Keeping a French Bank Account when no longer in France

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

If you have lived in France,  but moved away, and had a bank account in France, did you have to close it when you left France/returned to UK?  Is it possible to keep on a Frence account open when you only have a British address?

What about a French internet bank account - do you have to have a French address in order to open one?

[giantpanda]

Hi!

You do not need to close it

But it is essential that you contact directly ( talk ) the bank, because they have to change your file.

Yours,

giantpanda

PS. If you have for example tax free saving accounts you will not be able to keep them - but talk about the question till when you legally can hold them - it may be up to the end of the year ).

[Alex H]

Jill

I think you'll find that most UK resident owners of French property have a French bank account. You can admin from the internet as well - no problem.

If you are moving back to the UK then the advice above seems good to me [:)]

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

Hi and thanks.  It's actually that my daughter is in France for her "year abroad" and has a bank account for her salary to be paid in.  It's a question of whether she can keep it on when she returns - i.e. she won't have a French address anymore.  It would be useful to keep the French account if it were possible.  She doesn't seem to want to ask the bank if it is possible as she is sure it isn't, but she has until May to find out.  Of course, if we'd got the Euro ourselves, everything would have been a lot easier!  If people can have Swiss bank accounts then they ought to be able to have French ones!

[cooperlola]

As a bit of an aside,Jill, your daughter might also be well advised to cut her bank account down to a minimum (ie relinquish any bank cards she has) of service when she leaves.  Otherwise she may be paying fees for things she never uses.  I have a BNP account which is free to run as it is operated by the internet or by visiting my branch - I have let all the add-ons (including my cheque book)go as they were costing me money I couldn't afford.

[Callie]

My parents have had an account with Credit Agricole for years and are resident in the UK. They do not have a property here either. They have a current account with a cheque book, no card, and have never paid any sort of bank charges. Occasionally they have to fill out a form for tax purposes (a nil entry).

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

I'll get her to look into it.  It was quite simply that it would be useful if a family member had a bank account in France.  I'd like one myself if it wasn't going to cost much.  This is because of the problems making reservations for campsites and gites.  Gite owners don't usually take credit cards and as we prefer smaller campsites, they don't tend to take them either.  So we always have problems making deposits.  Once, we booked a chambre d'hote and it was confirmed in writing.  When we got there, we were told that they had taken another booking in preference to ours but had found us an alternative chambre d'hote.  Perhaps they wouldn't have done that so easily if we had been able to pay a deposit.  We used to have a Eurocheque book (not as in Euros but the cheques where you could make a cheque out in the currency of the country - pre-Euroand it would come out of your bank account and only cost £1.50 to do it).  When Eurocheques were stopped it became a problem.  The cost of having a cheque made at the bank is ridiculously high.  Sometimes people will take the booking on trust, but you always have the worry that when you arrive they will have put someone else in your place.  My bank did suggest that making out a cheque on an English cheque book was actually acceptable and I have found that some places will accept an English cheque on the basis that if we don't turn up, they can cash the cheque and will at least get part of the money after commission has been taken off.  They always give us the cheque back as soon as we pay them cash.  That used to happen with Eurocheques too.  If only we had the Euro.