Moving from Australia to France

[allan37]

Hello all,

My wife and I have sold our house here in Australia and now we're interested in buying a property in France to retire to. We're both British passport holders claiming a part Australian pension and have never worked in the U.K. Could anyone give us some pointers as to where to start our move?

Thanks in advance for any assistance.

Allan

[ianf]

Depends what you are looking for. Do you have an area of France in mind? I chose Basse Normandie because it was not too far South and has reasonable access to the UK, given global warming and the increasing heat of the summers. I also didn't want to be to near the coast. One way to start, if you have no particular region in mind, is to look at a list of properties for sale and see what you like/can afford and so on and take it from there.

[P]

Survival Books produce a number of books on moving and living in France and some of these describe the various areas. Perhaps a start would be to buy a few of these and find out more about living in France and the areas of France and then ask specific questions on this forum.

In addition, use www.pagesjaunes.fr to search for immobiliers (estate agents) in various areas and visit their websites to look at the types and prices of properties on offer (however, the reality compared to the photos and descriptions might be a little different).

Best of luck

Paul

[allan37]

Hi ian

Thanks for replying. We love the Normandy region as well for the reasons you listed above. Our budget would be 200,000 euros and we've found plenty of properties. Are there any real estate agents that you would recommend? What about agencies such as Normandy Property Assist, which are tailored towards the U.K market?

Allan

[allan37]

Thanks for that Paul. Australia is such a long way away everything seems more difficult!

I have a few banking/financial questions - we would have liked to set up our French bank account before leaving Australia - is this possible through a bank such as Britline Credit Agricole? Also, we were thinking of keeping the majority of our money in our Australian high interest online account and then transferring money over to our French account, as we need it until we can find a better arrangement. Any thoughts?

[MrCanary]

Hi Allan,

I currently have a home in both England and France, with the intention of retiring to the latter.

I opened an account with Credit Agricole (CA) Britline some 4 years ago - about 6 months before purchasing our house in Indre et Loire. I found CA very helpful and have had no problems at all. Please bear in mind that you must have a French bank account up and running before you can make a house purchase.

Mel

[allan37]

Hi Mel,

Unfortunately, having looked at the Britline application form it looks like they won't open an account to anyone who doesn't have a U.K/French address. We're thinking of using Normandy Property Assist (www.normandypropertyassist.com) to buy a house since they will set up a bank account for us. There is a charge for their services but in our situation, being in Australia, it seems like a more practical choice for us.

Allan

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Hi Allan37

We moved from Australia to France 16 months ago.

What we did money wise was make arrangements with our local bank in Australia to agree to accept a fax for a telegraphic transfer from France.

When we arrived in France we opened an account and then faxed our bank with the french account details.  Money was over in about three days!

If you go on the Credit Agricole website they will allocate you an English speaking bank manager, who has been an absolute dream for us.

We also keep cash in our Australian accounts as we have to put in an Aussie tax return anyway and just TT funds over when we run out.

Hope this helps.

[ianf]

200K Euro sounds like a goodly amount depending on the size of house you wish to buy. I found my home through the internet and I searched and searched and found all sorts of sites that were not necessarily agency sites. Having said that, I think it may be best to go through an agency that specialised in the UK end of the market as you would get the help and hand holding that is helpful when buying in a different country - language, custom and practice and so on. There is a lot available in Normandy, Northern loire and Brittany for that amount of cash. Hope you have also a good pension/enough to live on. I am fortunate so far is that I will still have a (managed) business in the UK providing an income.

[allan37]

Re: money transfer from Australia, the way I think we're going is by using Commonwealth Bank's IMT (international money transfer). It's $22 per transfer and takes 2 to 5 days. Our online interest will be providing the bulk of our income. Once we settle in we might move the money  elsewhere, but for now we'll just transfer from Australia. We're comfortable financially here in Australia atm, but we live simply. Hopefully we'll be okay in Normandy too.

I emailed Sextant French Property and they said we could pay for our house using an Australian cheque and that we didn't need a French bank account straight away, which is good news for us. We'll probably want to open an account with CA when we arrive in France.

We're slowly gathering the information we need - thanks to everyone who's helping.

Allan

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

We paid for our house by a simple telegraphic transfer to the french solicitor who handles the property transfer.   TT'd him the deposit and then TT'd the final payment.

Do make sure though, that you make arrangements with your local Commonwealth branch to accept a fax for the IMT/TT. Most banks require you to appear in person to make the transaction.

Normandy is quite a beautiful region.   Hope you're not from QLD though, because the change in climate will give you a major shock!  We chose the centre of france because you get the QLD summers, and the milder winters.

Also, are you aware that you will have to pay your way into the medical system here?

[allan37]

Hi LyndaandRichard - we've been living in Ballarat in Victoria, which can get quite cold in winter,  so the change in weather in Normandy won't be as dramatic as for some!

We'll definitely visit the Commonwealth bank first to make sure everything we work smoothly before we go. We might use TT as well, we'll mention it to our bank.

I'm in the process of asking questions about the health care system in France atm (see my thread in Health in France). How did you cope with the registration process? Language is my biggest concern when dealing with government departments.

What do you think was the most challenging aspect of your move to France from Australia?

Thanks for your advice.

Allan

[Ron Avery]

[quote user="Mel "]

Hi Allan,

 Please bear in mind that you must have a French bank account up and running before you can make a house purchase.

Mel

[/quote]

No you don't.

It is to be recommended but not essential.  Money for house purchases can be transferred from any bank account to that of the Notaire handling the sale.  You do need a French bank account afterwards to pay for healthcare, tax, phone, electric, water etc

You should also think hard about using CA  Britline, OK to start and if you don't speak much French, but if you don't end uo in Calvados it can be very inconvenient to pay money into your account as other CA "branches" in other areas operate as separate banks, so transfers can take time.  Wait until you get settled and open an account with a local bank, far far easier.

Hardest thing about living in France?  It is France.  They don't all speak English, the language barrier is the most difficult to overcome and one of the prime reasons why many people go back to their homeland. In the Charente area, it was estimated that 2 in 3 return home within three years due to isolation and language difficulties, this ratio is probably true across most of France.

[cooperlola]

I'm with Ron on this one.  Language can isolate you if you are not careful. Oddly, it isn't the bureacratic things that cause the main problems - our local CPAM (who deal with health care) have at least one person who speaks English and they are very helpful - but the integration thing.  It's harder to get the most out of life if you only speak English and you could begin to feel lonely, especially as you will be so far from home.  Although I don't care for enclaves of immigrants all together in one place and living a seperate existance from the locals myself, it is probably worth your while - if you are attracted to a particular village - having a look in the phone book to see how many English names there are (they are conveniently divided into villages in France!) to see if there is at least somebody around whom you'll be able to have a nice chat with from time to time - free of the language barrier.

No matter how good your French is (and I'm probably not wrong when I suspect that mine is better than some) - it is still good to be able to have a conversation in your own lingo from time to time.

But get studying quick - there is no substitute for being able to speak the language of your chosen country of residence.

[allan37]

Interesting thoughts on the language barrier. After living most of my life in Australia, which is quite an isolated country, I'm actually really looking forward to exploring some new challenges. One of the things I find limiting here in Australia is the distance - you just can't  fly over for the weekend to test out your French or go house hunting. Of course, it's impossible to know how we'll cope with the language, but being retired and being keen to learn I think it should be an enjoyable experience. I just want to get the paperwork sorted out and then we can relax and tackle the language at our own pace.

Allan

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

You will find France amazing. We've been here 16 months and we've just discovered another route to the next village we never knew existed. The road density is so great compared to Australia (I remember only one road from one town to the next - dead boring).

The hardest thing we found was the CPAM, and we ended up posting them with our paperwork which was all in English and letting them sort it out rather than going in person. All worked out well for us.

Once your paperwork side of things is set up, you can relax and learn the lingo at your leisure. The village you move to may do French lessons (ours does, although we have never attended as it is full of poms!), but we prefer to learn via experience and cd's. We spend a fair bit of time with the French. In fact socially, the lack of language has never been a major problem, as a mixture of broken French (broken English from them if you're lucky) and many hand and vocal gestures make communication understandable and very humurous at times.

We also have the attitude of every experience, no matter how mundane is part of the adventure.

[allan37]

A very clever solution re: the CPAM issue! Sounds like you have the right attitude to living in a foreign language country. We can't wait to get going...

Only a few more issues to research - drivers licences, shipping our belongings, getting the pets over... This forum is fantastic. Thank goodness for the internet!

Allan

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

You'll have about a year to exchange drivers licences. And unlike an immigrant going into Oz, you don't even have to take a driving test to exchange the licence. Just a simple exchange. Although we have yet to exchange. But I (Richard) have a UK licence (so I don't need to exchange that), Lynda only has an Aussie one, but she rarely drives here, so it's not a train smash for us.

We used a company called Dogtainers to ship our dog over. Think they are down in Melbourne too. They were very good. Did all the paperwork, injections etc. Cost about $1600 including air fare for our dog (which was more than our tickets!). He is a Shetland Sheepdog and weighed just under 10kg to give you a rough idea of size for the price. He weighs more than that now thanks to French cuisine! :) We left the cat in Oz with Lynda's son, and within two months of our departure decided to take on a brown snake, and of course lost (the cat, not the son) :)

We only shipped about 5 cubic metres off our stuff over, just essentials and personal belongings. It was cheaper than shipping the whole lot over. So we sold all our funiture in Oz and just bought new furniture when we arrived in France. Cost for 5 cubic metres was about $5,000.

[Ron Avery]

[quote user="LyndaandRichard"]You will find France amazing.

The hardest thing we found was the CPAM, and we ended up posting them with our paperwork which was all in English and letting them sort it out rather than going in person. All worked out well for us.

[/quote]

I think most people on here will think it amazing that CPAM just did not send it all back to you!!

You must have found a very accomodating CPAM functionaire, I certainly would not recommend to anybody else to "post it all to CPAM and let them sort it out", particularly if you ae sending marriage/birth certificates, or to let them think that a lack of French can easily be overcome by "leting them sort it out", that will not get you very far at all, believe me, you have been very lucky..

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Just spoke to my wife who has corrected me on the CPAM part of my answer here. We did send everything in by post after a phone call to an English speaking woman, to clarify exactly what was required as the Aussie tax year is 6 months apart from the French one. It was confusing as to what exactly they wanted, as I don't even think they knew definitively. This was why it was the hardest part of our move over.

Based on what they told us, we filled in the necessary forms as best we could and provided them copies of our Aussie tax returns along with other paperwork but in English backing up our application. We had copies of our marriage and birth certificates which had been translated into French and certified by a French government recognised translator in Oz and these too were sent. A long explanatory letter in English was included (as well as a badly translated french version).  Apparently my wife sent some 30 pages of information all up.  The principal being that we would send them absolutely everything and then they could pick out what they wanted.

So while my comment was a bit blasey, there had been a lot of work put into it before we did post it to the CPAM for them to process.  My wife was upset that I had forgotten about all her hard work.  But all that being said, the CPAM sorted through all the documentation and processed our application without anymore correspondence and everything has been simple ever since.

 

[allan37]

Hi Richard,

How much did you have to buy again once you had arrived in France besides furniture? Did you buy all of your whitegoods again? Will Australian 240 volt electrical items such as fridge and toasters work okay on 230v providing I use a French adapter plug?

I had a look at the Dogtainers site and they look perfect. We'll have to put our dog on a diet I think!

Sounds as though the CPAM will be an adventure all on its own! III let you know how we go once we're over there. We'll get all of our main documents such as birth and marriage certificates translated before we go. Sounds like it might be handy.

Re: the driving licence swap. At least for an Australian licence to be exchanged there's a list at

http://www.france.embassy.gov.au/pari/driving.html

Looks like you need to have to have your Oz licence translated plus the letter from Vicroads.

Thanks for the help everyone.

Allan  

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

No probems with the electricals. We only brought our home cinema, pc, laptop and various lamps over from Oz. Just chopped the Aussie plug off and rewired with French plugs once we got here. The electricity supply is the same. voltage. Just seemed to be cheaper to buy fridges, washing machines etc over here rather than ship the whole lot over. When we got here, we went into one of the electrical stores (But I think they were called, bit like Harvey Norman if they exist down in Vic), went round, picked out what we wanted (which was fun) and then asked what their best price would be for the lot. Got 10% off.

The other reason we bought new out here, was the shipping times from Oz. As we only had a part container, we had to wait until that container was full before it was shipped. It took just over 6 months to get our stuff. This wasn't a problem as it took that long to get the house in a liveable state before we even needed the stuff. So to wait 6 months without fridge and washing machine would have been a nightmare. But that's our fault for buying a house that needed renovations.

Dogtainers are great. The only problem we had (which wasn't Dogtainers fault) was that we were supposed to pick our dog up from unusual baggage at the airport. Instead of which, some stupid idiot at the airport decided it would be a good idea to send our dog to some cargo depo somewhere around Paris. We had all flown over on the same flight. It took us 4 hours of driving around to locate him (which wasn't much fun as we were quite jetlagged from the 26 hour flight) and we found him still in his box, in a corner of a large warehouse. So when booking with them, insist that your dog is to be picked up from unusual baggage at the airport at for it to be labelled clearly on the box. Our dog is very happy here now and prefers the climate here to the climate in Qld. Alls well that ends well.

I never knew all that for the licence though, better get that sorted soon.

[allan37]

That's interesting - so did you have some short term accommodation near the house you bought until you bought your new things? Even though our new house will be renovated, I assume we'll have to rent a gite for a week until we can buy the essentials. So the rule when shipping is only pack the things you can live without for a while..! We really need our computer straight away so I think III have to buy a laptop. Do you mind me asking what shipping company and Internet provider you used? 

Did you rent a car until you bought one in France? I was just wondering what the best option would be on arriving... We were thinking of renting a small car for a month through Auto Europe.

Your poor dog must have been delighted to hear your voice in that warehouse!

So many questions - I feel guilty for asking so many! We really appreciate your help.

Allan

[Mr Coeur de Lion]

Yep, we booked into a nearby chateau for about 2 weeks although we only stayed for a week I think (we arrived out of season, early October, so the price was very good). We had made an offer on the house which was accepted early June and timed our arrival for about 5 days before settlement. In this week, we had a ball, buying all the essentials, bed, chests of drawers, fridge, convection microwave, small tv, dvd player (we bought more furniture as and when we completed a room). We also renovated one room in the house in that week so we had somewhere relatively comfortable to live in while we started renovating the rest of the house. Took us a year to get a kitchen and we just cooked using a convection microwave and a George Foreman grill thingy, plus many visits to the local bar/restaurant for dinner, which we made many friends there too :)

Also sorted out electricity, banking, phone and internet connections that week. We use Orange as out internet provider and they are pretty good and reliable, an unlimited 2mb connection with free landline phone calls plus wireless router (called a livebox) for about 34 euros per month. We got this along with the phone connection from France Telecom which made life easier, although it took a couple of weeks for the internet connection. Phone was on the next day.

Same with the car. We both wanted a French car, so we visited a European car dealers on the Gold Coast and had a look at what was available. Expect a big difference to what your used to in Oz, cars are tiny here! Test drove a Citroen C3, hated it, felt like a toy. Then we saw a Peugeot 206CC, fell in love with it (although we didn't test drive it) and decided that was the one. Searched for a nearby Peugeot dealer in France, emailed them and ordered a brand new one from them and TT'd a deposit. Like the house, this took 3 months to come to fruition. This was ready to pick up the day before our house settled. So yes, we had a hire car (picked up from Charles de Gaulle) but only needed it for 4 days, thus again minimising any dead money being outlaid in renting. Tip: get a gps system before you arrive (and make sure that the battery is fully charged too), was invaluable in our first 6 months of life in France. Try and get one off ebay though. We bought direct from viamichelin in France and had to pay gst and handling fee when it arrived in Australia. Grrr! It's just the sign postage here is not what you'd be used to and coming out of the airport, you could very easily end up driving through Paris (like we did). You don't want to be doing this after your 26 hour flight.

Shipping company we used was Pickfords I believe. Very good, no breakages. For us, it was an excellent opportunity to simplify our lives. We had so much clutter in our lives. We'd moved twice in 3 years prior to our move to France and hadn't unpacked a garage load of stuff after our last move. We picked out the most valuable things and sold them on ebay. The rest we sold in a garage sale. Our policy was, if we hadn't used it in 6 months, we got rid of it. We only shipped out 7 boxes and some antique mirrors and chairs.

Our dog was delighted to see us, once he got his bearings. He pretty much slept non stop for 2 days though, poor thing. He is very, very happy now though. Best thing we could ever have done for him is bringing him to France. He sits out on the back step in evening times, looking at the view listening to the birds and taking in all the smells etc.

When is it you are coming out?

[allan37]

Thanks so much for the detailed reply.

We actually like smaller cars (we drive a Renault Clio at the moment) so we'll probably buy something similar in France. I didn't think of ordering a car from Australia - you guys are so organized! You really did your homework. Once we've bought a house I think that might we might try the same idea. Did you find the cars cheaper in France? The viaMichelin GPS system is now on our shopping list.    

Our dog and 2 cats will be getting the door to door service, which I think is going to save us allot of stress not having to worry about picking them up from the airport. We were thinking about taking a train from Paris into the region we buy in and then picking up our rental car from the destination station and from there to our rented short term accommodation. Does that sound like a reasonable plan? 

We'll be coming over on a house buying trip for 2 weeks once we've gotten all of paperwork and such translated and organized. We want to get as much sorted out as we can before we embark. We won't be going over until we see our ideal house (and a few others just in case) then we'll book an appointment with the agents. It's pretty scary stuff thinking of selling most of your belongings and going for it...

We're wondering whether the Internet connection is going to be an issue living in some of the smaller villages? I'm not particularly Internet savvy (I'm only used to dial-up atm) so I'm not sure.

Allan