One more question...about money

[Jilett]

Hi again
As we've re-mortgaged our UK home to buy a holiday home in France, we've got cash to buy a house in France. What's the best way to turn s into Euros? Would it be through a company such as currencies4less or would my bank (Nat West) be able to do it.
Is now a good time to exchange money? What do you think?
As you can guess, I'm new to this game.
All comments welcome - sock it to me!
Thanks
Janet

[Buster]

Hi,
We will not complete until a few weeks, but remortgaged 3 months ago. THe rate was up and down, so we made a decision we were happy with at the time to tranfer our sterling to our French account. BUT, just our luck the rate is better now and we have done our self out of about 4000, but I guess thats life !!
Also DONT use Foreighn Currency Direct(advertised in Living France) OUr money was in limbo for about 5 days, no one knew where it was !!!!!!!!

[jjgibson]

If the money is in your UK bank account phone them and ask what their spot price is for a transfer to your French bank (you'll need your IBAN). You'll probably get as good a rate as the currency companies (we actually got a better rate at the time) and at least you know who you're dealing with should anything go amiss.

Jon

[JeanClaude]

Call me old-fashioned but I am a lawyer and much against my better judgement went down the route of Currencies4Less and booked at a rate that we were happy with. They did not let us down but I was still worried over someone that I had never met or knew little about had a substantial sum of our money.

As I said they did their job and no problems. Their rate was also better than the bank! Shop around see what you bank can do.

A little thought. Substantial sum hit our CA account but on the 2nd of the month. Their commencing charging days for deposit account interest is the 1st and 15th of the month Thus interest did not start kicking in until the 15th.

Final point CA let us down so badly on completion, if I were you I would watch this point like a hawk, get peoples names, phone numbers emails etc and bombard them with the details to make sure it goes through.

regards

[Frank" I hope you leave here and walk out and say, What did he say? "<BR> - George W. Bush, Beaverton, Oregon, Aug. 13, 200]

>Hi
>
>May I offer a word of
>advice to those thinking about
>building a website?
>
>Constructing a website is like constructing
>a house. Get cowboys in
>and your asking for trouble.

I agree with you wholeheartedly - Wild Wild West is a good way to describe the world of Internet Design

>I have many years experience designing
>sites. I'm more than happy
>to give free unbiased advice
>on the do's, don'ts, in's
>and out's of effective web
>design.

In that case, may I offer some constructive criticism of your own website? Please bear in mind that these are merely my own opinions and I have no axe to grind.

1. "Interactive Design Technology" - you'd be amazed by the number of people who a) are put off by meaningless marketing buzzwords and b) will go elsewhere because they don't know what they mean. Why not just say "We Design Websites"?

2. You have a splash page that serves little purpose. What it does do is ask users to search the page for a way to actually access your website and then carry out an extra meanlingless mouseclick. Many users will find this annoying.

3. You mention "Site Requirements". This suggests you are willing to exclude users who don't meet your requirements and, worse, that you would recommend to your clients to do the same.

4. At 800x600 your website opening page has both horizontal and vertical scrollbars - not a very good advertisement, even though there is a mass of unused space on the page.

5. Your splash page says "Best viewed with A fast PC, Broadband connection". I'm getting the message that you are looking for large corporates only who have plenty of money and there's nothing wrong with this, but you do make it so very obvious!

6. When the users clicks on the "ENTER" link, it opens a new unreszeable browser window which is less than 800x600 in size (so why the "You need 1024x7687" message?) yet it has both H & V scrollbars!

>I do this in the spirit
>of the reciprocal sharing of
>information and help.

Me too.

I hope your move this month goes smoothly and that the fonctionnaires don't hassle you too much - I am dreading them myself, but that's because I have a pathalogical fear of grey suits!

--
Frank


The artist is nothing without the gift, but the gift is nothing without the effort."
- Emile Zola (1840 - 1902)