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MONEY
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The euro, and ways to transfer money
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1 € (Euro) is the equivalent of 6.55957 French francs (or
about 65p). 100 € is about £66.
Euro notes are in denominations of 5,
10, 20, 50, 100, 200, 500 (this last is worth a
whopping £380!).
Euro coins are in 1, 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 cents; and 1 and 2 euros.
Before the introduction of the euro, the French
government issued lists of frequently-purchased items to help the public
familiarise themselves with the new-look prices. Thus, you would expect a
baguette to cost about 0.61€; a postage stamp for a letter to cost about
0.46€; and a piece of beef for roasting to cost about 13.11€.
Quick(ish) calculations:
- to convert French francs to euros: add half to the francs, and then divide
by 10 (e.g. 100F + 50F = 150; divide by 10 = about 15€).
- to convert euros to French francs: subtract
one-third of the euro figure, and multiply by 10 (e.g. 15€ - 5€ = 10€;
multiply by 10 = 100F).
- to convert euros to £ (UKP), knock one-third off
the euro figure and the resulting figure is the £ equivalent (e.g. 100€ -33 =
£67).
A few more pointers:
£50 = 80.17€
£100 = 160.40€
£500 = 801.76€
£1,000 = 1604.00€
The French franc is now no longer accepted in shops or
banks
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Ways to transfer funds
I can only speak for our own limited experience here - and
if anyone wants to add useful information to this section then I'd love to
hear from you!
To pay some specific, large bill - to a builder, say, or
even to purchase your property in the first place - you can either make a
transfer direct to your creditor's bank account (though check that his bank
won't make extortionate charges to receive the funds) or ask your UK bank for
a banker's draft in euros. It's a cheque in euros,
made out by the bank to the person you are having to pay, as opposed to a
personal cheque.
To cover running costs of your property, you will
probably need to make regular transfers to top up your French bank account.
It is illegal to be overdrawn in France, and if an account-holder should go into the red he can
be forbidden to have a bank account for several years. So you won’t want to
risk your reserves running low while utility companies may be taking their
direct debit payments from it each month…
Our UK bank arranges the transfers with very little
hassle. You need to have at your fingertips the “IBAN” number, which is the
string of figures that identifies your French bank, branch, and account. All
this information should be printed on your French bank statement, so take a
copy of that along to your UK bank when you are asking them to make any
transfer.
In the Charges box, I tick "All charges to be paid
by the remitter", which means that we pay all the costs of the transfer
at the UK end, and the French bank adds nothing else on. In
February 2005 the charges on a £2,000 transfer totalled £22.46 (£20 to the
bank, and £ 2.46 for agent). The charges fluctuate according to how much
money you send over. It seems to take between two and five working days for
the money to reach the French account - even in the age of electronic
transfers - so don't leave it to the last minute to top up your account.
I think that there is a top limit of £2,000 that can be sent in this way.
Enquire before sending larger amounts.
March 2006: I sent £1,000 to the French bank account very urgently,
which cost £20 instead of the £10 it would normally have cost to send this
amount. Brilliant service though. I sent it on a Wednesday from the UK, and it was in the French account before lunchtime the
next day!
It doesn't seem to be worth opening a UK account in euros, and drawing cheques on that with which
to pay for services in France. The banks make a hefty charge on euro cheques between
different countries - yes, you would have thought that the whole point of the
euro was that it was a common currency - so forget that idea.
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TRAVEL DEALS
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Air travel
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There are no longer direct flights from London to Nantes with Air France, British Airways or GB Airways.
RYANAIR
Ryanair routes include London Stansted
to Nantes, to La Rochelle and to Poitiers (the latter could
be handy for people intending to visit the east or south-east of the Vendée).
Return flights about three times a week to each city; fares start from around
£35 single (though occasional special offers are far cheaper than this).
There is also a new service to Nantes from Nottingham East Midlands.
For travellers from Ireland, Ryanair now flies to Nantes from Shannon, and will by May 2006 add Dublin-Nantes
also. THANKS TO IVOR FOR THIS
INFORMATION
 TIP
You can sign up on the Ryanair
site, so that you are alerted by email when there are special offers of very
cheap – or even free – flights. These usually have to be booked within a
couple of days, so you need to act fast…
FLYBE
FlyBe has also been adding new routes to
its list. Latest ones include Manchester, Southampton or Birmingham to La Rochelle. They also operate flights to Bordeaux (not that far from the south Vendee) from Bristol, Southampton and Norwich.
BMI
BMI has started direct flights to Bordeaux (less than two hours’ drive from
the South Vendée) from Manchester (daily April-Sept), and also slightly
less frequently from Nottingham and Birmingham. Check here
for timetables.
AER ARRAN
AerArran has started up some new routes to
Nantes, from Manchester and from Cork.
There are also flights to Lorient, in southern Brittany, which could be handy for the north-west Vendée. These
are from Cardiff, Cork, Waterford, Galway and Kerry.
THANKS
TO MIKE WALTERS FOR THIS INFORMATION
Click here for a link to Nantes
airport
Click here for a
link to La Rochelle airport
If you find a good deal on flights to Paris from your area, don’t forget that you can pick up the
Lille-Nantes TGV at Roissy (the railway station for
Paris/Charles-de-Gaulle airport).
Car hire
All the airports offer car hire (even tiny Rochefort, to which Ryanair
was flying while the La
Rochelle runway was
out of service in 2005). Usually there are at least Hertz and Europcar; at Nantes several more companies too. In the past, I have found
the best deals by using the CarHire4Less
website, which sifts through Hertz, Alamo, Budget, Europcar,
Avis etc to find the best deal for your category. A
correspondent mentions HolidayAutos
as offering excellent deals (it seems to be part of lastminute.com). Another correspondent recommends Car hire
on-line http://www.carhire-online.co.uk/#Car
hire company for "great service and excellent prices".
TIP 1 The airline companies sometimes say you can rent a vehicle
through them at a discount but, before taking that up, its worth checking
with the above websites, as you often find that through these even the
companies like Hertz can work out cheaper than the airline’s offer.
TIP 2 try and fill the car up with petrol/diesel just before
delivering it back. You are bound to find it at a cheaper price per litre at
a supermarket pump than that which will be charged to you by the car-hire
company.
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Train travel
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If you take the Eurostar service from
London-Waterloo to Lille-Europe, you can simply change platforms at
Lille and pick up a TGV connection for the 3.5-hour journey to Nantes, where
you can hire a car, or change to a local train for the last leg of your
journey on the Challans/St-Gilles line; Montaigu/La Roche-sur-Yon/Les Sables,
or Luçon/Fontenay. Travelling on this route, you can leave Waterloo at around 0830 and arrive in Nantes around 1630 local time. Book at least a week ahead to
get the best deals. NOTE:
THE EUROSTAR SERVICES WILL MOVE FROM LONDON-WATERLOO TO LONDON-ST
PANCRAS IN NOVEMBER 2007.
If you would prefer to travel via Paris, SNCF
also runs TGV services to Nantes from
Paris-Montparnasse (though if you've arrived in the capital by Eurostar, at
the Gare du Nord, you'll have to allow time to cross the city to Montparnasse
station, towards the south-west side of town).
For most of these services, you need to book a week or two ahead to get the
best deals; count on about £120 return London-Nantes.
TIP Age
is an issue on TGV trains in France! If you are over 60 you automatically qualify for a
reduction of about 25% on request.
If you are going to do a lot of train travel in France, it’s worth buying a
“Carte Senior” for the equivalent of about £30-£40 as it gives you 50% off
most off-peak TGV and local train fares – though not on Eurostar
services.
Car hire
It's easy to arrange car hire from railway
stations (at Nantes railway station, the car-hire companies are at the south
exit (sortie sud)). La Roche-sur-Yon has a branch of Hertz near the
station
There are excellent deals to be found through HolidayAutos ; just type in the
place you want to collect a vehicle, and the size of vehicle you want, and
they do a comparison of the different major companies; then you can book
online. NB if you choose Alamo (a US company), you pick your car up from the office of one of
the big French companies - Citer, I think.
TIP try
and fill the car up with petrol/diesel just before delivering it back. You
are bound to find it at a cheaper price per litre at a supermarket than that
which will be charged to you by the car-hire company.
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Ferry travel
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Ferryoffers web site shows cheap
Channel crossings, mostly on the short-sea routes (i.e. from Dover, Folkestone or Newhaven). If you don't mind a longer
drive in France (about 8 hours to the Vendée from Calais), then there are
often some bargains to be had - but double-check to make sure, before
booking, as I have hears of people who found they could have had cheaper by
going direct to the ferry company concerned.
Companies operating ships on the short sea crossings
include P&O & SeaFrance to Calais; NorfolkLine to Dunkerque. Fast catamaran services by
Hoverspeed to Calais and Speedferries
to Boulogne. And of course the slick Eurotunnel service from
Folkestone to Calais (Coquelles).
TIP There are sometimes special deals on offer to frequent
travellers around Christmas, for the following year. In 2004 I paid £390 for
five return trips (or 10 single journeys) with Eurotunnel during a calendar
year – you can fix the actual travel dates later on - which compared very
favourably with their usual high prices.
If you want to make savings on the Western routes (i.e. from
Portsmouth or Plymouth), which are continuing to spiral upwards in cost, then
there are a couple of possibilities:
Brittany
Ferries
Property Owners' Club Annual
subscription of £45, gives 33 per cent off most crossings, 10 per cent off
meals in restaurant, half-price cabins on certain day crossings, and free
breakfast to those booking overnight cabin accommodation, plus three guest
vouchers for savings of 15 per cent, for use by friends. You can also join if
you are a "frequent traveller".
They sail to Roscoff, St-Malo, Cherbourg and Caen.
P&O
Allows shareholders who hold at least £600 nominal of P&O Concessionary Stock
by 31 December to qualify for discounts the following year of 50 per cent off
Dover-Calais crossings. Holders of £300-£599 of the stock receive
half-concessions. They also operate a frequent-travellers' club, so you can
get some discount even if you are not a shareholder.
They sail to Le Havre (but shortly to give up this crossing), and Calais.
Neither company gives discounts on overnight cabin accommodation.
Condor,
newer on the scene, has a Frequent Traveller Club that offers members a 20%
discount on all travel between UK, Channel Islands and the French port of
St-Malo. Journeys by fast craft from Poole to
St-Malo, via either Jersey or Guernsey (depending on day of the week), take a total of 4.5
hours.
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Road travel
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If you are navigating on old maps, you will be mystified
by the many new bypasses, roundabouts, dual carriageways and even motorways
that are speeding up road travel not only within the Vendée but throughout France.
It really is false economy not to invest in a new map each year, as you can
waste a lot of time and temper otherwise.
The final section of the A83 Nantes-Niort motorway,
linking Oulmes and Niort - and thence Poitiers or Bordeaux - is now complete.
The A87 now runs all the way from Angers to La Roche-sur-Yon, intersecting with the A83 just near
Les Essarts.
Here is a site for general French
motorway information; with a page for looking up the various
tolls. To locate somewhere specific, or to work out a good route from
point A to point B, try the excellent French site http://www.mappy.fr/
TIP A UK credit card can be used instead of cash at motorway
péage points. You just hand it in to the operator, who swipes it and
gives it you back, without any need for you to sign or put in a PIN.
If you are going to spend a lot of time in France, and be
doing a good deal of motorway driving – especially if you are on your own in
a right-hand-drive car – you might want to invest in an automatic payment
device. The added bonus of “télépéage”, as it is called, is that with
this box fixed to your windscreen you can sail through the “automatic” péage
channel, marked with a “t”, instead of having to queue with the others, and
the toll is automatically deducted from your UK credit card. (It’s a bit of a cliffhanger, though, as
the “beep” doesn’t sound until the nose of your car is practically touching
the barrier!)
I have to admit that heavy traffic is not an issue on the Vendee motorways,
but it can be in Northern France and on other motorways like the
Paris-Bordeaux one, or Paris-Lyon.
The Liber-t “badge” is available through the Sanef
website; you have to pay 30 euros for it (which is allegedly refunded if
and when you return the badge), plus 2 euros for each month that you use it
(i.e. if you don’t travel on a French motorway for the whole of March and
April, you won’t have to pay the 2x2E for those months). Plus, of course, you
pay the motorway tolls themselves, which are debited to your UK credit card. It works throughout the whole network of France’s motorways.
In 2005 I signed up for the whole thing through the Sanef website, by UK credit card, and the gadget arrived at my UK address within a week.
(The site is resolutely French though, so non-French speakers may find
it hard to use.) It’s as well to keep the silver bubblewrap packaging, as
apparently that protects the badge from inadvertently clocking up
payments at times when you don’t have it on the windscreen (i.e. if it was in
your glovebox, and you were paying your tolls by some other method!). NOTE: WHEN YOU ARE ISSUED WITH A NEW CREDIT CARD, AS HAPPENS
REGULARLY EVERY FEW YEARS, YOU MUST REMEMBER TO TELL SANEF,
OTHERWISE YOUR TOLL BEEPER WILL NO LONGER OPERATE!
You can use it in another car – though as you would have stuck the holder to
your first car, you will have to just hold the “badge” up near the top
of the windscreen of the second car as you approach the péage. The tolls
still of course get debited to the card that you registered.
Don’t forget that the badge could be a target for thieves if left on
the windscreen in your absence. They could pinch it, and then merrily scoot
about France’s motorways clocking up debits on your credit
card…
2004 saw the opening of the (mostly) dual carriageway
between La Roche-sur-Yon and Les Sables-d’Olonne, the completion of the
Challans northern bypass and the opening of half of the Aizenay bypass (south
of the town) on the D948.
There’s also a bypass to the north of La Roche that joins the
Bournezeau/Chaize-le-Vicomte road with the Nantes and Noirmoutier roads. (I am hopeless at finding it,
myself, but will give better instructions when I have improved…)
The A87 La Roche-to-Angers motorway is now
complete (with the final section between Les Essarts and La Roche-sur-Yon
opening in January 2005 – ahead of schedule!
There are plans for bypasses of Luçon (linking the La Roche and Les Sables
roads) and of Pouzauges; and studies for routes of future bypasses of Les
Sables-d'Olonne and Talmont-St-Hilaire. In the even longer term, a motorway
linking Fontenay-le-Comte and La Rochelle is under consideration.
In its scheme for the désenclavement, or opening
up, of the Vendée, the county council has decreed that no commune shall be
located more than 20 minutes from a motorway or dual carriageway. A mixed
blessing...
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AUCTION SALES
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There are several salerooms (salles des ventes, or hôtel des ventes) in the Vendée that
hold regular auctions (ventes aux enchères) of furniture and effects. I
have to admit that I have never purchased at one, but I have friends that
have furnished their house almost entirely with bargains picked up at
Fontenay-le-Comte.
Like notaires, the auctioneer (commissaire-priseur) in France has the title of "maître".
FONTENAY LE COMTE
17, boulevard Chail (tel: 02 51 69 04 10)
Sales, Mon
(viewing Sat)
LES SABLES-D'OLONNE
4 bis,
rue Beauséjour (tel: 02 51 21 25 65).
Sales, Sat 2.30pm (viewing Fri 3-5pm; Sat 10-11am).
If you're selling, the place is open to drop off furniture Mon, Tues, Thurs,
Fri 2.30-5pm.
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CAR-BOOT SALES
(Vide-greniers)
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Car-boot sales are gaining in popularity – though they
are not at all on the scale that they are in the UK. Nor do they
happen as regularly, such as every Sunday. On the whole, they take place in
the summer; a village might hold its own once a year.
If you want to locate the nearest one to you, try the vide-greniers
website. You can select a particular month from the drop-down menu;
everything with a green dot by it is a car-boot sale; those with a red blob
are antiques/brocante fairs.
If you click on the individual event in the list, you can usually see how
many stands there will be, and how much they cost. Also there is the phone
number of the organiser.
The site is for vide-greniers
throughout France, so if you fancy trying another département - such as
the nearby ones of Loire-Atlantique (44), Maine-et-Loire (49), Vienne
(86), or Charente-Maritime (17) you will get an even wider selection
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PROPERTY RENTAL
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1. Local taxes
If you are renting out a gite or running a B&B you are supposed to inform
your local Mairie who will probably want to charge a "taxe de séjour",
a sort of poll tax, for each paying guest. (For the year 2001, our village
charged 1F10 for each adult, and 0F 55 for each child per night - but
only for July and August.)
2. French tax liability
Rental from a French property has to be
declared in France, even if you are permanently resident in the UK. Then you can tell the UK tax inspector that this has been done, and because of
the "double taxation agreement" between France and the UK countries you should not be taxed a second time. For our
experiences in this, see below:
Please note:
I am not a financial expert and am not setting myself up as an authority
here, merely telling you what we, as non-residents in France, have done in the way of paying French taxes after
reading an interesting series of articles in French
Property News.
I can take no responsibility for these details being correct or appropriate
in your own case.
IF IN DOUBT,
SEEK PROFESSIONAL ADVICE.
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The French system
seems very simple. You tell them the gross amount of your year's rental. They
halve the total amount (to allow for your running costs and expenses), and
then charge you 25 per cent of the remainder as tax. If this final amount
comes to less that 2,000F (not sure what this will be now it's all in euro)
then they deem your liability to be Nil. (But you have to fill up the form
anyway.)
THIS INFORMATION IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE.
I SHALL NOT PERSONALLY BE DECLARING ANY RENTAL INCOME
AFTER 2002, SO WILL BE LESS UP TO DATE
WITH THE PRECISE DETAILS OF THE FORMS ETC AFTER THAT.
(1) Write in the first
instance to the
Centre des Impôts des Non-Résidents,
9 rue d'Uzès,
TSA 39203 75094 PARIS CEDEX 02
France
Tél: 01 44 76 18 00 (+33 1 44 76 18 00)
Information line: 01 44 76 19 00 (+33 1 44 76 19 00)
Fax: 01 44 76 19 90 +33 1 44 76 19 90)
E-mail : cinr.paris@dgi.finances.gouv.fr
in about January, asking for form 2042,
"Déclaration des Revenus", and 2042C "Déclaration
Complémentaire des Revenus". (If you are already in the system - i.e.
have declared in previous years - then you should just receive the forms
automatically in early March.)
You can also download the forms from a government
website, though it takes some ferreting to find the right ones. Hopefully
this
link should take you to the page where those who let a French holiday
home, but who are not fiscally resident in France can look for :
”N° Imprimé :
2041-ECVO (N° C.E.R.F.A : )
2005 -
Impôt sur le revenu
Descriptif du formulaire - Lettre d'information destinée aux contribuables
non résidents (Royaume-Uni, Belgique, Canada, Espagne, Etats-Unis, Italie, Pays-Bas, Allemagne)”
From the drop-down
menu you can select the leaflet 2041 ECVO RU (Royaume-Uni = United Kingdom), or whatever is appropriate if you live elsewhere.
This PDF document, all in French, tells you what form you need (2042 usually)
and what tax you will be liable for.
(2) You receive (or print out) two copies of the form (fill in both, send one
off and keep one for your records; if you have printed them off yourself,
print two copies of each and then retain one for your records).
(a) You fill in the front page, and date and sign it at the bottom . NB if the wife is declaring the rental income as hers,
the form still has to be filled in with the husband's details, plus
those of the wife, and you both have to sign it at the bottom.
(b) If you are just declaring rental income and are resident outside France, you tick a box to the left of the signature box if you are
declaring some income on form 2042C. (If you are resident in France, or if you have other French income to declare, I cannot advise
you I'm afraid!)
(c) You tick a box on page 2, to say whether you are married, divorced,
widowed etc.
(3) On form 2042C
you fill in the gross rental received in euro in a box - on the 2001 form it
was on page 2, C, box NO (if the husband was declaring it), or box OO (if the
wife was declaring it), but the box references can vary from year to year. If
in doubt, you can email or phone the tax office in Paris (see above),
who are very helpful.
If you have been charging people in sterling, then you need to contact the
tax office to ask what their official exchange rate - the Taux d'Echange
Officiel - is for the year in question, and then do the conversion into euro.
Send the completed forms to the Centre des Impôts des Non-Résidents (see 1
above), by 30 April of the year following the rental period (i.e. 30 April 2002 for 2001 rentals).
(4) Some months
later you will receive a bill. After the first year's declaration, you will
receive a quarterly bill that is an estimation for
the coming year (as yet undeclared) based on your previous year's income. You
have to pay these as they come in, otherwise the tax office can add penalty
payments.
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The above method of taxing the second year exactly the
same as the previous year can look rather confusing. In May 2001 I was
reluctant to make payment of about 1,000F in connection with property rental
(for an unspecified period), thinking: "Funny, we have already paid
exactly that amount in February 2001..."
However, a rather more figure-savvy friend eventually worked out that these
were two instalments of payment on earnings in the 2001 season which the
French tax authorities had based upon the previous year's income, and thus
they had to be paid.
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NO HOUSE YET?
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Here are a few people who can help smooth the path to becoming a French
property owner:
David and Carole
Crowley have a substantial house for sale near
Aizenay.
"Vendée
Granny" Sandie Marshall helps people find houses of all types in
the Beaulieu-sous-la-Roche area, west of La Roche-sur-Yon; visit her website for
full information. The “Granny” network
is becoming well-known in different areas of France. Its members help buyers to
find the right property, and usually offer avrious “hand-holding” services to
help buyers with laying on utilities etc.
Fluent-English-speaking
Frenchwoman Sandra Joyau helps people to find houses, schools etc. She
can also troubleshoot on clients’ behalf in dealings with everything from
builders to the byzantine French administration system, and is prepared to
give lessons in French cookery and culture in the Challans area. Sandra has
been an expatriate herself – so knows what it’s like to live in a foreign
land. Visit her Okeydoc website for
more information and contact details.
.
For the
demystifying of French mortgages, look at the consumer-guide
page of the Best French Mortgages website. Click on the “Glossary” tab, too, for an
extensive list of expressions used in house-buying, legal and financial
situations.
Here
are some pages for the notaires'
office in Challans, where you can also find some properties for sale.
Farther east, the Pouzauges office of Pierre-et-Terre Immobilier
has been recommended by a reader, as has an agent in the Chantonnay/Pouzauges area
(click on "country properties for sale" and then on picture of
house required, to see further details).
Click here for a list of notaires in
the area - they deal with selling property as much as estate agents do.
Or order a copy of the monthly UK-based paper French
Property News.
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