Currency transfer when selling French property

[stan]

A question for anyone who has recently sold their French property and transferred the proceeds back to sterling from euros.

I transfer all my monthly income from the UK to my French bank using a currency broker.

Now, I may have a buyer for my property here in France and was enquiring as to whether the brokerage fee for transferring back from euros to sterling is negotiable for a large amount of say, €200K, or whether the standard 2ish% commission fee is always applied, ie at present rates, the commission fee on this amount of transfer would be in the region of £2.5K, a lot for the press of a button, requiring the same effort as my monthly brokerage fee of about £40 !

Any advice appreciated.

[Quillan]

I guess it depends on where the actual change from Euros to Sterling takes place i.e. France or the UK. You might find that you can do a deal with your UK bank on the exchange rate (rather than accept the advertised day rate) then simply do a bank to bank transfer in Euros and let your UK bank convert it. I have done this before in both directions and have on occasion saved a lot of money. Your the man with the money and a lot of it which can work to your advantage when moving it.

I forgot to add that the transfer fee will be a fixed amount, last time I did it was from BNP and it cost about €5.70 for €30k.

[stan]

[quote user="Quillan"]

I guess it depends on where the actual change from Euros to Sterling takes place i.e. France or the UK. You might find that you can do a deal with your UK bank on the exchange rate (rather than accept the advertised day rate) then simply do a bank to bank transfer in Euros and let your UK bank convert it. I have done this before in both directions and have on occasion saved a lot of money. Your the man with the money and a lot of it which can work to your advantage when moving it.

I forgot to add that the transfer fee will be a fixed amount, last time I did it was from BNP and it cost about €5.70 for €30k.

[/quote]

Thanks Quillan, but in my experience, I have never used banks to convert and transfer euros, always a UKcurrency broker..they have always given me the best deal, way better than any bank.

As for the transfer fee, maybe I made myself misunderstood. I dont pay any transfer fee either with my currency transactions, what I meant was the commission fee charged by brokers to make the transaction, ie the difference between the "live" market rate and the rate they convert.

[idun]

I had been sending money from France to the UK each month for several years before we sold our french house. I was transferring via our french bank straight to the HSBC in the UK, in the end it was costing around 4€ to send it. Always in euros.

When it came to our big transfer for house funds, then I used TORFX. I sent it to them in euros as per usual. My french bank didn't charge me and I knew what exchange rate I was getting as I negociated it with TORFX before sending it. Got a far better exchange rate than the HSBC would have given me.

So no commision and no brokerage fee. My french bank could have charged me the usual 4 odd €'s, but didn't.

 

Shop around. It is easy. You need to do the transfer fairly early morning and if your bank is any good will have it in the UK by the next day, mabye even the same day. My bank in the mean time is iffy with the transfer times.

 

Also don't forget to tell the notaire, not ask, tell the notaire, that you want the money immediately. They can and do hang onto it for months sometimes, my french neighbours sister's notaire kept theirs for three months!

 

Edit: As all our income comes from France and we live in the UK I am still transferring funds regularly and my bank has not been charging us at all.

[Gardian]

Quite frankly, you're clearly familiar with the various methods of moving money and therefore I'm not sure what advice anybody on here can give you.

By that I mean that the rate is the rate on any given day with any given supplier. All you can do is make 3 or 4  phone calls as close together as possible next Monday morning (for example) and compare 2 or 3 broker rates with your High Street bank.  That'll give you some sort of idea.

I doubt that the brokers have much room for manoeuvre / negotiation. Its whatever the screen in front of them says, with maybe some small scope.

Try it and see.   

[Quillan]

[quote user="stan"]Thanks Quillan, but in my experience, I have never used banks to convert and transfer euros, always a UKcurrency broker..they have always given me the best deal, way better than any bank.

[/quote]

I have also used brokers but to my surprise I have also found that rather than take the exchange rate from some numpty on the front desk (which will be their publicised rate) that a chat with the bank manager can sometimes get better results. It is at least worth a try.

[Théière]

[quote user="Gardian"]

I doubt that the brokers have much room for manoeuvre / negotiation. Its whatever the screen in front of them says, with maybe some small scope.

Try it and see.   

[/quote]

Don't ask don't get Gardian, the brokers can and do increase the terms for larger amounts. Many though show the best rates for larger amounts already, then lower it if your not transfering a large amount. Just have to get on phone and haggle.  High street bank.......your havin a larf [:)]

[idun]

How right Teapot...............High street bank.......your havin a larf [:)]

 

Just not interested in negociating, in fact the numpties, sorry staff, and I used to work for that bank, don't seem to even understand the notion of negociating. So I have asked my high street bank and got nowhere.

[Théière]

I have been taking a good look at CurrencyFair and they seem to maintain their rates at 0.0052 below the full LIBOR rate shown on FX web sites so that results in a loss of £177 on a £30,000 transfer (£+3 fee) which is so much better than the £2500 quoted earlier. Time to change your FX broker me thinks

[idun]

Stan, this is really easy.

Call a few of the FX currency companies,  you have time, as you haven't sold yet, speak to a manager and see what they can offer, it is a big enough amount that they will be interested in getting your custom. But for peace of mind, then check up on them,

Make sure that your notaire gets your money into your account quickly, ours took nearly a week, even though we asked for it immediately.

Make sure that your UK bank knows what you are doing and what the money is for, you don't want any hold ups with the money laundering people.

 

Then simply transfer to which ever company or bank you chose and get your money into your bank in the UK.

 

Remember that british banks etc only cover the first £50k of your money if they go bust, so if you aren't using it immediately spread it around, make sure that the places you chose are not in the same banking group too.

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

We ended up with TORFX, not because they were offering the best rate, they weren't, not quite, but we were treat properly.  As opposed to a couple of the other main companies I contacted who treat us like lepers because we had been out of the UK for so long. And the truth is that we should have had a proper and good credit record in the UK anyway, as we had taken out a mortgage in the UK a couple of years earlier and had bills for that property including council tax bills.

Everything is tickety boo now with any company, but like an efferlump, I have a long memory and will not give custom to people who have not been straight with us or not offered us good service or in these cases offended us. Ofcourse your situation will be different, you weren't in France as long as us??

[Gardian]

[quote user="Théière"][quote user="Gardian"]

I doubt that the brokers have much room for manoeuvre / negotiation. Its whatever the screen in front of them says, with maybe some small scope.

Try it and see.   

[/quote]

Don't ask don't get Gardian, the brokers can and do increase the terms for larger amounts. Many though show the best rates for larger amounts already, then lower it if your not transfering a large amount. Just have to get on phone and haggle.  High street bank.......your havin a larf [:)]

[/quote]

Well, I think that's what I said isn't it?  The broker plugs the amount in to his PC and up pops the rate that he or she will offer - doubtless they'll have a bit of scope for bettering that rate if you press them. 

[Quillan]

You could always try a Muslim bank, there are enough of them in the UK (and no thats not a silly idea).

[Théière]

[quote user="Quillan"]You could always try a Muslim bank, there are enough of them in the UK (and no thats not a silly idea).[/quote]

Why is it a good idea? the thought that your money could be frozen whilst anti money laundering investigations are carried out may put me off.

[Quillan]

Because they are not allowed to make money out of money. Try looking up Muslim Banking Ethics. They don't pay or charge interest for a start neither will they give charge you any more than the going exchange rate.

[ebaynut]

I guess that Barclays are not Muslim then ???

[mint]

ebaynut, as far as I know, most of the major banks do "muslim accounts".  I know for a fact that Lloyds TSB does, so I dare say Barclays does as well.

[Benjamin]

stan

The most time consuming task that we had was opening accounts with exchange companies and satisfying their money laundering questions (e g Mrs Benjamin provided her CPAM statements as proof of address: said company wouldn't accept it.)

We got about four companies to open an account for us so that we could chose, when we knew the exact date, which company to go with.

I told  that company which date they could expect the funds to arrive, a pre-agreed exchange rate and the UK bank account details for the onward transfer.

I spoke to the Notaire before the sale and agrred the transfer would be made directly from her account to the exchange company's UK account. I stayed with her after the sale whilst she spoke to her bank(?) and the transfer was made there and then.

Two days later the funds were in our UK bank account in sterling.

Just takes a bit of forward planning.  [:D] [:D]

[stan]

Thanks to all who replied. I contacted my broker and he confirmed that any transaction for that amount would be as competitively near to the "live" market rate as possible, and certainly better than the usual rate given to the smaller monthly transactions. This is the same for the other brokerage companies I have used, so it is simply a matter of getting a competitive quote on the day.

As for money laundering etc, all these companies already have all my IDs etc, so it is simply as straightfoward as having the Notaire transfer the funds to the bank on the day (which he will), then having them transfer the amount to the broker at the negociated rate.

[ebaynut]

Thanks for the information SW17. Mrs. ebaynut is getting her best burkha ironed, I have dug out my copy of the Koran and we are off to see the cleric at Barclays with a view to opening a "Muslim account" in the morning after prayers.

[Gardener]

I thought I had a competitive broker but when I looked at currency fair following positive reorts on here, CF have turned out to be much better to use, cheaper transaction fee and better rates, so make sure that you are registered with them in advance.

[mint]

[quote user="ebaynut"]

Thanks for the information SW17. Mrs. ebaynut is getting her best burkha ironed, I have dug out my copy of the Koran and we are off to see the cleric at Barclays with a view to opening a "Muslim account" in the morning after prayers.

[/quote]

Morning after prayers?  Nah, don't think they open Saturdays!