we are in a similar situation hoping to get over later this year with some starter furniture,tools etc all used and not for re sale,we do want some traditional french furniture later on hopefully limoges has some to offer as this is the nearest city to our house,Am I right in thinking I can turn up at the chunnel or ferry with my itemised load and have little or no problem
A touch more complicated than that, a few more bits of paper could be needed, but in essence you have 12 months from changing your country of residence to bring in your personal goods. Before and after than you can probably bring in a car with some stuff in it without question, but full on removals could attract duties.
Jane Iām not sure if you read the start of the thread by Emma but it is a holiday home we are furnishing and wont be changing our country of residence, I thought you where allowed to bring personal belongings and furniture,tools etc if not new or for re sale in france
Thanks for your advice. I will make it very clear that nothing is for resale if I am asked by customs officials, although its looking less certain than ever that weāll be travelling to France this summer with the third Covid wave 
Sorry, somehow missed that! In which case officially you can bring:
āVos objets aĢ usage personnel sont admis sans formaliteĢ douanieĢre ou fiscale en France. Leur nature et leur nombre ne doivent pas reveĢtir de caracteĢre commercial.ā
And no plants (without certificate), animal products, weapons, cultural heritage, large quantities of money (10k) and so on. But yiu can also bring 300ā¬ worth of goods.
Hereās the guidance
https://www.douane.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/documentation/pdf/voyagez-tranquille.pdf
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Thanks jane, I have seen that link previously but for some reason Google would only translate a % of it ?, I have the same issue with some pdfās from my downloads on the laptop,will try it again and see if I can sort it
Hi Colin, did you manage to travel to France? I was wondering how you got on?
We are taking a van now when we travel as have a second hand kitchen to transport (Ā£100 on ebay!!)
Hi Emma
No not yet,we have had hold ups with the sale but hopefully weāll be all done in a month or two,I wish I was ready for a trip as the van load keeps growing,I hope it all goes well for you please keep us updated on your experience,if you have room it may be worth taking other stuff DIY related as we spoke to a friend who lives in France and he has advised us to bring as much as we can a his workmen are struggling for materials and the cost of timber has trebbled
My understanding is that there is a shortage of timber worldwide (most places the UK or EU import from have had their orders snaffled by the US!) so you may well find that itās no easier/cheaper to get in the UKā¦
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Why is there a worldwide shortage?
It seems to be complicated. Part of the reason for a US swipe of wood destined for other countries is because a lot of timber seems to come from Russia and the rift between the two countries meant that Russia wouldnāt export to the US. What the US then did was intercept individual shipments going into eg Rotterdam (Iām a bit vague on which port) from where it was going to other places in Europe and money was handed over to divert the shipments to the US. This also happened to some PPE equipment from China coming to France in the early day sof the pandemic as far as I recall.
That doesnāt explain a āworldwideā shortage though and I understand that there were at least a couple of other factors. One was that production of finished timber was seriously reduced because of so many people being poorly with Covid. Another one - which I donāt understand at all - is something about countries such as France exporting their own timber to China for processing before it comes back to France. Something about there not being manfacturing capacity in France/machinery to process the timber here becaase it had been cheaper to ship to China, process and bring back rather than pay for production costs here. Presumably lower wages and safety standards contributed to that.
Thatās a combination of what I have gained from a menuiserie business here plus a business that fells timber here.
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one big factor was that steel production and transport stopped / dropped massively because of Covid, meaning builders switched back to timber where possible when theyād have previously used steel, timber being more locally available as opposed to steel of which over 50% is made in China. Everyone rushing for timber then obviously meant demand massively outweighed supply jacking the price up.
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Thanks for that, Kirstea. It certainly makes sense and could well be a major factor here.
Useful info Kirstea, thanks. Iāve just imparted this to OH. We had some special tailored double glazing big windows made two years ago (I think - I lose track) and weāve asked our carpenter to quote for doing more. We may be in for a shock! So far, no sign of a quote and given that he wonāt be doing the work for months, perhaps not surprising. We are going to have to find a solution for him if he really doesnāt know what the price of timber will have risen to in 6-9 months time.
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Iāve been involved (very much on the periphery) on behalf of a client who is building a new sports stadium in Miami. I know nothing of this world myself I should add, but we suddenly started getting quotes that were four or five times what had been budgeted and this was the explanation. The good news is that they seem to believe that within the next few months the steel / timber situation would have corrected itself and have basically said āweāll hold everything and come back to you in September with numbers that we think will be very near to the originalsā. When and if this will trickle down to you and I buying a bit of 2x4 in Mr Bricolage remains yet to see, but at least at some level it seems like things are getting better again now.
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Thanks Kirstea. Hereās hoping. Well itās unlikely weāll get the work done until winter/next spring so we may decide to review any quote with him nearer the time.
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