Logistics of moving to Limousin/storage France and UK

[Bonny Lass]

I'd be

grateful for any advice that anyone could offer us on our forthcoming

move to France:

Last

year we put our house on the market to fund buying a house in France.

The house sold after six weeks! Not for mega bucks I must say, as it

needed loads doing to it, and we live in the North East of England,

where house prices are nothing like other parts of the country. We

hadn't moved for 30 years, and had expanded from a two-up, two-down

terrace into the house next door, so had a lot of space. With a move

to France planned, but not for another year for work reasons, we

moved into a tiny cottage and have put lots of stuff in storage.

With no mortgage previously, we are now paying out for rent and

storage. So lots, of stress, and expenditure for the past year!

We have

been looking seriously in France for a few years now (just during

two-week holiday breaks), and had hoped to find something last

September but unfortunately didn't. It was however useful in firming

up where we do and don't want to live in the Limousin though.

So, now

our move is imminent – we did hope to rent for year, as advised on

various forums, magazines, etc, but really couldn't afford to do that

as what savings we have are whittling rapidly away.

My

question for advice finally is: we plan to come on an intensive

house search, and hope to find something fairly quickly. We'll need

to find somewhere to stay in the Limousin, but all our furniture and

possessions will need to be in storage here, so we'll have two lots

of rental to pay for a little while anyway. We'll be buying with

cash so I believe the whole buying process might take two months,

rather than the standard three.

So, I'm

wondering what other people's experience is – ie have you sold your

house here before moving and had to store either here or in France?

Has anyone shipped their 'stuff' out to France while waiting for a

house purchase to go through? If so, where have they stored it, and

what were the costs like?

With

unlimited or more funds, the logistics wouldn't be so mind-boggling,

so any help would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[sunny]

Hi BonnyLass,

I can totally understand how difficult this is for you!

First of all, can you put your money in some bonds that offer you a good rate of interest? For example, I think CBS had some one year bonds with 6.5% return...obviously there is a risk of losing the money, but imho, quite low. In any case, you or your investment advisor can find reasonably safe investments yielding 5%+ returns. That way, you might be able to pay rent from the interest portion, keeping your capital intact.

Second, it might make sense to leave you stuff in storage in UK, till you know where you are going to be. This way, you won't be paying to move twice. But with hindsight, our experience is that selling your stuff and buying again when you are in France may be cost neutral or even cheaper...and it could give you a greater sense of freedom as you don't have to worry whether your furniture is too big or out of style with the properties you look at.

Third, don't rush yourself. If you find the right house quickly, great, go for it. But don't stress about finding something right away - you lose your bargaining hand, that way.

So my advice, focus first on investing your money so you can get a decent return, divest yourself of furniture etc - and then with a free mind go and find your dream home.

best of luck!

[Quillan]

If it were me based on what I know now and what I knew then I would sell as much as I can in the UK then buy over here. Moving can be quite an expensive (and stressful) business although you might consider moving yourself but then you have the storage and as I know from experience in the past it all adds up.

One issue to keep in mind and as we discovered is that in France to claim any form of damage to household goods etc you need a bill (not a till receipt). You can get somebody approved by the insurance company to value your goods but then you pay (through the nose) for this service.

[idun]

We did about the reverse of you.

Re prices, well depends on where in the NE there are plenty of places that compare to the south as we moved back to the NE and friend moved to the south coast.

Our french house which had been London prices when we bought, kept in line with pay in France and the UK market had gone up seven foldj or more, all nonsense and we are paying the price now.

We put our house on the market just as the crash started and it took a over a year to sell. We put all our things in storage in the UK, far cheaper than our part of France and we had a lot of stuff. Like you we moved to a small place and have only just moved to a bigger place recently and still have not got all our stuff out of storage yet!

However, when we moved to France we rented an atrocious, but big place, big enough for all our worldly goods and then we had a house built and then moved into that. So why not do that.

Personally, unless you can find a garde meuble that is reasonable in France, and I could not in my region, then I would suggest that you:

Rent big,

Or leave most of your stuff in the UK apart from a small van full that you can drive down yourselves to France.

[dexter]

Hi Bonny Lass,

I`m in a very similar situation to you. The purchase of my French house in The Limousin is going through at the moment and should be done by mid May/June. All my worldly goods are at present in storage near to where I`m staying in South Manchester. The storage company gave me a lift to move all my belongings from my old house to the warehouse and after that it was up to my brother and me to empty the removal van on our own. It took 5 of us 1 hour 20 mins to empty my house, (4 bed detatched) and 4and a half hours for two of us to fill the storage unit! It is on the first floor of an old warehouse and the service lift isn`t the largest I`ve ever seen. When I eventualy pulled down the shutter door and put the padlock on I said to my brother "there`s no ------g way I`m emptying that. I`ll pay someone" Not surprisingly my brother agreed, telling me that there was no way he was going to give me a lift to empty it!

I had already got rid of a lot of furniture before the move, (3 piece suite, washing machine,old plasma TV etc) but my problem is that I have quite a few woodworking machines which will be needed for the renovation project that is part of the French property.

I`ll be back in France in a couple of weeks to speak to the seller and see if she is prepared to leave anything behind that I might be interested in.

I`ve looked at a couple of removal firms web sites but it seems  that the only way they will give you a price is after a site visit by one of their reps. The problem there being that the storage unit is so full I wont be able to get to the machines to show him.

There are lots of options that I`ve come up with but until I get a provisional completion date I`m in limbo.

I`ll keep you posted.

Dexter   

[PaulT]

Qs advice is sound PROVIDED you like French furniture.

We were keen to buy furniture in France but having gone round a number of outlets ended up buying setees in the UK and bringing them out.

Paul

[mint]

Other thing is, second hand furniture, unless they are some fabulous antiques, in the UK is not worth much.  I know because a family member has been trying to get rid of very good, solid, but not antique, furniture in the UK this last month and find that not even the charities are interested in taking them for free.

He's now found a house clearance company who has agreed to take everything away for nothing!

Added to that, I find French furniture, unless you go down the Ikea route, to be very expensive.  Of course, you might be an ace furniture restorer and will buy some dilapidated saloperie for centimes and turn them into gleaming, enviable pieces.

Only you will know your own situation but I suppose that, at the end of the day, furniture is just sticks put together so it's not that critical what you decide to do when all's said and done. 

[Rob Roy]

It's been interesting reading through all the posts here and the various suggestions. Here is one more for you.

We moved to the Limousin in 2001. We sold our house in the UK and got rid of most of our furniture apart from a few bits that I really wanted to keep; but we also had lots of 'stuff' to move. I asked on another forum (not sure if it is still going!) whether anyone knew where we could store our stuff, and were offered the use of a barn (for free). My husband hired a lorry and he and one of our sons brought all our worldly goods down, unloaded and went back to the UK in the space of 3 days. We then came down with a caravan and stayed at a camp/caravan site whilst we looked around. The first priority was a job for OH (he's a panel beater by trade), which we found, then we looked for the house. We found our place and eventually moved in about 10 months after arriving in France (due to various problems getting a mortgage that I won't bother with here). We rented a gite during our first winter (rather than rough it in the caravan), at a knock down price, so that we had access to indoor plumbing and a washing machine.

I would agree with Q. that you will find that furniture that suits a UK home will not necessarily suit a French one, especially if you buy an old property. I don't agree that all French furniture costs a lot; we bought some great things from the Depot Ventes, especially the Troc (http://www.troc.com/en/) that have outlets in Limoges and Brive and they suit an old property.

Good luck in your move; and don't forget the Correze is the best department of the Limousin![;-)]

 

[Bonny Lass]

Thanks to everyone for their responses.

When we come over there shortly, and hopefully find the dream, that will help us make final decisions on what to keep and what to get rid of.  All the different advice has given food for thought, so thanks again.

Will keep you posted!