whereby you get a sticker with the details of the item sent and check it on your LaPoste account for tracking and that cost €2,95, snail mail is around €1,60 for 20g. Personally I used La Poste forwarding mail service for six months last year and could not fault it at all, cost €38 for six months but obviously only to one designated address. Could not the OP find the equivalent of a rented mailbox in a post office for receiving his post where he is going to live perhaps?
You mention family as one reason you are returning. So could you give a family member’s address for the La Poste forwarding? Presumably you would trust them to open the post and check how urgently it needed to be sent on to you?
In the other direction but my niece gets any UK post I get, and sifts through it, discarding envelopes and junk, and sends on the rest.
Not necessarily a solution to this problem but having tried various other solutions such as UK family, these days I use Hoxton Mix, who I can’t speak highly enough of. They take all my business and personal mail, and will either scan it and email to me or send on to me wherever, be it to another UK address (useful to get things to my accountants in the UK, or just my parents or whoever), or usually here in France. They’re a very small team so their customer service people are like extended family at this point, i purposely chose them as I didn’t want some faceless firm who literally have hundreds of thousands, or millions even, of accounts.
Just my bit of ‘these people are great so I shall recommend them just in case it’s ever any use to people’ for today
Ta Kirstea I took a look. Would you trust HM to promptly scan on anything unexpected that arrives from HMRC or Companies House? Currently my Ltd is with a place in WC2, it’s not doing a lot so works out economical. But it’s always worth knowing about alternatives should things change.
Yes, I definitely trust them, they open and notify you same day it arrives, usually before lunch and generally if i am checking my emails (so if I’m im sat on SF when I’m meant to be working ) I can reply and they’ll get it posted to France the same day, and in my postbox 3 days later. They do cost more than the Shelton Street or City Road places, but the difference is the attention to detail and personal touch to my mind. I had dealings with other of these companies as the formation packages with a year of address ends up so cheap it’s impossible to say no really, but with all of them the CS was poor and they had a tendency to lose things, so when the year was up and they invariably try to jack up the price, I transfer them to HM.
) I can reply and they’ll get it posted to France the same day, and in my postbox 3 days later. They do cost more than the Shelton Street or City Road places, but the difference is the attention to detail and personal touch to my mind. I had dealings with other of these companies as the formation packages with a year of address ends up so cheap it’s impossible to say no really, but with all of them the CS was poor and they had a tendency to lose things, so when the year was up and they invariably try to jack up the price, I transfer them to HM.