Importing furniture to france

[Annhopkins]

What are the legal requirements for importing your furniture into france for a permanent move.  Any forms, payments etc etc.

 

Please help, have learnt a lot about France from this forum and done a whole load of homework before deciding to move, but not sure about this.

[Nick Trollope]

You are at liberty to bring whatever you like into France (give or take a few restrictions re: illegal substances. animals and foodstuffs, etc.). There is no paperwork required, at either end.

A ferry Company will want to be assured that, if you are carrying the stuff yourself, that it does belong to you (this is about the difference between passengers and freight, rather than and restriction on carriage).

[Annhopkins]

Thanks Nick, this information is useful.. Just one more question, as long as we tell the ferry company the furniture is ours I take it we can still travel as ordinary passengers and not freight.

 

Ann

[Teamedup]

How things have changed. They wanted a list of every last thing we were bringing over, the value of it and it all translated into french and approved and stamped by the french consulate.

I imagined that it would all be so much easier now and obviously it is.

[Nick Trollope]

[quote]Thanks Nick, this information is useful.. Just one more question, as long as we tell the ferry company the furniture is ours I take it we can still travel as ordinary passengers and not freight. A...[/quote]

Indeed so. I have been having this discussion with "redcap" in one of the others forums (or is that fora?). If the goods belong to you and you are not carrying them for reward, then you can travel as a passenger, rather than freight (you can still travel freight if you wish, but I can't see why you would want to; When I chacked, it cost more and you could not book more than 2 weeks in advance - on BF at least, and it cost more).

Happy moving!

[Humptydingo]

Don't know what it's like now but we travelled over 8 years ago by Shuttle with our transit van packed to the hilt with all our worldly goods having sold up including the house in England (literally no space at all) - we got the special form obtained at the customs office for our Yorkie dog (Ministry of Agri and Food Certificate already obtained) and arrived in France, drove straight off the shuttle and absolutely nobody at all there to greet us and we just drove straight onto the motorway and off to the Suth of France.  Still here and love it.

[GrahamE<SPAN style="FONT-SIZE: 14pt; FONT-FAMILY: Comic]

We moved everything over in August, using a commercial removal company, and took all our furniture, fridges, etc. No problems at all, except they couldn't get it all in ! Previous to that we took over some bed frames, we bought the mattresses in France, plus TV/DVD, etc. on the ferry and had no problems at either end with customs etc. Certainly did not have to fill in any forms ot pay anything.

Also took our two dogs with us through the tunnel with no problems - (still I suppose if you had two Alsations in the car with you, you wouldn't expect trouble either !) No, everything was very smooth moving over to France at all stages.

Hope this helps.

 

[letrangere]

Like TU, I was utterly astonished to read that this is so easy nowadays.  What's happened to all those forms I queued up for hours for at the French Embassy in SW3, especially THAT inventory in French, in triplicate(!), detailing full description of item, date purchased and approximate value?  Knowing what a nightmare it was to prepare in the first place, and knowing we would be moving back, we've kept ours on the computer and update it everytime we buy something.  Bit of a shame really to think it won't now be necessary.

Oh, and if you think it was bad moving in in the old days, should have tried leaving!  We couldn't get an "exit permit" to move all our worldly goods out until we'd gone along to some govt dept with proof that we'd paid all our taxes up to date.  It was an absolutely nightmare.

M

[Teamedup]

I was wondering if one still needed an exit permit MWJ. I know that all taxes had to be paid bang smack up to date before one left in the past.

[Miki]

[quote]Like TU, I was utterly astonished to read that this is so easy nowadays. What's happened to all those forms I queued up for hours for at the French Embassy in SW3, especially THAT inventory in French...[/quote]

Margaret & TU,

Yes, we remember all too well the long, long inventory in triplicate in French and English, that had to be stamped and didn't you both have to get the Embassy to translate other "things" for you as well. What were they? I think the marriage certificate and Birth certificates might have been one thing but wasn't there something else as well? Having a bad memory day !!

The removal firm took everything away and told us it would all be kept under lock and key for the next few months until our place was available in France.

I do remember that new items had to be kept seperate and invoices kept handy in case a surcharge was put on them. We were really worried that some new furniture we had bought at a good price would attract the customs but the removal men told us they sailed through customs, which they said was rather lucky as a few weeks before, a family had been charged for quite a lot of new items onboard one of their vans. 

 

[Will]

[quote]Like TU, I was utterly astonished to read that this is so easy nowadays. What's happened to all those forms I queued up for hours for at the French Embassy in SW3, especially THAT inventory in French...[/quote]

I think you'll probably find that free movement of goods between member states is one of the benefits of EU membership, and, moreover, one that the French authorities are now much happier to accept - as long as it's personal goods we're talking about and not stuff being moved around for profit...

[letrangere]

Nothing wrong with your memory, Miki, yes we did have to get all our documents authenticated at the French Embassy, I remember very clearly the queue, I was there all day.  And you are right about having to separate "old" (6 months plus) from "new" (less than) items.  I'll never forget sitting in a layby on the North Circ pulling brand new John Lewis curtains out of their wrapping and scrunching them up to look a bit worn before dropping off a box load of stuff with the removal people!  And, yes, there was an enormous threat of the shipment being held up, it was almost expected.  Our drivers were amazed that things went so smoothly and they "only" spent 4 or 5 hours whilst the van was taken apart at French customs.  Actually, we thought the whole process was an invaluable initiation for what was to come, ie obtaining the CdS.  Was it only in Paris that they assigned you a fixed date for your interview and if you missed it you went to the back of the queue and started again, rather like UK driving tests???   M 

 

[Teamedup]

I admit that it was a hassle getting everything translated, but we have hit the North/South divide here. I had to go to Middlesbrough. A very charming english bloke sorted out my stuff for me. Told me all about his holidays in Boulouris (sp) each year. No queues, not many people in Middlesbrough queueing up for things french. He did warn me that everything could be checked at customs when Pickford's crossed and it was clearly marked on our Pickford's contract that any delays would be charged to us. Pickford's weren't stopped and they got to our house when they said that they would.

So, for me at least, there was no preparation for France for me, that bit was fairly easy peasy. Chasing our tails came later. How things are easier now, just thinking about it, they really are.

 

[The Riff-Raff Element]

Ah, yes…how I remember the heady days, pre-1992. Upon my arrival in the Netherlands I had to have interviews with the customs (for possessions and car), the gemeentehuis (to register my status as a fully paid up member of the human race) and with the “aliens police” for almost ritualised abuse and instruction on my place in Dutch society (sub-cockroach).

 

Interestingly, given that everybody one seems to meet in the Netherlands speaks English and at least one other language, none of the officials I had to deal with seemed to be able to manage a word of anything else. [When I had reached an intermediate level in Dutch I found it very difficult to find people willing to allow me to practise language on them. My colleagues had ceased to find my attempts to learn their ghastly language amusing and I was far from fluent. My discourses where routinely curtailed after a few sentences when the person I was addressing simply refused to speak anything but English. After a while I started to pretend that I was Czechoslovakian, just to get language practice. This actually worked.] I later learned that they were feigning to make their jobs more entertaining.

 

The best fun was the aliens police. Take 80 kg of condemned meat, give it a Messiah complex and a uniform, et voila! Before I was shipped over, my employer had coughed up for a few basic lessons to help me cope with the first few weeks (“Don’t worry,” my native Dutch language teacher told me, “everyone speaks English, but I’ll give you enough to break the ice!”). Consequently I had at my finger tips such key phrases as “Hello. My name is Jon.” “Would you like a cup of coffee?” “You are a very attractive young lady. Could I have the opportunity of seeing you naked?” Funnily, none of my lessons had prepared me for this interview.

 

Actually getting the interview was a trick in itself. The aliens police only opened Wednesday between 9 and 12. Everyone got a number on arrival and if your number didn’t come up, you started all over again the following week. It was my fourth attempt (arriving at 6.30 am) before I was finally ushered in to see Thomas de Torquemada.

 

He was utterly disinterested in my finances, what job I was doing, whether I had murdered anybody, etc, but obsessed with my racial origins (my surname, in some circles, is thought to be Persian – always fun when trying to escape from Israel). After almost an hour of interrogation (at one point I thought he was going to whip out a bit of sandpaper to see if he could rub the make-up off), he had convinced himself that I was white and reluctantly stamped my passport.

 

At this point I made the mistake of attempting to be friendly – “Nice place, the Netherlands”, I said, “Very friendly people and an attractive country.” “Are you trying to be funny?” asked our Tom. “Eh….no.” “Hmm….well I can see we’ll have to keep an eye on you!” “Why?” “Sounds to me like you might be planning to stay. Let’s have you back in every four weeks, OK?” “But the permit is for a year!” “And it can be revoked without notice,” he grinned. “See you next month.”

 

Interestingly, the most important and useful document for establishing a comprehensive identity in the Netherlands all those years ago was a utility bill with my name on it. When we moved to France, the most useful document we had…an EdF bill.

 

[letrangere]

"obsessed with my racial origins"

Excellent posting, Jon, and it was the same in Paris.  At a preliminary session with an official in advance of submitting papers, which would eventually result in summons to formal interview at Prefecture and then hopefully the CdS, I was interrogated as to my husband's real name.  For surely the swarthy looking individual in the photograph was called Abdul and the plain old anglo saxon name given on the passport was bogus? He then had the cheek to question our address saying that no one in our neighbourhood would rent to a pied noir.  He was right, of course, I had already been warned of that by an immobilier so had gone flat hunting on my own!  M

[Miki]

[quote]"obsessed with my racial origins" Excellent posting, Jon, and it was the same in Paris. At a preliminary session with an official in advance of submitting papers, which would eventually result in...[/quote]

Margaret,

It must have been an awful time for you. I become more interested in "les pied noirs" after reading about Albert Camus many years ago.

What generation is your husband or was it a mistake as your husband simply looked "swarthy"? 

I ask because of course some were still as French as the day their family left many years before, others a lot more "integrated" and had as you said, that swarthy look about them.

The whole Algerian thing was in the end certainly not something France and especially De Gaulle could have looked back with any pride (bad word but suitable I feel).   

 

[letrangere]

Miki, dare I admit this on the Net(!) but my husband is pure Welsh going back generations.  Oddly, it was an American friend in Paris who, after plucking up the courage to ask where other half came from, told me that there are such people as the "dark Welsh" as there are "dark Irish" apparently.  It was all complete news to me but others have subsequently confirmed this.  I could entertain (shock?) you with anecdotes all morning on this subject. 

By the way, you've reminded me I must read more Camus, it's been a long time.

Margaret