Getting there...

Sue Many many thanks for taking the time to help us with this. Willl be able to post the 'payments' tomorrow and stop worrying about it. Mike and Donna  

Thanks Sue, This is my Britline contact's answer to asking them if they could pay the bills direct. If we have a signed instruction we can do a transfer but it would be easier (and cheaper) for you to sign the paing in slip on the bill,date it and return to the tresor public with a copy of your RIB (relevé d'identité bancaire) and the water bill will be debited from your account direct,free of charge.In the future you would just need to sign the slip and return it to the Tresor public and the payment  will be made.It is a similar operation to set up a direct debit just request a 'Prélevement Automatique à l'échéance' and a direct debit will pay your bill twice a year. I thought that the Tresor Public was local. Are you saying that I can just sign the payment slip, enclose a copy of my RIB and send directly to EDF/GDF (or Saur for water) ? Mike

Hi, This is my first post so thanks in advance for any answers. We have bought a house in France and intend to move there in a few weeks. We are coming to the end of the long and protracted process of setting up a bank account with Britline, nearly there, but we are still waiting for a cheque book to arrive. In the mean time we have some utility bills (gas & electricity) which we need to pay urgently. Our contact at Britline says the easiest thing to do is to sign the paying-in slip on the bill, date it and return to the tresor public with a copy of our RIB (which we have) and the bill will be debited from your account direct, free of charge. My question is, what exactly is the tresor public and are they 'localised'. If this helps, the house is in Laurens, 30km north of Béziers, Hérault, Languedoc-Roussillon. Is this an accepted way of paying bills without an actual cheque? Many thanks, Mike