Transferring money from France to UK : advice?

[Loiseau]

Having just sold my French holiday home, I shall need to repatriate the proceeds from my French bank to my UK one.

I thought I should probably use one of those currency exchange companies rather than just do a bank-to-bank transfer. However, all the reviews I read online seem to cover transfers FROM the UK;

has anyone used one of these to transfer from France?

[BritinBretagne]

They work in all directions. It’s just that most people who post about them use them to transfer income from U.K. pounds to Euros. I recently sent money to New Zealand using TransferWise, quick, cheap and easy. Sending money to the U.K. is no different.

[Lehaut]

Use Currency Fair quite often to transfer money from France to UK for our son at Uni there.

[Loiseau]

Great, folks. Thank you so much.

[mint]

Confirm what the others have said.  But do set up the accounts ready.  In my experience the on-line companies such as Transferwise and Currency Fair are better value than "traditional" ones like Caxton and Moneycorp.

A huge advantage is that you can see the actual rate at the time of transfer and you can pick and choose after having some minutes' of thinking time.  For me, it's hard to "grasp" when a dealer at the end of the phone says I can do you, at best, 0 point blah,blah, blah and I have to do a quick mental balancing before saying yay or nay.

I always prefer to see things, esp numbers, written down, my poor brain being semi numerate.

I do urge you to set up at least TWO accounts in advance because nowadays there are requirements to send passport, proof of address, source of funds, your vital statistics and I don't know what else so count on at least 48 hours before your accounts are up and running.  Once your accounts have been confirmed, it then takes literally a couple of minutes at most to move your money.

Also, me being an ultra cautious type, I would probably send the money in 2 or 3 tranches with 2 different companies in case of any glitches.

[suein56]

mint wrote : Also, me being an ultra cautious type, I would probably send the money in 2 or 3 tranches with 2 different companies in case of any glitches.

I agree in principle, me being a cautious type too - but as the funds sent via TWise can arrive within a couple of hours - depending on the receiving bank - you could actually wait between transfers and verify their safe arrival for yourself so avoiding the need to use 2 different companies.

Edit : Mint's advice ref setting up the account first is sound.

[Loiseau]

Whew, some very useful advice there, thanks a lot. And to Bradfords for the pm.

These accounts you mention opening, mint, are presumably with the currency companies? Obviously I already have a French account from which I will be transferring, and a UK one to pay the money into - though I imagine my UK bank might want to see the attestation of sale from the notaire, to confirm the origin of the money?

[nomoss]

I sent NZD2,500 to our daughter in New Zealand last year for a 'plane ticket, using PayPal.

She received the money into her PayPal account immediately, even though it didn't leave my bank account until a couple days later.

I was charged NZD12.50 fee for the exchange, and the rate used was 1EUR = NZD1.6.

The official rate at the time was 1EUR = NZD1.6383, so the difference on the official rate was approx. 32EUR.

I realised later that I could have avoided any charges by sending the money in Euros, as she could have used Euros to pay for the ticket.

[idun]

I send money back to the UK from France most months and currently use Currency Fair. The rates they simply 'show' are the not the ones I get when I log in and exchange, they are always better.

When we sold the french house, I used TORFX and negociated a deal with the funds, so I knew exactly how much we would get.

Also I advised my UK bank about the lump sum going in, as I did not want it blocking anywhere along the line. 

And blocking funds is not new, when we sold up and moved to France in 1981, the funds going into France were blocked for quite some time by the french receiving bank, even though we had advised the UK bank what the money was from. And it had not got as far as our french bank, who were also aware.

[idun]

Don't forget to tell the notaire you want the money immediately.

No idea if they can still get away with that, but in the past, if not instructed to pass the money on, they would hang onto it.

[Théière]

As this is likely to be a large sum I imagine, may I suggest looking around and even bargaining with FX Co's  Used to be with Currencyfair but their rates are not as good as others these days and the last transfer we got €30 more via FCexchange on not a large transfer. 

https://www.fcexchange.com/uk/home/

HIFX may also be worth a call as they used to offer Vgood rates on larger transfers

[nomoss]

The way things are going, unless you need the money in Sterling, it might be worth considering leaving it in Euros. Just a thought.[:)]

[Loiseau]

I know what you mean, nomoss... but I am resolved to help the kids out a bit with it, so probably won’t hang about too long.

[mint]

[quote user="Loiseau"]Whew, some very useful advice there, thanks a lot. And to Bradfords for the pm.

These accounts you mention opening, mint, are presumably with the currency companies? Obviously I already have a French account from which I will be transferring, and a UK one to pay the money into - though I imagine my UK bank might want to see the attestation of sale from the notaire, to confirm the origin of the money?[/quote]

Sorry, Angela, just seen your message.  Have been otherwise engaged all day.....no, not in a pleasant way.

Yes, I meant with the currency companies although you could also open an account with an FX company but no real point to doing more than you need to.  Goodness knows you have plenty of bread on your planche or whatever the French expression is[:D]

Absolutely fine with your 2 bank accounts.  It might depend on the notaire but I asked mine if he could transfer the money directly into my currency company account and he said no problem.  If your notaire would agree to do that for you, then you obviously do not need to explain the source of the funds as they would be coming from an "official" source?  The transfer details mention the notaire by name but the funds themselves would be from the Trésor Public, if I remember correctly.  Having said that, I have no idea what additional identification is needed nowadays and might vary from bank to bank.....sigh

Even here, within France, and with organisations who "know me", I am increasingly being asked for my passport, even my French driving licence being nowadays deemed to be inappropriate.

[Loiseau]

Thank you, dear mint, for the clarification. The notaire has my French RIB, so the proceeds will be going into my French account.

I was sorry to read you were “otherwise engaged” in a not so good way, and hope you will feel it all worth it afterwards. Bon courage!

[Loiseau]

Huh! I thought I would give you all a smile - especially you, mint, cos I am sure you need one...

I had got on rather well with uploading my ID to CurrencyFair tonight, so I thought I would try a transfer of some of the euros right now. Easy form to fill in with the IBANs of both my banks, and off we go...until I was told to log into my French bank to make the outward payment.

I then learnt that I am at present allowed to send money from that only to accounts in France and Monaco. And moreover that my transfers are limited to 500 euros! How long is it going to take me to transfer a house-worth of money in those conditions!?

The website grudgingly permitted me to add Ireland to the list of countries, and to raise the limit to 5,000 euros, but that seems to be it. Oh, and of course even those changes will not come into effect until I have received a special code - by POST.

I feel a call to my conseiller coming on tomorrow...

(And yes, at the wooly one's suggestion, I did take the bank a copy of the notaire's attestation while I was still in France, so they are well aware that I am about to repatriate a wodge of money.)

[Chancer]

I am getting rent for 2 flats paid by bank transfer from Germany and its taking an age for La Poste to show the funds, quite often over a week, the customer now sends me a copy of his bank transfer which is Postbank ironically!

 

Years ago when I transferred UK funds to my Credit Lyonnaise account the balance would show within the hour, both Credit Agricole and La Poste are much much slower, I'm fairly certain that nothing happens until it is manually processed.

 

I recently transferred funds between UK accounts in the early hours of a Sunday morning and the balance was shown in the time it took me to click between accounts.

[Loiseau]

Yes, I regularly send money from my UK bank to my French account, to keep the latter topped up, at the click of a mouse. ( I think the first time, when I had to set my French self up a new payee, I got the usual automated phone call verification thingy for a new payee after which the UK bank will go ahead right away.)

But, in France, setting up on line a new FRENCH payee from my Credit Lyonnais account takes FIVE working days. (SIGH) It's always way faster to post a cheque to settle a bill speedily.

[EuroTrash]

When I send money via Transferwise it shows up in my UK account within seconds of confirming the transfer, and it takes several days to show as debited to my French account. Sometimes almost a week. BIzarre.

I've never transferred the other way round, does it take as long to show as debited to a UK account?

[Chancer]

I buy and bring back car parts from the UK for a French pal, he often pays me by bank transfer, as is his way he keeps asking have I recieved the payment and I often have to say "not yet but it always takes a while" which just makes him more anxious, a recent oen was not paid after a week so he went in the branch, the manager said "oh yes, I was concerned about that payment, thought it might be dodgy and had been meaning to call you to ask" [:-))]

 

Not only was I a registered payee that he had paid similar amounts to in the past but he had to verify the transaction with a certicode sent by SMS to his registered mobile phone as well as the usual log in passwords.

[nomoss]

I'm beginning to think that Paypal is quite a good way to transfer small amounts of money.

It is free between friends and family if in Euros within France and the EEA.

It is instantaneous, and there is only one entitiy to deal with in the unlikely case of problems.

In fact, the only "problem" I have ever had with payments was with one to an Italian car parts dealer who never claimed money I sent to him. I think he gave me his personal email instead of his company's, but he couldn't seem to understand my messages, and the money was eventually returned to my account.

[mint]

[quote user="Loiseau"]Huh! I thought I would give you all a smile - especially you, mint, cos I am sure you need one...

I had got on rather well with uploading my ID to CurrencyFair tonight, so I thought I would try a transfer of some of the euros right now. Easy form to fill in with the IBANs of both my banks, and off we go...until I was told to log into my French bank to make the outward payment.

I then learnt that I am at present allowed to send money from that only to accounts in France and Monaco. And moreover that my transfers are limited to 500 euros! How long is it going to take me to transfer a house-worth of money in those conditions!?

The website grudgingly permitted me to add Ireland to the list of countries, and to raise the limit to 5,000 euros, but that seems to be it. Oh, and of course even those changes will not come into effect until I have received a special code - by POST.

I feel a call to my conseiller coming on tomorrow...

(And yes, at the wooly one's suggestion, I did take the bank a copy of the notaire's attestation while I was still in France, so they are well aware that I am about to repatriate a wodge of money.)[/quote]

 Sorry, Loiseau, only just seen your post.  I agree, French banks are totally the pits!!!  I have a similar problem with my French bank; I can only pay someone on line 3000 only.  They simply cannot understand that some of us "big spenders" (think James Bond and Shirley Bassey) don't know whether to be contemptuous or simply enraged and frustrated.

Mind you, even Nationwide can nowadays be inflexible.  I have kept my credit card limit to 5000 because I don't usually need more than that and I want to limit possible losses.  Then, lo and behold, when I wanted to buy a kitchen far in excess of that piddling amount, they refuse outright to up the limit.  This despite the fact that I have kept a very healthy sum in my on line savings account and can put money in the current account and indeed pay off the credit card.  No amount of begging or insisting on "speaking to your superior" did any good.  Eventually, I paid from a French account by cheque.

Bloody bankers, no wonder they are universally hated.  And if anyone out there is a banker, don't expect to be on my Christmas card list, OK?[6]