Sprogster

If my memory serves me correctly there was a series of previous threads a few years ago on dyslexia and the French educational system. I think one of the main contributors based on the experience of her own family in France was a very active and missed member of the forum called 'Teamed Up', who lived in France with her family for many years, but returned to the UK about a year ago. Anyway, the gist of the posts was that the French educational system was not as well geared up to dealing with dyslexic students as compared to the UK, in that it had limited provision for specialist tuition and a rather old fashioned prevailing attitude amongst some of the educators. Whether matters have improved since I do not know.

What ever the comparative pros and cons of the bureaucracy in buying or selling a house in the UK or France, I would suggest that what is of more interest to the average purchaser are the ancillary costs. In the UK the cost of buying an average house is around 5% of the purchase price and in France the comparative is 15%! According, to an interesting article in one of the Sunday national newspapers many British purchasers seriously underestimate these costs and end up with a big hole in their budget.

I thought Carcassonne was in South West France? According, to my French neigbours it is and it appears that way looking at a map.

One reason the insurance companies will require the specific details as to the natural cause of death, is to ascertain if it could relate to a pre-existing medical condition that existed at the time the policy was taken out. If it does and the pre-existing medical condition, such as high blood pressure, was not fully disclosed when the the life assurance cover was obtained, there is a high risk the the policy will be void. The insurance companies are red hot on this and that is why it is so important when taking out life or critical illness insurance you fully disclose any and all existing and previous medical conditions, even if you do not think they are relavent.

dibble, I think you will find a lot of the forum members are enjoying the outdoors at the moment, which may explain the low response to your previous post. Hopefully, come the Autumn with the nights drawing in, activity on the forum will pick up a bit, as to my mind it has been unusually quiet. That said with the continuing decline of the £ and UK property market, the French dream for many has probably been postponed for the time being! 

Bannon, I believe that BJSLIV has raised a very interesting point in that would you be entitled to additional State support in the UK, such as pension credits, that you do not have access to whilst living in France. I have a suspicion the the UK government will allow the basic UK State pension to fall further behind increases in real earnings and instead protect low income pensioners by increasing pension credits. That might put low income expat individuals like yourself in a difficult situation in that you lose out on State support that otherwise you would be entitled.

Just Katie raised a very important point about flights, as if the reporting in this Sunday's newspapers are to be believed, flights to France are going to suffer the brunt of cutbacks in services by the low cost carriers this winter. Therefore, if good communications are going to be important and ideally with a Gites business you should be within an hour of an airport with year round services to the UK, then that should also be a key item on your check list.

Welcome to the forum dibble, As a young family, if you need to find work when you move to France, then that should be the main factor on which you choose your location. Unfortunately, many Brits move to France choosing their location based on property price and quietness, then discover the reason the area is no quiet is that there is little work to be had and end up returning home having run out of money.Not a problem for retirees that make up the majority of Brits moving to France, but a big factor for younger families.

The good things about Flybe is that firstly you can pay extra to reserve specific seats at the time of booking, which must be a godsend for families with young children. The cost is similar to the rip off priority boarding schemes some other low cost carriers operate. Also, from October Flybe will start to issue through tickets on a number of their routes, meaning if you don't have a direct flight to where you want to go to from your nearest airport, you can interconnect through another airport on the same booking and if you miss the connection Flybe are responsible for getting you to your end destination at no extra cost. Like the old days with the scheduled legacy carriers. Lastly they have one of the most generous luggage allowances amongst the low cost carriers and the greenest fleet of aircraft. I think I am correct in saying they have been voted by the public as the best low cost carrier two years running in a well regarded travel industry poll.

Judith, the flaw in the belief that houses which are well situated and well priced will sell easily, is if a prospective purchaser cannot raise a mortgage. The unique crisis affecting the property market at the moment is being driven by the credit crunch, where even borrowers on six figure salaries are struggling to find a mortgage, as the banks simply don't have the money to lend.  This is what is driving down prices and until the credit crunch eases, which most economists forecast could take a couple of years, the most likely scenerio is for property prices to continue their decline by up to 30% from current levels. I think you are sensible in selling your London flat now, as areas like W1 have so far been fairly insulated by the continued interest of foreign buyers buoyed by the weak £ and the wealth generated by the City of London. However, with significant job losses expected in the City this Autumn the market could rapidly change.

On the other French forum I participate in, a poster has sarted a survey of fellow posters as to what region in France they have a home. Not surprisingly I suppose, it is the South West of France that is miles ahead with over 50% of the posters votes cast so far. The South East is nearly at the bottom with around 2% and probable reason is that the South East is the most expensive area of France to buy property, which limits affordability and the South West gives better value?

ErnieY, you might want to keep a close eye on the the fees your UK bank is charging, as the UK banks are currently looking to charge more for debit/credit cards used abroad, to try and claw back the millions they are going to lose in unauthorised overdraft fees, which they are under regulatory and legal pressure to reduce. Like all banks this will not be that transparent in that you will probably just get worse and worse exchange rates. (Nationwide are the exception for the time being.) I know what you are doing in withdrawing cash from ATM's and then paying it into your bank account is perfectly innocent, but ironically it is a favourite ploy for those involved in money laundering, as if you think of it it is the best way to hide the original source of funds. If you are well known in your French bank branch I am sure you won't raise any suspicions but if you did, you would be the last to know, as tipping off a client is a criminal offence and the employee involved unwittingly or not can go to jail! The so called war on terror has fuelled this paranoia, as the powers believe this is one way how terrorist cells can be financed. Anyway enough said I can't give away too many trade secrets!     

Mme poivre, when you next go to your bank tell them you want to make the payment on a standing order basis every month. If you bank with the major clearers you should not hasve a problem, as Euro transfers became a lot easier for banks this year.

You should pay no more than £15 for a SWIFT transfer if it is not a same day urgent request. However, this is more than compensated for by the far better exchange rate you should get compared to using over the couter or an ATM. I make a monthly transfer to my Societe Generale account, which works very smoothly and you can just forget about it. Moneybrokers are not generally competitive on smaller amounts and they are unregulated by the FSA, so you have little recourse if a problem arises. Withdrawing large sums of cash from an ATM on a regular basis and then paying them into your account does not work if you visit France infrequently and it is not advisable from an anti money laundering perspective nowadays. As someone who works in financial services, I can tell you that frequent cash deposits into an account, even if they are small, are one of the risk areas automatically monitored by bank anti money laundering compliance systems and could trigger off a suspicious transaction report.

Hi Tara 1,  You just instruct Barclays in writing to make a monthly SWIFT electronic transfer from your UK account to your French bank account giving them the euro sum you want credited to your account in France and the IBAN details. It really is that simple and best of all you will get a much better exchange rate then the one quoted over the counter than they offer with their bureau de change services.

Val 2, your daughter was given a tourist rate of exchange. It is all a bit of a scam really as most banks and the post office now promote commission free bureau de change services, but what they don't highlight is what you save on commission you lose on the rate given as they take a ridiculous spread. For example, if the spot rate is 1.27, the bank will probably sell euros at 1.20 and buy them at 1.35!  There is a way to get the much better market spot forex rate and that is to ask your UK bank to make a SWIFT electronic transfer from your UK bank account direct to a French euro bank account. There is much worse than expected news about the state of the Eurozone economies published this morning, with Germany, France and Italy reporting sharp declines in business confidence, so expect further downward pressure on the euro.   http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b5b7b9ee-5961-11dd-90f8-000077b07658.html    

Current spot rate now 1.2735. Another reason for Euro weakness is reducing oil price and an IMF report citing the currency as being fundamentally overvalued.        

Ian, I have little to add to dragonrouges excellent post other than to agree that with the central public UK Land Registry system, buyers of property in the UK are far better protected than most other countries such as France, where it is very much buyer beware. I have no vested interest as I have never lived in the UK and therefore have no personal or commercial interest in any bureaucracy involved in the conveyancing process. I just buy and sell properties on a regular basis for clients, not for my personal benefit.

I am dealing on a weekly basis with the sale and purchase process of properties in the UK on behalf of clients and am unaware of any recent changes to the conveyancing process? The only additional bureacracy I can think of are the anti money laundering due diligence procedures, which require the professional firms involved in the transaction to obtain appropriate client identification and satisfy themselves as to the source of funds. However, these regulations are driven by international agreement and the IMF, so apply equally in other countries such as France. The tax situation in the UK on non resident investors in UK property is far more benign than most other countries, in that there is no liability on the foreign investor to UK capital taxes on any profit made. Also no inheritance tax or forced heirship complications either. Hence one of the reasons foreign investors are buying up most of central London! 

Sadly, retired expats and drink can tend to be synonymous, due to boredom more often than not and can be found in any country and with any nationality where expats congregate. Generally, having too much time on your hands is not good for your health and a long life expectancy!   

The problem is everytime I hear this said I immediately think of John Cleese and the famous Fawlty Towers sketch!

megane, you are probably right about the UK, as according to a recent news report record numbers of Aussies are leaving the UK to return to Australia because of the fast deteriorating economic situation. Apparently, a lot of the Aussies in the UK work in financial services, an area that is being particularily badly hit with job losses and new job opportunities are currently better in your neck of the woods. The general economic situation in Europe is pretty gloomy with increasing concern that we are headed for recession and therefore unfortunately your timing is not ideal against a trend of rising unemployment and cutbacks. Australia seems to be better protected because of the wealth being generated from exports of minerals and metals to China. Good luck anyway.

Megane, probably the two main reasons your fellow Aussies tend go to the UK for a European working holiday are common language and more and better job opportunities. My advice would be to apply for a UK working visa at the same time, so that if you are unable to find work in France you have a plan B to fall back on. France has significantly higher unemployment than the UK and one of the main reasons so many economically active Brits moving to France end up returning is finance related, in that they cannot make a living. Also you need to be realistic as to how fluent you can become in French before your planned move, as that will also have a major impact on your job prospects.  

Where the booking mistake is that of the customer, you can take the view of tough luck, as the rules are the rules!  However, what if the mistake is a glitch in in the airlines internet booking system, which according to the Air Transport Users Council is an increasing problem. The fact is that the airlines internet booking systems do not always work smoothly, but the risk of this is not recognised by the airlines, who have adopted a policy of customers who use the internet booking system do so at their own risk. Regular examples include customers being debited twice for their bookings, but finding it impossible to recover the duplicate charges. Other reported problems include situations where you book for several members of the same family on a particular flight, but a glitch in the system means that the lead passenger name is allocated to each ticket. The airlines then insist it is the customers mistake and charge the passenger to amend the booking. Making the customer pay for their own mistake is one thing, but charging the customer for correcting a mistake arising from a glitch in the airlines internet booking system is a rip off!

According, to official UK crime statistics shown the other night on BBC TV, whilst the level of knife crime amongst teenagers over the last five years has increased, the incidence of gun crime has correspondingly decreased. So that the overall risk of  a teenager victim of knife or gun crime has actually remained constant over this period. A large part of the problem is the British media and how they tend to sensationalise everything. Correspondingly, the French media tend to undereport and an example of this was the recent mass shooting incident in Marseilles, which I only learned about through this forum and the British media. Although, I was in the VAR at the time and purchased the VAR-Matin every morning I cannot recall it being reported !!